CIA Killed my Partner | Last Narc Stories Untold with Hector Berrellez

[00:00:00] Speaker A: You are going to be my shield. If you're lying to me and you're sending us. Send us up for an ambush, you're going to die. Because if they don't kill you by being in front of me, I'll shoot you in the back of your head. I told them, so let's go. They were shot up really, really bad. I remember that when we were driving a life, where was the windshield of the car? We were up front blown off. I opened the door and I threw myself out of the car. And the car was being riddled by my machine gun fire that I was in. And then one of my other agents crawled right next to me. And he says, boss, we're going to die here. And I said, you might die here. He says, but I'm not. I'm going to die here. So I yell. I yell at Jim. I said, he's going to take you to the hospital. I'm going back to the shootout. He says, you're crazy. You can't go back over there. I got my men over there, Jim. I can't let him be all, shut up to death, right? He said, but they're going to kill you back there, Hector. And I said, well, if I die, I'm going to die with him. What really, I guess emotionally grabs me is to be talking to somebody undercover, meeting them undercover and killing them, and then seeing him dead. We're just partying, and he says, you got this beautiful woman for you, dude. So this girl shows up and she's a prostitute. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, what am I gonna do? And I'm wired. So I said, hey, listen. I said, Here's 300 bucks. I said, I can't have sex with you. And she goes, why? I said, I'm going to tell you, but you better promise me you're not going to tell anybody. He goes, I promise you. I said, I have syphilis. I said, would you please don't tell anybody. He say, no, no, no, no, no, I won't, I won't, I won't, I promise you. [00:01:44] Speaker B: Leave them alone. And what they going to say with the. My next guest earned the U.S. attorney's Award for Heroism, the Federal Bar Association's Medal of Valor. He spent years infiltrating undercover the Mexican cartels. He was involved in a number of shootouts that involved killing of many people, many of whom he's still held accountable. He was assigned to investigate the murder of DEA agent Kiki Camarena, and during that investigation, discovered the CIA's involvement in his killing, as well as the CIA's involvement in the distribution of cocaine within the United States in order to fund an illegal war in Nicaragua in the 80s. This man is an extraordinary man who's also written a book called the Last Narc, a documentary with the same name, which is well worth watching. But this is a man who has a family, who has a conscience, who lives with anxiety, regret, doubt, just like we all would. Only he's had these extraordinary experiences that we can only dream to relate to. That's what I hope to highlight in this episode. And I know it's going to be fascinating. It was such an amazing experience sitting down with this guy. So without further ado, please help me in welcoming my good friend, Mr. Hector Bareilles. [00:03:28] Speaker A: So, Tegan, going back to your business, do you have any big security, I mean, executive protection type of accounts? [00:03:36] Speaker B: Yeah, we mostly do private wealth because I don't like drama. There's plenty of drama just with private wealth anyway. But, you know, we don't do like rock stars and things like that. [00:03:45] Speaker A: What's private wealth? [00:03:46] Speaker B: Private wealth would be like, you know, billionaire types that aren't necessarily high profile. [00:03:51] Speaker A: They're. [00:03:51] Speaker B: They're not an actor or rapper. [00:03:53] Speaker A: Right. [00:03:54] Speaker B: But they're, they're big business people that are constantly traveling. And, you know, somebody that I always say, hey, if they wanted you or me, and they don't want you or me, you know, that that might be a.01% chance that they would want you or me. But, you know, somebody that's got the money, they may want their family or somebody there so they can kidnap him. [00:04:12] Speaker A: Or whatever for ransom and stuff. Especially here. We're close to Mexico. [00:04:16] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, and closer than people think. You know, that's one question I, I will definitely want to ask and I'll probably forget. So if you remember is all these people still travel there like it's nothing and it's. I always find it interesting seeing the people who have been in and out of the doldrums there to see exactly what happens. [00:04:35] Speaker A: Right. [00:04:36] Speaker B: And, and compare that with the ignorance of the public who. Well, I've been down there five times and never seen anything weird. And I'm, I'm like, that's, that's fine. I know you shouldn't be paranoid and never go. But you also shouldn't be ignorant to the fact that you're probably a mile away from a murder and you don't even know it. [00:04:55] Speaker A: Right. [00:04:55] Speaker B: What are you, what is your sentiment? If you had a, a family Member say, I want to go to. [00:04:59] Speaker A: No, I do all the time. Friends tell me all the time. And I tell them, well, you know, a lot of people go, they're. They're risking their lives. Most of the time, nothing happens to them. Because these big hotels where they stay at may look like the cartel guys. So the security that you get at those hotels are cartel guys doing security for you guys. But they don't understand that. They say, what? Yeah, what do you think owns the big hotels and the resorts over there? [00:05:28] Speaker B: Right. [00:05:29] Speaker A: It's a millionaire billionaire. Cartel guys, they own all that stuff. That's crazy. And the cops work for them. So, yeah, nothing happens. But if you happen to be at the wrong hotel, like it happened in Acapulco where there was like 70, some hotel gets taken out and executed just to make, just to ruin the other cartel guys business. That happened in Acapulco, they took about 70 something with Japanese Americans, just tourists. They took him out and executed them all. [00:06:01] Speaker B: How long ago was that? [00:06:02] Speaker A: That was about 15, 15 years ago. 15, 15 years ago. [00:06:06] Speaker B: Not very long ago. [00:06:07] Speaker A: Nope. I was already retired. [00:06:08] Speaker B: I know there's others. Cancun had some stuff that happened in there too. Not right. More eight, ten years ago. And. [00:06:14] Speaker A: Yeah, well, the, the, the owner of that hotel, I forget what was a Sheraton or whatever it was. I think it was a Guidarco Hardo. He was a big cartel guy, former DFS guy. He owned it. And the Sinaloa cartel, who were enemies of his cartel, they went out and just got all the guests who came out and executed them all to ruin his tourist business. Good lord, man. People are nuts playing hardball. [00:06:41] Speaker B: I know. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:42] Speaker B: And then. Yeah. So you would not send your family down there. [00:06:44] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:06:45] Speaker B: Well, your family specifically probably has more to lose. But even a friend that would call say, hey man, you know, it's a, it seems like a simple enough trip and I'll stay on the resort and everything else. And you, you would just say, yeah, probably be safe as long as you're friendly to the cartels because they're the ones that are protecting you. [00:06:59] Speaker A: My girlfriend, she's. She's not Hispanic, by the way. She's totally blonde. Blue eyed girl, but she always wants to go to Mexico. And I, And I said, look. And she said, just with the FBI. [00:07:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:12] Speaker A: I said, number one, you're gonna have to advise your agency and they're probably not gonna let you go. I say don't go, number one. Number two, I said, you don't want to go with me? Because we end up in a shoot. I don't get killed or whatever. All cause major incident, if you want. Because she. She wants to speak Spanish. She learning Spanish, and she wants to practice all the time. [00:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:31] Speaker A: I says, you can practice here with all the damn illegals we got here. I said, you don't need to go to Mexico. We have Mexico here already. So I. I tell her, I said, you know, if you want to go somewhere, let's go to Argentina. Let's go to some South American country. Beautiful country. I said, we don't need to go to Mexico. [00:07:47] Speaker B: You know, different dialect. [00:07:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, but I said, we don't have to go to Mexico for you to, you know, practice your Spanish. Because she's very proud of the fact she speaks very good Spanish. I mean, for a gringo. I mean, for. [00:08:00] Speaker B: Yeah, that's awesome. [00:08:01] Speaker A: She's from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Speaks beautiful Spanish, but she never says, I never get to practice it. We need to travel somewhere. And I said, but here's the thing with me, is that I'm hot all over. I said, people know me Central, South America, Argentina. I wouldn't be comfortable even going to Argentina, even though I've been to Argentina when I was with dea. And I love Argentina. I love the gaucho stuff. I love the love of horses and how they ride their horses without saddles. [00:08:30] Speaker B: Beautiful place. [00:08:30] Speaker A: Yeah, it's beautiful. And they have the boleros and all that stuff. [00:08:33] Speaker B: And Pablo's son is out there. Actually, it's where he stays, too, out in Argentina. I can't remember which city, though. [00:08:38] Speaker A: Who? [00:08:38] Speaker B: Pablo Escobar's son? [00:08:40] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I heard. Yeah. [00:08:41] Speaker B: Yeah, he's out there, too. [00:08:43] Speaker A: You interviewed him, right? Did you interview him? [00:08:45] Speaker B: Yeah, he's. I mean, what a fantastic guy. To try to make amends and meeting with all the families that were affected by his dad's atrocities and just trying to, you know. And also meeting with William Rodriguez, who was, you know, part of the Cali cartel. So they're. They're together. They can't. We were trying to make a documentary, and that's how I got dragged into that whole project in the. In the first place. Where I got to meet him is that we were trying to work a way to. Where the Border Patrol would allow those two to embrace at the end, you know, and actually, they're friends, but William can't leave his jurisdiction. He's on his parole. And. And Paulo Jr. Or Sebastian in this case, goes by Sebastian Marukin. [00:09:24] Speaker A: Can't. [00:09:25] Speaker B: He can't come into The US So we were trying to finagle some way for those two because of the symbolism of bringing those two together in the name of peace and, you know, defying all the past of. Of the stuff that they were involved with, I thought was pretty remarkable. [00:09:39] Speaker A: Right. [00:09:40] Speaker B: It's rare. I mean, you know, you get, you grow up in the game like that. It just, it, you know, it's. It's hard to see, you know, that level of success and then see it for what it is without any coaching. I mean, they basically stripped him of all his stuff and, and excommunicated him, but that was it. I mean, he just basically started with no money, but he had no incentive to not be a gangster other than. Other than just seeing it for what it is. I thought. I was just fascinated by it. [00:10:09] Speaker A: You know, one of the things that bothers me is these Mexican guys like Miles Sambada, who was head of the Sinaloa cartels over here. Now, I know he's cooperating, even though they. They say he's not, but I. I know he is. He's given up seven presidents. Prior presidents in Mexico. That's 42 years that he basically bribed president straight. Every president was coming in, he would bribe to include this one. [00:10:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:40] Speaker A: Okay. And yet he's over here. They won't give him the death penalty. I mean, yeah, the death penalty. So they're giving him life. So I'm thinking to myself, these people killed thousands of people. Forget the people that they dismember, they beheaded and castrated and all that stuff. Forget that. Just thousands of people that they, that they killed by, by overdosing and with fentanyl, all these drugs. And they're like, over here, like, oh, okay, well, okay, I'll just do life over here. And, and I understand he's very happy here because they were able to cure his diabetes. I guess he had uncontrollable diabetes. In Mexico, the doctors weren't doing much. Yeah. And nothing happens to these guys. Everybody comes over here, makes a deal and, and I mean, when I was with the EA, if you were a Class 1 violator, we could not make a deal with you, meaning you were going to pay the price. In other words, you could not deal with me. [00:11:42] Speaker B: You just hand it over to the judge and let him do it. [00:11:44] Speaker A: But now everybody works a deal. Okay, I'll work a deal with you. Don't give me the death penalty and I'll give you this. I'll give you that. Which in a way is good, because they're giving up High powered people and presidents. But the corruption has always been there, Tegan. And I mean, I mean, they just indicted a former president out of Honduras. And I remember when we kidnapped Mata Esteros out of, out of, out of Honduras, the government and the people were so pissed off that we kidnapped because they wouldn't turn him over because he was paying off all the officials that they were in Honduras. Right. They burned down our goddamn embassy. I mean, I'm talking 20, 30 years ago. People forget all this. [00:12:31] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, so is it, you know, you look in, in the United States, it kind of works the same way, but a lot of it is affluence and influence. So I think a lot of it is the fact that he's turning over big names to give him better cases. We've kind of seen that happen, especially federally. [00:12:50] Speaker A: Right, right. [00:12:50] Speaker B: And then also they've got the money to, to, you know, to bring on the best lawyers and everything else. Do you see that parallel here? Do you think it's, it's kind of the same in terms of just those guys coming up with the greatest defense as opposed to, you know, some kid that just got caught up with, you know, an ounce of coke or something that, you know, has to get a public defender? [00:13:13] Speaker A: Well, yeah, that, that's, that's part of it. That they have the money to, you know, of course, you know, pay, pay for big, big attorneys. But a lot of these attorneys are connected. A lot of deal making, a lot of like, okay, well, my, my guy will give you this and you give you that if you, if you return, you know, let him plead to this crime and that crime, which is minor sentencing and everything is a pre bargained out now as well. Now in the older days. No, you can't. We don't want to make a deal with the guy. I don't care what he offers. He's going to prison. He's going to pay for what he's done. [00:13:48] Speaker B: Is it maybe the overcrowding then of the prisons? I mean, I'm just wondering why it's gone in that direction. In my era, I'm only familiar with people trying to make deals. And it was usually predicated on, you know, hey, if we got you on a conspiracy case and you're looking at 25 years or something, then obviously we don't want you to tell me where I can find kilos. We want you to tell me where I can find bodies. And then you have some kind of significant clout. [00:14:12] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:13] Speaker B: For your downward departure in the federal system or whatever. That's always been sort of how it goes. Do you think now they're a little more forgiving just because. [00:14:21] Speaker A: Yeah, well, look at, look at the crime in general is very forgiving now. And now people are arrested for rape, for murder or whatever and they're, they're out. Look at the girls that just, the two girls that were just killed, I forget their names. The, the Ukrainian girl that was killed by that, by the subject I think was North Carolina on the subway. Yeah, the guy had been in and out of prison, you know, you know, they don't take it serious enough. And now this other girl. There was another girl just killed. I forget her name has been in news yesterday, day before yesterday. Her father was screaming mad that the suspect also there had a 10 mile long criminal career. I mean, another prison and stuff like that. Yeah, the no cash bail has basically caused that. So a lot of things are, are not taken, a lot of crime is not taken seriously enough. I don't think there are people that are not, you know, you cannot rehabilitate them. They're just bad, evil criminals and most of them honestly are mentally insane people. And they let them out on the streets, they're going to reoffend and they're going to kill somebody. [00:15:37] Speaker B: And it's that cycle too. It's a lot of those same. However percentage of the, the criminal pop that there is where they just will absolutely do this again and again and again. Just keep those fools in there. [00:15:52] Speaker A: Right. [00:15:53] Speaker B: You know, there are obviously criminals that are rehabilitatable. [00:15:57] Speaker A: You don't see what you saw in the past. A judge would say, okay, this guy is, can't be rehabilitated. He's already raped three little girls. It's a matter of time until they kill somebody and why don't we just castrate them? Will you be agreeing to be castrated? Will that stop you? Maybe. And people said, yeah, go ahead and castrate me. I mean, I don't, I don't think I can control myself. So they looked at other ways. Now is everybody out? There's no punishment. Yeah, there's no accountability anyway. Are we started yet or are we. [00:16:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, we're rolling. [00:16:32] Speaker A: I thought, I thought we were going to start formally. Well, you were going to start with my past or whatever. What do you want to start with? [00:16:37] Speaker B: Yeah, because I mean you're, you're a, you know, world famous narc and have accomplished so much and have a lot of things to talk about and I'm looking forward to all this. But as a beginning, you didn't start off necessarily on a law enforcement trajectory. You're not the kid that was always wearing the police hats and running around the house. You, you had, your father was a laborer, bricklayer and your mother was fortune teller. And you interesting dynamic and ended up going off to school. So tell me a little bit about what are some of the lessons that you took from your childhood that you've taken forward. [00:17:19] Speaker A: I had a very happy childhood. My father was a laborer. We didn't have any guns in our house. My dad never took us hunting. I, I didn't see a whip until I actually, I, I went into the U.S. army. I went, I went to high school and all my education was in Arizona. While in high school, I, I, I learned how to play the guitar and I started with a, with a mariachi group and later as the Beatles became famous and I started playing Beatle music and we developed a library, very good band. We used to play the high school dances and stuff like that. Went into high school and later when I, when I got to the University of Arizona, we still had the, the band and, and we used to play, you know, at different functions there, at the university where there was a place one of the students hung out. It was called the Dungeon, and we used to play at the Dungeon and you know, everybody hung out there. As a matter of fact, I met some very interesting people. One at the University of Arizona, I met Geraldo Rivera. He was student. When I was student there, I also met Linda Cordova, literally became Wonder Woman. Linda Carter. She was singing with a group. She was a singer, all right. And I met her there and she was beautiful. Of course, back, back then she was, I thought she was prettier than she was when she was Wonder Woman. So it was, it was interesting because I remember her because she was a girlfriend of Hector Rodriguez, a friend of mine who had a, a trio. They weren't like a rock and roll group, they were like a trio. And she would sing in that trio. And one time when we were playing at the Dungeon, she, she, she came up to me and she says, can I, can I sing a song with you guys? I said, sure, come on up. Playing cover stage. Yeah, yeah, this is Linda Carter. And of course back then she was Linda Cordova. So she come up and she said, what do you want to sing? Well, I like to sing La Bamba. And I said, fine. So let's, let's, let's get down and do it. She did a fantastic job. And what my singer, Art Meyer, who was great performer, I mean, he did all the James Brown stuff, the dancing, the splits and all that stuff. I mean, he was like, whoa, yeah, that girl is beautiful. And I said, I'm gonna get her number. Said, no, don't, don't, don't bother. And he says, why? I said, you see that, that guy sitting there? And I pointed to Hector Rodriguez and he goes, what about him? That's her boyfriend. And he's a tough guy to stay away from her. Yeah, that's, that's, that's how I met her. And then later, when there was a big battle of the bands, and it was at Randolph Field, which is a park there in Tucson, Arizona, I thought we were going to win because we were pretty good back then. And of course, we had Art Myers by my singer, who I just mentioned, and he was, he was a great performer. And we did a lot of Beatles stuff, James Brown stuff and all that stuff, and I thought we were going to win. But there was a group there, and I forget what the name of the group was, but their lead singer was Linda Ronstadt. She was unknown back then. All right, let's tumble and die. This is before. Yeah. And so she went to school. So it was an interesting time while I was growing up, playing in the band and being a student at the university at the time when all these people were there, but they were unknown, they were not famous back then. They were just like Fidolo Rivera. I mean, he was just, just like I used to find. [00:21:06] Speaker B: But it's cooler that way. I mean, it's a little more authentic. You feel like, you know, you're kind of around people just trying to do their thing. [00:21:12] Speaker A: Exactly. So that was my background in education. [00:21:17] Speaker B: You still play at all? [00:21:19] Speaker A: I don't play anymore. I just sing it at the house sometimes or whenever I wanted to sing Happy Birthday, I get the guitar and play it. But what happened was I left it because of this. Because at that. Right, right, right. At that time, the Vietnam War was really raging and we were all losing our 2s deformist 2 semester deferments. When you were at the U of A, they wouldn't. They canceled them. And you became eligible to be drafted during the summer. So during one of the summers, I. I got my draft notice to report for supposedly a physical. I went to the physical, I passed it, and I was basically, you know, thrown into the. Into the U.S. army. They made us make a phone call, hey, we're not coming home. You know, we've been drafted. Wow. But it was what I remember, and it stays with me. Is when they swore me in, I said, well, you can either be sworn in or before they swore me in, and you're going to be in the army or the Marine Corps, wherever you choose. But you couldn't choose to be in the Navy or Air Force. You were being drafted. You could. You were going to go into the Marines or the Army. And so if. But if you don't, then we're going to go ahead and put you on a bus and you're going to be put in jail. [00:22:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:40] Speaker A: So I'm standing there, like, shocked, and then this guy whispers to me, he says, if you say you're gay, they won't take you. And I said, really? He says, yeah. And I thought about it and I thought, maybe I'll just say I'm gay. And that one I won't have to go. Because I was almost playing in the band, I was having a great time, and I thought, no, I'm gonna have to actually officially register myself as a gay person. No, I think I'd rather take my chances of getting killed to be it. So I decided, no, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna basically officially declare myself gay. [00:23:15] Speaker B: That's gotta be for somebody who I guess came up kind of as a creative a little bit. I mean, you're a musician and everything else. It's not what you were studying in school. But I mean, I don't think it. It's can be understated how intense that is. And people these days tend to forget that we had a draft. And you, you know, men over 18 were just, you're coming. And that's. How did that make you feel? Like I can't even imagine, you know, being in one place, having no idea that that's even on the table. [00:23:48] Speaker A: And then it was. It was basically, it was very shocking to be called in. I mean, all of a sudden you're having a great time. You're a student at the university, you're enjoying your life, you're full of hope, and you're going to be. I was gonna go to law school and become an attorney and full of, I guess, hope and aspirations. And all of a sudden it's gone. Yeah. [00:24:16] Speaker B: What? [00:24:17] Speaker A: I'm going into the army, into war, right? Yes. It became very real. Going back to your question as to why I didn't continue my music, my musical career, was because Art Meyer, my main singer that I mentioned earlier, the guy that could do all the. All the James Brown stuff, he was also drafted, and so was another one, another band member by the name of Manicus name, guess what? They weren't Vietnam. They got killed the first month. Yes. Oh man. [00:24:50] Speaker B: Were you aware of when they were killed? [00:24:52] Speaker A: Yes, I escorted him home because back then when you were drafted, you were asked if you get killed. And a lot of you, they were honest. A lot of you guys are not coming back. They get killed. So who do you want to escort? You have another buddy in the army or whatever. And I put Art Myers and Manny Kisnay as possible escorts for me should I get killed over there. And they put me that I should be their escort should they get killed. And they both got killed over there. [00:25:25] Speaker B: What did it do for your psyche? I mean, you're saying you've never even seen or handled a gun at all until that point at all. So how did it affect you going in as rookie, as a rookie could be into the military, getting crash course training, going straight into wartime, and then within a month finding out that your two friends had perished. What did that do to your ability to fight effectively or stay in the, stay in the game? [00:25:51] Speaker A: Well, quite honestly, I felt like I had to stay in the game. I mean, what am I going to do now? Here I am, thank God. I was assigned to a medical evacuation unit where I wasn't assigned to a. Initially I had been assigned to an infantry unit as a 21B B20 combat medic. I was a, I was, I was trained by the army as a field Combat Medic. 91B20 was my, it's called my MOS. Whatever job that I was supposed to have while I was in the army and before I, before I got to Vietnam, they changed my orders to, to become a medical evac medic, which. [00:26:42] Speaker B: A. [00:26:42] Speaker A: Medically evac people that had been shot seriously in Vietnam. So we were bringing them out and a lot of the wounded guys were being operated right on the plane. So what did it do to my psychic? It just killed me. And after that I hears two of my bad guys were killed over there. My main singer was killed over there. And at that point I decided I, I can't continue my career. I, I, I stopped, I stopped becoming a musician. A professional musician. Yeah, I, I played at home and I still play the guitar and stuff like that. That's why I asked you when I saw that guitar studio, who plays it? You know, I'm always kind of interested, but I love music and it changed my whole life to get, I mean, I, after I got out of the service, I, you know, I, obviously I went back to school because I had The GI Bill. But all my desires and my dreams changed, were basically eroded. I lost that desire anymore to be an attorney. I lost the desire. I didn't really aspire to be anything. But I decided that because I had the GI Bill, I might as well get my degree. [00:27:52] Speaker B: You're close, by the way. [00:27:53] Speaker A: Right. And, and I remember that when I first came out of the army, coming back, I was wearing my uniform and I'll never forget this. It was really, really. I was shocked when I got off the pain in San Francisco. I had all my medals and my uniform and people started spitting on me and calling me a baby killer and everything else. And I'm like, what? So I remember going in, I had my duffel bag and I had clothes in there for civilian clothes. I remember going into the men's room and changing. Take my, taking my uniform off and change it to civilian clothes. I almost, I almost shocked my mouth to death because she didn't know I was coming. And I was supposedly was going to show up home after leaving, you know, Vietnam in my uniform. Yeah. And I ended up showing up woman, regular street clothes. [00:28:51] Speaker B: Supposed to be a pride point, you know, a pride of point. No point of pride. [00:28:56] Speaker A: You won't, you felt no pride out of having served. It was that bad. Yeah. You know, you think about things being bad now and people being anti establishment, anti government, anti country. And I see that kind of, I feel that kind of way again now with what we see happening currently with the, the people that are extreme, basically. Anti law enforcement. [00:29:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:25] Speaker A: They don't respect military guys that go out there and a lot of them get killed. A lot of, they come back with arms and legs. I don't see that empathy. I don't see anybody feeling sorry for them. We're going back to that real insensitive, non loving, you know, situation of our country. I see all the corruption and it really, it really, now I'm bothered by it because I always thought that our country was, you know, white is the driven snow. I believed as a young man that we were, we were always the good guys and Mexico and all the other countries were below us and they were, they were corrupt and everything else, but we were the good guys guys and the clean guys. And now come to find out that. And I saw a lot of corruption in our own government. So yeah, I made a 180 starting from a young boy going to, you know, going to church every Sunday, being an ultra boy and not ever seeing a gun until I went into the army. And then after that, my life Was all about guns and shooting people and stuff like that, doing, you know, dark operations and traveling undercover through a lot of countries changed me. Taken. I mean, I, I was a guy that I don't want, I didn't want him going to get in a fistfight. I mean, I, I was bullied and everything else. I wasn't a tough guy in high school, but even though I became very tough. [00:31:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Out of almost a defense mechanism, you think just basically, you've got to go to war. You better figure out how to be aggressive and become tough and put on that shell or concede to it and succumb to it and get too emotional to survive. [00:31:16] Speaker A: Right, exactly. So I had to, I had to become that tough guy. I had to become a guy that had to be proficient with weapons. I've had to be the kind of guy that I had to kill people. And I've killed more than one person. I suffer from ptsd. I'm being treated by it by the va, so I still have a lot of nightmares. I still, I guess it's kind of hard to, to, to, to grow up in church believing in God, wanting never to hurt anybody. I'm believing in the Ten Commandments, Thou shalt not kill. And all of a sudden, here you are, a maid killer made tough guy. Going undercover into these guys. And people would ask me, weren't you afraid these guys were going to kill you? And quite frankly, I wasn't that afraid because I had a gun, they had a gun. I figured, try to kill me. I'm, I'm a pretty good shot and I'm pretty fast with my gun. I think I got the upper hand on him or her that tries to hurt me. So, yeah, I was afraid. I'm not going to tell you that. I wasn't afraid. I was always afraid. As a matter of fact, tell you something about being afraid. There was a couple of, there was a couple of agents that I knew. They were killed in LA back. Wow. Well, 20, 30 years ago, I guess. Paul Sima and John Montoya, they were killed in an undercover operation and they were going to go meet some people that were supposedly going to sell them some heroin. And right before they went out on the undercover operation, I was in the laboratory there in the bathroom at the LA Division, you know, doing my thing. And Paul Sema pulled up to the urinal next to me and he said, hector, he says, we're going to go undercover right now. I'm really, I'm really scared, man. He says, these guys, these guys look like a pretty Bad guys. And, you know, I'm really scared. How do you scan? How do you. You've done a lot of undercover work, and you're known to be one of the best undercover guys. Give me some advice. I'm really scared. And I said, look, undercover work, you're always going to be scared. The day you're not scared, you're going to get killed. Because that fear, Paul, is just going to keep you alive. Two hours after that, he was dead. He killed him. I never forget that. And I remember telling him that. But, yeah, I was in fear most of the time. [00:33:57] Speaker B: But you have to, working undercover. Don't let me be presumptuous here about you, but you have to be keenly aware. And that fear has to turn you sharp, but you have to suppress it, right? Because street smart people smell fear from forever away. They can make a phone call and they can tell that you're in fear. And that could be also deadly, right? Or no? [00:34:24] Speaker A: Yes. You have to control it. And I told Paul that you have to control it or you don't shake or tremble. I say just control yourself. Try to stay calm. I said, try to stay calm, but be fearful. But you're right. You can't show it. You have to show a lot of confidence. And I trained other people in. In undercover work. As a matter of fact, it's kind of funny. It reminds me of training this one FBI undercover agent from the FBI. The FBI wanted me to train him in drug undercover work. And so I had him with me. He spoke Spanish. And we were going to meet these. These drug lords at this real bad East Los Angeles bar. And so, of course, we have our guns and everything else. And we have an informant, and we're going to meet the owner of the nightclub. At his nightclub. It was a sleaze bag. It was a narco bar. And as we're coming in, of course you have two. Two bouncers. And I had told the undercover agent, you just keep your mouth shut, you watch and do what I do. I want to introduce you as my bodyguard to this bad guys. You do what I do. He said, okay, okay, Hector, I got you. I got you. And it's okay. You just sit there and learn. And if I ask you to do something, you do it. I'm going to ask you when, whenever they show us drugs to go out to the car, supposedly to get the money or whatever, you give the bus signal and do the by bus. Okay, no problem. He was so scared. So anyway, as we approach the door, we have the two bouncers there. And they grabbed me and they started to touch me. And I said, hey, get your damn hands off of me. He says, what do you want? Well, we're looking for a gun. And I said, I have a gun. Showed him my gun. Now what are you going to do? Get your hands off of me before I blow your hands off of you. Don't touch me. He says, I got my gun. Now what are you going to do? And he says, I'm here to meet the owner, and he's got a gun too. And I told him, show him your gun. So he shows him his gun. He says, you're not going to touch us. You touch me again, and I swear to God I'm going to blow your hand off. Okay? So don't touch me again. I'm here to see so and so. So the bartender says, let him in. So they sit us at this table, and of course, the. The guy, the bad guy's not there yet. We'll wait for him to show up, the owner of the bar. And he shows up, and I'm this undercover guys watching everything I do. He's learning. So the. The traffic shows up and he says, you guys, I understand. Well, we had a strong informant. These guys got the money they want to buy 300 keys. You've done. You've done it again. No problem. So the guy grabs a bag out of his coat pocket and he throws it at me, and it bounces off my chest and it's got a white powder in it. And I said, what is this? This is a sample of my coke. I said, okay, you're good. He says, look at it. Look at the crystal. Look at the crystal right in my pocket. I got a dollar bill and I threw it at him, and it bounces off of his chest. He looks at me, what's this sample on my money? Touche. He's watching me do this and he goes. So the guy goes, he laughs. He says, I says, just because you got this little ounce of coke here doesn't mean you have the 300 keys. Like, just because I just gave you a dollar doesn't mean I have whatever, half a million dollars or whatever we were gonna supposed to have them buy it. But anyway, years later, after I'm retired and I'm at a party and this, this the same FBI guy that I trained. This I'll never forget Hector. He says, man, I was so scared the first time I went undercover like that. And first of all, he says, show him your gun. And if he tries to take your gun Blow his hand off, he says, I couldn't believe it. He said. Then we go in there, and the guy comes in trying to impress. Impress us by throwing an ounce of, of coke. And Hector reaches his pocket and throws the dollar back, and he says, what are we doing here? You know, what does this mean? But he said, man, he said, I learned so much that one time. I mean, it was the first time. And what I learned, he said, is you have to really think fast on your feet. You have to be ready for anything when you're undercover. [00:39:00] Speaker B: And you're being the character, too. I mean, you can't be the respectful you and have a normal conversation with somebody that's in the dark world like that. And if you're supposed to be a somebody, you're obviously one upping them as if you're the guy that they're expecting to see. I mean, if you didn't act like that, they would almost be suspicious, Right? [00:39:20] Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly. A lot of times, you know, you've been undercover, I was asked, are you carrying a gun? And I said, yeah, I'm carrying a gun. I hope you got one too. Yeah, well, I got a gun. Well, I got a gun too. Yeah. [00:39:33] Speaker B: If they didn't have a gun, you'd say, exactly. [00:39:35] Speaker A: Now, in my world, everybody carries guns. I mean, it was. Was understood that you had to have your piece. [00:39:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:41] Speaker A: And a lot of people would make fun of me because I, of course, back then, I used to carry off 19, 11, 45, the old, the old types. And I went and had pearl. I got pearl grips and dolled it up a little bit fancy. Yeah. And of course, I would never, ever carry a holster. I mean, it was always in my back, on the back of my, my waist around the back, almost in the back one, but reachable. Okay. And the other people that didn't work under cover would say, what, what's with that, that pimp gun you got, Hector? And they called it a pimp gun because they had pearl grips. I said, I, I, I did it on purpose. I said, no, where'd you get the pimp gun? I had it, you know, put those grips put on it. Because I don't want it to look like a cop gun. That's why I. But it looked like a pink guy, because pearl grips love it. But you did, you did what you had to do. You dressed the way, you know, they dressed. You talked the way they talked. You appeared like they appear. I mean, you look at them straight in the face, you don't show. You never look down if they stare you down, you stare back at them and you go, what's up? You know, what do you want? You know? But it was all in training and I got as, as, as, as. As the time went by, I got better and better and better at working undercover. When I realized how good I was, and I don't want to sound like I'm bragging. [00:41:17] Speaker B: You gotta explain why you're this, you're the king of narcs. I mean, people wanna know. [00:41:21] Speaker A: So when I realized how good I was is when I had this informant, beautiful girl come in. As a matter of fact, a male informant brought in this woman who was beautiful, and she told me that, that she was leaving her husband, who was a. A commandante of the Federal District Police in Mexico City. She spoke English, she wasn't from Mexico, but she had been married to this commandante and that he had left her for some French model or whatever. She was very hurt with him and wanted to get back and wanted me to arrest him. And I said, well, it's going to be kind of hard for me to arrest him. I said, because, you know, he's a commandant in Mexico City. He's a higher up government official. I said, I'm not going to say we're not going to try. I said, but tell me who he works with. And he says, well, he's working with a corrupt captain of the Webb County Sheriff's Department in Texas, in Laredo, Texas. I said, what? He says, yeah. He says, his name is Lou Munoz, and Lou is a captain with a wave client in our country. And Lou is the one that meets him in Mexico, across the line in Mexico. And he brings a heroin in his patrol car. [00:42:38] Speaker B: Wow. [00:42:40] Speaker A: I said, and nobody expects him. He says, no, they're all friends, all the inspectors, they're all friends with him. So that's why my husband uses him to bring in the, the heroin. And he also sells the heroin for my husband. Girl, let's go to my office right now. I didn't believe her. Go to my office. He said, what for? I said, he said, you got a number for this guy Lou at the sheriff's department? She goes, yeah, so we're going to call him right now. I want you to prove to me, I, I can't believe that this guy's a captain in charge of a drug unit and he's got her up. He said, okay, let's go. I said, wow. So we go to the undercover room. We had the undercover phones there. She calls the number and they answer. Webb County Sheriff's department. And she says, I would like to talk to Captain Luminoz, please. Just a minute. But 30 minutes, seconds later, the mail voice comes on and she says, this is Captain Munoz, and this is. This is Mary Lou. He said, yeah, what's up, Mary? He said, you know, he left me. He left me for that. For that French whatever, four or whatever. And I'm very upset. And I'm over here with my girls, my daughters, and I don't have any money. I need to make some money. He hasn't given me a cent. He says, mary, I can't give you a job over here. I'm not asking you for that kind of job. You know, what I'm talking about is I don't want to talk about that stuff on the phone. He says, I got a guy that. That needs, you know, we can work with. And he goes, okay, let's not talk on the phone. But, you know, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you. You're interested. And he goes, well, you know, like I said, I don't want to talk on the phone. I'm not going to say no. But bring. You. Bring the guy over here. [00:44:31] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:44:31] Speaker A: Says, wow. I said. She says, okay, I'm going to. I'm going to. I'm going to. I'm going to tell you when we're flying in and everything else. And so we set up an undercover operation. And so he supposed to meet us at the airport, front end from Arizona in San Antonio, Texas, to drive us down to Laredo where he's. He's in charge of the. Or the right unit there in Edweb County. So we end up over there, myself, the male informant and her. And he shows up in his uniform in his mar. Car and picks us up and takes us to Best Western Hotel in downtown San Antonio. And he tells us along the way, we're not talking business here. I've got a room where we're going to talk. We're going to talk there. [00:45:24] Speaker B: So he drove this car also just all out of jurisdiction and across. [00:45:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Marked unit A mark unit with lights and everything else crazy. And he had a shotgun up front because I said, up front with him? [00:45:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:37] Speaker A: And I felt really at home with the radio was blasting him. I felt. I felt like I was one of my guys. [00:45:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:42] Speaker A: So we get to the hotel room and he says, okay. He says, this is take your clothes off. Yeah. He said, take my. Take your clothes off. And I was willing to take my clothes off. You gay? What do you mean? He said, I want to make sure you're not an undercover DE Agent. Take your clothes off. I said, okay, I'm just taking my clothes off. [00:46:04] Speaker B: How common were wires at that time? [00:46:06] Speaker A: Well, obviously, yeah, I would have been wearing a wire, but it was my first. I never. On my first couple of uncover meetings, especially when it's going to be just talk. I did not wear one, thank God. So he says, take your clothes off. So I took my clothes off. I'm done with my socks and my underwear. He says, take it all off. Okay. [00:46:27] Speaker B: Students experienced. [00:46:29] Speaker A: So I'm there standing naked in front of Mary, the male informant, and him. And then he tells the male informant, you, too, Bob, because his name was Bob. He said, take your clothes off. And so he says, okay. So he takes all of his clothes off. Done. Everybody stays under their socks and underwear, everything to take it all off. So he takes his underwear and socks off, and he goes to Mary. Mary, I want you to take all your clothes off. She says, lou, I'm not gonna take my clothes off. You're crazy. You're nuts. I'm. He says, you might have turned out DA informant. He says, I'm gonna be an informant from law enforcement. Take your clothes off right now. And then he puts his gun on her. Take your clothes off. Puts his gun right on her head. Of course, I'm. I. I'm not even wearing a gun on this time. I mean, I'm just. I went with nothing because I knew he was a. Yeah. So finally she takes her clothes off. Underwear and bra. And he says, take it all out. So Mary takes everything off, and now we're standing there naked. Then it says, captain, this is what. You take your clothes off. You did. I told him, you take your clothes off. No one take him out. You take your goddamn clothes off. I said, you're a cop, and I'm a major dude out of Chicago, and I know you're going to run me because I had already covered myself in case he ran me under. The undercover stuff. He says, and I want to know. I want to know that. That you're really a dirty cop and you're not just gonna arrest us. I don't trust you one bit. You better take your goddamn clothes off. And then I got in his face. I mean, I got actually, like. You take your damn clothes off now. I'm in your naked. Yeah, you take your clothes off. He said, okay, okay. So he takes his gun belt off and puts it on the bed. And. And again, he's down on his socks and underwear. And I said, take it Off, Take it all off. So he does. He says, okay, now that we're all naked here, Mary and I are going to get busy in the bedroom. I don't know what you two gay guys are going to do with each other. And of course, I broke the. As everybody started laughing. And so it was a long term undercover work. I bought heroin for him. Different times after that, I came in and out and I arrested him. So that's when I realized you must be really good. Because if I can convince another narc to deliver dope to me, a dirty narc that knows how we work and everything else, I must be pretty darn good. That's when I got my confidence up that I was really, really a good undercover operative. And of course, I'm also coming in and out of different countries because I'm working undercover in different countries like Colombia, Bolivia and all those other places. [00:49:17] Speaker B: This is with the dea. How long, how long would you say you've been in the business by then? [00:49:22] Speaker A: When I did the sheriff, probably about five, six years already. I wasn't a supervisor, I was just a regular agent. Later I became a supervisor with dea. I would say about five, six years into the job. But at the time, I was always getting a little experience and going by bus here and going undercover in other countries and working with other federal police and also doing a little longer term undercover, like being undercover. And nobody knows who I really am. [00:49:50] Speaker B: So for the audience sake too, could you distinguish between the way typical undercover deals go down today, which are short term, they might meet them a couple of times and they do a takedown, whatever, that's still undercover technically, but versus the long term undercover. And how did you, when you talk about you got experience, you were doing some of the smaller, shorter term things, at what point did you do a longer term and what does long term look like to you? [00:50:19] Speaker A: I think long term is when you're undercover for maybe a year, six months, a year, maybe even two years, and you're coming in and out of the cartels members or of the cartel or the subject that you're investigating. I think that the first one that I did was this. Is this captain, because it took me a long time to really get into his confidence where he started bringing me heroin. And I used to do a lot of things that were out of the box. I mean, I always thought out of the box. I would always do things that they didn't expect a cop to do. So in other words, I carried, like I said, I carried a different type of gun. I acted Different. For instance, one time when we were. I was in Laredo, Texas, undercover into the sheriff, the captain. We'd be. We'd be at this nightclub. It was called Godfather In. I'll never forget it. He would like to go there. And because the owner, Living Snow Coke. And it was kind of a little corrupt, kind of a nightclub bar or whatever in Loretto, Texas. And I remember one time there was this band playing, and he's trying to impress me. He says, you like the way that bad? And then aren't they good? I said, they suck. And he goes, but I did it on purpose. And he goes, what do you mean they suck? You don't like them? I guess they're okay. I'm not impressed by them. Well, can you do better? I think so. Are you kidding me? He says, no. I said, will you play with them? Let me act a little dumb like that. He said, let me. I'll play with him. And he goes, okay. So he calls the Japanese guy. I'll never forget this guy. The owner was a Japanese Mexican guy. He had red hair and slanted eyes. Weirdest looking guy that I ever saw. He was. He spoke Spanish, he was Mexican, but he looked Japanese with red hair. I'll never forget this guy, the Plant. So he calls the owner of the bar, says. He says, manny, the undercover named Manny. Manny here wants to play with a band. Would you ask him to let him play with a band? Because he said they suck. And he says he can do better. And the Japanese guy, look at me, okay? So he calls the guy at the Ben. He said he wants to. He wants to play with you guys. And they say, okay, so this is one of the guitars. And I said, okay, let's rock down. What do you want to do? And we. We did. I did like three songs with them. And they were like. I was like, whoa. You know, And I. I was pretty. I was a lead guitar player pretty good back then. And so I would do things like that that were out of the ordinary, out of the box, and people less suspected me that I was an undercover region. [00:53:07] Speaker B: It's a distraction from just thinking cop all the time. [00:53:09] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, and I enjoyed myself. Another thing I remember, I did with. With him, he would say, you like those girls? Aren't they beautiful? They're okay. He says, you want me to get you one of those girls? Yeah. Not really. Why not? But by then, I'm wearing a wire, of course, you know, I'm like, no, no, I'm not interested. No, no, I don't like her, she sucks. I mean, she's ugly. And they were young, beautiful girls. They were prostitutes. And he would always try to get me. [00:53:36] Speaker B: Girl in a compromising position. [00:53:38] Speaker A: In a compromising situation. So anyway, because he was testing me. So one time he invited me to his house, the captain did, and met his wife Carmen and everything else. And. And so he says, I want you to stay. I want you to stay here at my house and let's do some tequila. And we had a mariachi group there, and we were. We're just partying. And he says, you got this beautiful woman for you. Dude, she's coming already. I already called her. I said, oh, so this girl shows up and she's a prostitute. I'm thinking, oh, my God, what am I gonna do? And I'm wired. I said, man. So anyway, we had a few shots at tequila and everything else, and I go into. Into the bedroom and loose house with a girl. And I'm thinking, I'm thinking fast. What do I do? What do I do here? So I said, hey, listen. I said, Here's 300 bucks. I said, I can't have sex with you. And she goes, why? I said, I don't want to say. I'm very embarrassed. What do you mean you're embarrassed? I said, I'm not going to tell you, but you better tell those people out there that you had sex with me. She goes, no, you got to tell me what's wrong with you? Are you gay? I says, no. I said, I'm going to tell you, but you better promise me you're not going to tell anybody. She goes, I promise you. I said, I have syphilis. She goes, oh. She goes, oh. And this is. I mean, this is all being recorded, of course, you know, right? She goes, you have syphilis. You please stop repeating it. I said, I don't even like the word. I told her, don't even say it. I said, I'm being treated, but I might be contagious. I said, would you please don't tell anybody. He says, no, no, no, no, no, I won't. I won't. I want to promise you I won't tell anybody. So. So we leave. I mean, finally, about an hour in there. We just watch TV or whatever and we leave the room and she. She messes up her hair and. And everything else and pretends. And then, of course, she gets a cavern. She leaves. And she never burnt me. I mean, like I said, when you're undercover, you got to think on your feet, right? And that's what I told her I have syphilis. And please don't tell me because I'm very embarrassed about it. [00:56:02] Speaker B: I love it. [00:56:03] Speaker A: So those are kind of the things that I can share with you and the people, the public, but we're going to cover what, what it's like, what, what, what things come up and how you got to really think fast on your feet to get out of those situations. But that's when I realized that I could probably convince anybody that I was a criminal. And also another thing that convinced me, too, was when I used to fly in from working undercover in other countries. I always carried, like I said, I always carried fake credentials. And I traveled under assumed names. And I would. Every time I was flying to Miami from South America every time, they would always secondary me, and they would take me and search my. Me. And I looked like. I looked like a criminal. I really did look like a crook. I had the longer, the longer hair and stuff, and always the beard. And so I knew, I knew that anything as soon as I got to Miami, they were going to throw me in secondary. And, and usually it was the. They would, The DEA guys, they didn't know who I was. And I would sit there and I kind of play with them. And they said, well, what did you do in Bolivia? What were you in La Paz? And where did you go? And, And I would just kind of like, be cool with him. And I said, well, you know, I went, I went into the rainforest, as, you know, those Indians, you know, I saw those Indians and this and that. And, and then what were you doing there? And I said, no, I just went. Went to vacation, you know, and, and put him, put him through hell. And then finally, I'm not a crook. He says, how can I believe you that you're not a crook at the end of this year? Here's my DEA credential. This is. Oh, my God. You spend 30 minutes, you're wasting time. [00:57:43] Speaker B: With you busting your balls. [00:57:47] Speaker A: So I, I had fun like that. [00:57:50] Speaker B: And I, I've heard you say before, too, that the first time you ever had to kill somebody was not in Vietnam, but no, no, on the job. Was that in DEA as well? [00:58:01] Speaker A: Yeah, dea, absolutely. [00:58:03] Speaker B: You've been in several shootouts, and we've, we've heard the, the, the stories. Not all of them, obviously, not very many in detail, which I'd like to get into. But there was also just a stigma back in the day. And I think you and I were talking about this earlier, that running and gun in law enforcement back in that Time was an acceptable way of life. That's just how things were. Because bad guys were bad guys and good guys were good guys. And there was a lot more shootings and more aggressive law enforcement. It was kind of an acceptable way of life just to set the stage, because compared to today, it's. I mean, it's. It's not even remotely the same kind of environment to be working within. But on top of that, you weren't just doing typical undercover deals either. You're talking about working in and around all these cartels and flying in out of country, so. [00:58:56] Speaker A: Right. [00:58:57] Speaker B: So it puts you in a. In an interesting disposition. I'd love to hear about some of your more interesting shootout stories, maybe even your first or something, you know, that just give people an idea of how you end up getting into a situation like that. Because a lot of people just think of a law enforcement shooting as, hey, I thought I saw a gun and I shot the guy. And it's. And it's over. But you had some more extraordinary experiences with that. [00:59:22] Speaker A: Well, you know what really, I guess, emotionally grabs me is to be talking to somebody undercover, meeting them undercover and killing him, and then seeing him dead. I remember one guy that we. We. And it was my partner and I killed in San Bernardino, and it was a heroin deal. And I'll never forget that I made a tactical mistake that he handed me the kilos of heroin in a gym bag. And I told the. My partner, Bobby, I said, bobby, get the money. Which was. He was supposed to open up the trunk of the car, and there was going to be the bus. You know, we had surveillance set up. And as soon as surveillance started coming in, there was three. Three Sinalois, traffickers, heroin dealers. And all three of them were packing guns. As the troops come in to make the arrest, which is a critical. The most dangerous part, when you give the bus signal, right. You've been there. You know that. So I saw. He tells me, many dogs, meaning the cops, and he pulls his gun out. And I remember that he was to point at the undercover age as my friends coming in to make the arrest. And I remember that I had my hands occupied, and I remember just throwing the heroin on the ground and kind of deflected him as he. As he tried to shoot the guys. And then me finally grabbing my gun and shooting him. Boom, boom, boom. And this sticks in my mind, and I still have nightmares about it. So he falls that he's still alive and he still has his gun in his hand. And I remember that I walked up to him, of course, Bobby had also, I don't know, put five or six rounds in him by then, too. And I put my foot on his arm because he still had the gun. And he looks up at me and he says, the Spanish says, which means forgive him. And he forgave me. And I thought to myself, doesn't he realize that I shot him? Why is he telling me to forgive him? And it still bothers me to this day. I have nightmares about it. And then I saw his eyes kind of like freeze. I saw him die right there. So those are things that upset you when you do like this. Excuse me. Yeah. And it kind of like I kind of like felt sorry for him. And to this day, I questioned why he was asking me for forgiveness. I wonder if he knew that I was an undercover guy and he was asking me for forgiveness for being a criminal. Maybe or. Or maybe he didn't realize in. In those seconds what had really happened and that I had shot him. I don't know. But those are kind of the things that I share with people that are religious, because to this day, I carry it with me, you know, especially that one. That was one of my first. Yeah. Shootouts. There was others, but they were a little different. This was more personal because I had been undercover long term to these guys. Yeah. [01:03:03] Speaker B: And I knew him so up close and personal and certainly. Certainly righteously so. At least it wasn't a mistake or something. [01:03:09] Speaker A: Right, Right. [01:03:10] Speaker B: But I can understand why that was. That was a hard heavyweight to carry. And I appreciate you sharing that. [01:03:17] Speaker A: Right. [01:03:17] Speaker B: That does. You know, when you. When you just hear about the owes and shootouts and everything else, that carries its own little stigma with it. You know, whether you agree with it or not, it's a heroic action that can be assumed. But. But people very seldom get into the humanity of it. And how. And how that's still, even just to a tough guy like yourself, is. Is going to be some weight that you carry forward. [01:03:43] Speaker A: Exactly. It stays with you. And like I said, I. I still have nightmares about stuff like that. I wake up and I have landed on the floor because I'm dodging bullets in my. In my nightmare. And I'll throw myself off the bed. I won't get shot in my dreams. And I'm telling you, it's scary stuff, but that's what you live through. And it all comes back when you're older because when you're undercover and everything happens, everything's moving so quickly. You know, after that shootout, of course, the sheriff's department comes in and the ambulance comes and all that other stuff, and you're there and you're just kind of numb and. And you're watching all this go down and has an impact on you. It really does. It really does. The other. Those other shootouts where I involved in killing other people, but it was. It was more like making out an arrest and they start shooting at us and we start shooting back and. And people end up dead. A lot of times, you know, especially like in Mexico, in the jungles, it was more like Vietnam type shootings because I kind of don't have nightmares about those is because nobody knew who shot who. Honestly, nobody knows. Yeah, yeah, people are dead and people are picked up and. And there was. There was so many of those that sometimes I even forget about them or people remind me, remember when you did this? And I says, I'll tell you a story. We were in San Antonio meeting, having dinner with a friend of mine, myself and my agent now, and Vince, the guy's name is Vince Ramirez. And Vince says, remember, Hector, when you guys, you went undercover and, and we didn't know where you were. You were up in the mountain loa. And later you. You showed up and you look at my legendary. You guys had seven dead in the back of a pickup truck. And, and those dead guys were. Had been dead so long that they were already like boards. They bring a mortise. They were all like, stiff. And I said, yeah, I remember that case. Yeah, yeah. Remember when you were mad because you just ruined a pair of Florsheim shoes that you had just bought and you had to go through a river or something? And he was starting to remind me of it. And my agent sitting there and he says, actress, you never told me about that shootout. I said, you know what? I've forgotten about it. I said to me, yeah, it was shootout between us and drug doors, but it was all automatic fire and nobody knew who shot who. And you know, you walk away from stuff like that, all you remember is shooting into the. In behind the bushes where you see the. The rifles of smoke coming out of it. And you just opened up back with automatic weapons with AK47s, M16s. I said, and you forget. You know, it's terrible, but it's just. [01:06:39] Speaker B: Amazing because a lot of people aren't just involved to that level. And that's mostly because of where you worked. Right? Because that just is the practice of the cartels that you were working. Right? [01:06:50] Speaker A: Right. I was in a party one time, and not too long ago, a couple, two, three years ago, I was at a party at a friend's house and we watched the last August part of the party and everybody was asking me questions about undercover work, like where you and I are talking and, and especially the women, they, they were coming up to me and saying, wow. He says, well, you killed all these people and stuff. And wow, what is it? What does it feel like? And stuff like that. And I was kind of bothered because, you know, you're always careful because with her husbands and stuff and you don't want to sound like you're bragging. So I said something that was really funny. Everybody really, really laughed. And so this girl says, well, how many did you kill? How many have you killed? And I said, I don't know. What do you mean you don't know? I said, I don't know. I just killed them. I said somebody else counted them. And it's funny because you're trying to explain to people that honestly, I don't know how many people that I shot personally that died by my bullets. I mean, everybody's shooting, you know, automatic weapons. The shooting is so intense and it's so short, it might last only two or three minutes, but people are dead on both sides and I'd rather not know. So you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I'd rather not be burdened by that. You know, you see people dead with their eyes open or part of their heads blown off or whatever, and you just tell yourself, I hope I didn't do this, you know, but you just respond to the gunfire. You said what? You shoot back. [01:08:26] Speaker B: And you had one of the, one of the longer shootouts that you had longest in history recorded, at least DEA wise. The long shootout, was that similar. I think that was kind of a. And I don't want to get ahead of ourselves in terms of the story if you'd rather tell that story as we get into some more of, of the case that led up to. [01:08:46] Speaker A: Well, that was, that was a, a long shootout. I got the. Used to use the word for heroism on that. And that shootout lasted for a long time. We were chasing Cochiloco and some other major there in Sinaloa and we ended up in a Horatio shootout. You know, but you talk about two or three hour shootout. That's a long shootout. [01:09:14] Speaker B: Yeah. What were the circumstances that made it take that long? Just because of distance and. [01:09:20] Speaker A: Yeah, and what we were, we, we. Let's talk a little bit about that case. I, I'm, I'm in charge of the, the Deacon Law. I mean, my supplies in the Law office in Sinalo, which is the. The most violent to this day, the most violent area of Mexico. Like all the cartels are operate out there or from that area. And I get a call from an agent Tony Huerta from Colombia. And he said, hector, he says, we ship is going your way, and it's got like 20 tons of coke and it's going from Colombia to Mexico. I said, okay, and here is a number of the person that's going to receive the cocaine in Mexico, obviously at a beach. So I called telephone. I had. Of course, we were wired. We're connected. I called my contact to the telephone company. I said, who does this won't come back to? And it came back to a name of Pablo Jacobo. I'm going to forget it. And he came at Altata Sinaloa, which is southeast of Culiacan by the beach. It made sense. Okay, the boat's coming in and I need to take it down. I didn't trust the commandante of that area because I knew he was protecting the drug lords there. So I called Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni, who was a deputy deputy chief of the Mexican Federal Police in Mexico City, which I met before. And Guillermo, I said, I need some help. I need some agents to go and help me. We got a ship coming in full of cocaine from Colombia. And I've got the guy identified, is going to receive it, and so on and so forth. So he said, okay, this is all I can spare you, is 12 guys. So, like a spare, Hector. So he said, I'm going to fly him into. From Mexico City to Mazatlan, and you handle the operation there. I said, okay. So I had. I figured I had five agents, the agents, including myself, plus 12. You know, that would be 17 of us. And so they flew in, we briefed and said, we'll hit it tomorrow morning. Now, Altata is like 2 hours drive from my office in the town of. Okay, so they came in that night, in the morning. We got up early. We briefed that evening. I said, we're gonna go to this place. We don't know if the dope has arrived. We might have the whole people. And. And we don't know if the ship has arrived yet. We just have to play it by ear. We're not to arrest some folks and just hold off. And when the ship gets it, we're gonna have to take it down. They go, okay. So next morning we head out. I think we had like five or six cars or three or four agents in each car, Mexican agents and DEA agents, and we drive to Altata. It turns out that the address is not a house, it's a little store. But it's one of those little Mexican stores. We have dirt floors and all this hell is Cokes. And they don't even have it under ice. I mean, they call it sodas at room temperature at Tiempo, you know. So it turns out to be one of those little bars. So we, we kind of, I kind of left. It was a little, little town. So I left most of the agents outside. The Commandante, myself and other three agents, we drove in to kind of spot it. We didn't want to drive in with all these cars. And we were going to be, yeah, basically identify this law enforcement made. So we drove in, we kind of looked at around us as a little store. I said, okay, let's go in and, and, and, and, and, and ask for Pablo and we'll take him down ourselves and, and then we'll find out what, what's going on with the ship. So we walk in and there's nobody. There was just this one guy behind like a little, a little, whatever we call it, shelf or whatever it is. And I said, we're looking for Pablo Jacobo. And that guy looked at me and he says, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know nobody by that name here. But he looked real suspicious and scared. So I said, listen, are you Pablo Jacobo? And I swear he goes into a drawer to grab a gun. And I run up and I put my AK47 on him right there. It was him. So of course, the way it worked back then is the, the, the guy in charge of the Mexican feds grabbed him and they did a little Mexican hat that's on him. And you know, and they, they, they, they got him to confess. [01:14:09] Speaker B: That street justice. [01:14:10] Speaker A: Yeah, they, they, you know, they, they, they do the little thing there. Yeah. And of course they fire a couple of rounds over his head and scare the shit out of him. [01:14:17] Speaker B: They want to kill you. [01:14:18] Speaker A: And I mean, they really, they're really dramatic. [01:14:20] Speaker B: Different game down there. [01:14:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a different game. So anyway. [01:14:24] Speaker B: But he's dealing with, with either that, which seems minimal compared to what he could, his penance if he gets, you know, if they think he's snitched or something, right. Or they lose this load. I mean, it's going to be way worse than shooting warning shots. [01:14:40] Speaker A: Well, he says that, yeah, he says the load has arrived and it's at this little, little ajido, which is like a little Planting area, a little farming area called Elimoncito, the little lemon. And we said, that shipment is there. It's already been unloaded, and it's already there and equals yes. And then I asked him in Spanish, this is who's. Who's regarding that load? Nobody, just my ranch hands. I said, what? I said, okay, you're going to take us there, and we're going to take it down. I told him, I said, you are going to be, you know, my shield. If you're lying to me and you're sending us. Send us up for an ambush, you're going to die. Because if they don't kill you by being in front of me, I'll shoot you in the back of your head. I told him, so let's go. So we went. We went and got the rest of the troops, and we went and he let us. And there's only one way in. It's a quarter mile, just one way in. I sent agents to surveillance around to see how we could, basically how we're going to take it down. And they said, boss, it's also only about cornfields, and there's only one way in. [01:15:57] Speaker B: A tactical nightmare. [01:15:59] Speaker A: It's a nightmare. I thought, man. So I looked at the jefe de grupo was a group supervisor of the mfjp, and it was Rivera. I said, what do you think? Should we take it down or what? And he says, well, I don't know. It's up to you. It's pretty dangerous because if they ambush us, we're going to hit us from all over. They've got to have protection. A big load like this. I said, well, we either take it down or. I said, we pretend we never found it and go have a drink somewhere. Go get drunk with the guys. [01:16:34] Speaker B: That's a lot to ignore. [01:16:36] Speaker A: And I remember he told me, he says, you're shot. I said, I know what we're gonna do. He says, what? We're gonna call the police on these guys. And he looks at me and he says, we are the police. And I said, I know. I'm just kidding with you. So I told all my guys, put all your bulletproof vests on. We're gonna go in, we're gonna. We're gonna see what we can do here and get ready to be ambushed, because probably going to go. Probably going to drive into an ambush. And sure we did. I mean, they were shooting at us from the. From the sides and everywhere else. What had happened was while we. When we arrested our combo people trying to come into the Store and somebody called them out there and said, hey, they're going to come out there and hit you guys. They were waiting for us. So that was the longest shootout that I've ever been involved in. Went on for hours. We had people that were shot up bad. I had, I had five or six mfgps that were. They were shot up really, really bad. I remember that. When we were driving along, where was the, the windshield of the car? We were up front blown off. Now I got out of that car, I don't know because I wasn't driving. I was a passenger up front and we had a cobble actually in the back seat. I got the letters there. I remember that I opened the door and I threw myself out of the car. And the car was being riddled by my machine gun fire that I was in. And I remember that I crawled to a water trough and I crawled over there and I could hear them shooting at me and I could feel that the bullets were hitting the cement water trough and I was laying there behind it. I was afraid to even lift my hand or go blow my hand. I lift my head and look up. I just stayed down there. And then I. One of my other agents crawled right next to me saliva and he says, boss, we're gonna die here. And I said, you might die here, it says, but I'm not, I'm gonna die here. [01:18:37] Speaker B: So you're still just armed with pistols at this point. Do you get out with a long. [01:18:41] Speaker A: Gun by this time? I have AK47s. We have, I've got, we got the mad. We got the automatic weapons and I had being given to by a commandante. And so then as a shooting kind of subsided a little bit. Then we started when we were looking and I could see that a guy from a papa asylum was shooting right down at us. We're hiding or keeping our heads down behind that water trough. And I remember yelling, we got to shoot back. And then I hear agents yelling, I'm shot, I'm shot. And I could see some of my guys bleeding. Not DEA guys, but MHCP guys bleeding. They've been hit hard. They were trying to get out of the car so they were machine gunned down next to us. So it was so intense that I, I told my guys, we got to shoot back, shoot back, shoot back. Everybody started shooting back because we hadn't shot back one round. We were, we were like under shock and the shooting was so intense that I saw the wounded guys and I saw them, they were bleeding and I thought we need to get this guy some help, you know. So I told, I told Jim White. I said, you know what, Jim? I said, get in your car and. And you, you. You back it up to the wounded guys. I said, because we got to get him out of the line of fire, and I'm going to shoot over the hood of your car. You know, keep him occupied while you. I'm not going to get in there and drive. I want to get shot. So I said, well, lie on the floorboard and try to get the car started and move it back towards where the wounded are. And which we did. He kind of like on the floorboard. He actually activated the gas pedal with his hand. Wow. And trying to. And I was guiding him and I was shooting over the top of the hood. [01:20:27] Speaker B: How do you not run over some of the. [01:20:29] Speaker A: And then we realized that, well, wait a minute. So we. He backs up and then we were carrying. I was crawling underneath the SUV and dragging the wounded by their feet and arms to the side, this side of the SUV for protection, right? And guess what? Then I realized that the bullets are going through and through. And I go, oh, wow. You know, I mean, the bullets were coming in from one side and going out the other side of the suv. [01:20:57] Speaker B: No handgun fire there. [01:20:58] Speaker A: Yep, yep. So. So. So we ended up loading them up. And then I told Jim, jump in the car, let's go. Let's take this. We got to get these guys. Go hospital something. They're bleeding to death. And so we threw him in the back of the suv and then he backs up and he takes off. And then they shoot the whole back of the suv. They shoot it all up and they. And they shoot my wounded guys more because they're laying here. I'm like, oh, my God. You know, so we finally pull out of there and like I said, we drove like a quarter mile on dirt road and finally get on the main highway. And I says, go, go, go. And he just says, which way do we go? I said, I don't know, but just get going this way, not here. We gotta get these guys. I mean, these guys are. I mean, there's. They're. I mean, we got. I got. Got with sucking chest wounds and all kinds of stuff. Shut up. Bad. And they're saying, oh, we're gonna die and I'm gonna die. And they were praying. I could hear him pray in the back. In the back seat and stuff. And so finally I see a. A taxi cab coming from the other way. And I pull over. Jim, pull over. I said, I'm gonna stop this taxi cab. So I jump out and I don't realize that I'm full of blood myself because I've been carrying these guys, loading them up and dragging him, and I'm full of blood. And so I go alto and I stopped the taxicab driver. When I pulled my AK47 at him, the taxi driver was so scared he thought I was going to kill him that he actually urinated all over himself as he pulled over. And I said, listen, I said, go with that mixed fed right there. And Jim is 6:2, blonde hair, blue eyes, and he doesn't look nothing like a Mexican. He says he's a mixed vet in Spanish. Take him to the hospital. He's got wounded. And then he goes, and what about my taxi cab? He says, I'm taking your taxi cab. I'm borrowing it. So you go with him and get him to a hospital right away. So I yell at Jim, I said, she's going to take you to the hospital. I'm going back to the shootout. He says, you're crazy. You can't go back over there. I got my men over there, Jim. I can't let them be all shut up to death. He said, but they're going to kill you back there, Hector. And I said, well, if I die, I'm going to die with him. So I drove the taxicab back. So the firefight is still going on at the ranch house over here, where the cork's at, by the way. We still haven't gotten the cork yet. I mean, we made our arrest. It was still an ongoing shootout. As I pulled in, everybody stops shooting because they see a taxi cabin. Everybody wanted who's in the taxi cab, right? So I, I drive in and I get out on the, on the passenger side and I yell at the guys, it's me. And then they go, oh, it's, it's, they could hear me. Hey. So then, then I, I, I fired a, a volley of AK47 rounds at the crooks. And then they all shot up the, the taxicab. I mean, it was Swiss cheese. I mean, they blew out the tires, blew out all the windshields. And by now I've realized that the bullets are going through. So I'm hiding behind the engine right of the taxi cab. So the shootout continues back and forth, and I couldn't go, go to where my guys were at. I had to stay where I was at because I, it was an open field that I had to run through and I was going to get blown away into them they were joking to me, come on over, Hector, come on over and visit with us. And, and they were shooting and smoking, smoking cigarettes already. And, and. And we're kind of like laughing now. And I'm saying, no, I, you know, you guys come over here, visit with me. So we were kind of joking. And finally a contingent of Mexican army shoulders show up. I guess Jim got to the hospital and he called Mexico City and they sent soldiers out there to help us. And so when the soldiers get to the half of the group says they're turning to surrender now because it's the, the crooks see that now we have soldiers and everything that they're trying to, you know, wave their, their T shirts with sticks and stuff like. And the hormone goes, nope, I'm not, I'm not taking no prisoners. I'm going to kill them all because my diet. My guys are all shut up. They're probably going to die. And of course, we had already killed some of them and they were deadline on the other side, okay? So I said, whatever. I said, you know, I'm not going to tell him what to do. It's his country if he wants to kill them all. And so anyway, the soldiers are not getting off and they're firing back and everything else. So I asked the lieutenant of the army, I said, you got any grenades? And he goes, yeah, we got some Granadas. And I was like, let me have some. I said, I'm going to blow him out of there. So I remember that he had a wooden box full of grenades. And so I started throwing grenades that way, but they were too far. I couldn't reach them. They were landing halfway between us and, and the ranch house. And I'm thinking to myself, well, I'm not going to get closer, you know. So I said, hey, I said, lieutenant, do you have an M79 grenade launcher? And he goes, what? But he understood Lansa Granadas. And I said, yeah, grenade launcher. He said, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know how to use it? I said, yeah, I makes military. [01:26:10] Speaker B: There you go. [01:26:11] Speaker A: So he goes, okay. So then I got the grenade launcher and that's when finally I started getting them over there while I was blowing part of the buildings and crap. And that's when they finally, they started. They wanted to give up, and the commander says, no, keep shooting them. But finally journalists started coming in and people started coming in, reporters and stuff. So that's when finally we decided we would take some prisoners. And we, of course, we had dead there and we had the prisoners, and the shootout lasted so long. That again, the dead that were there, they were stiff already. I mean, it's rigor mortis that they didn't. They'd been laying there dead two hours. But I remember that when we were rounding everybody up and arresting people there, I remembered that there was a guy on top of the silo that was shooting down at me when I was behind that water troll. And I said, I wonder if he's still up there. So I yell up at us, I got under the side, is anybody up there? And of course, nobody answers me. So I go. And then like a bird is kind fall down in the dark, down on the ground. He goes, I, I, I, I've been shot. I've been shot. And I said, where you were shot at, dude? He said, you shot me in my leg. He goes, and I hit. I had shot him in the leg. And I'll never forget, the comandante comes up and the head of the group comes up. What's the matter? When you shut up? He said, no, but I've been shot. It hurts. It hurts. He says, it hurts when one gets shot. Understand it? But I want you to shut up. Because you were trying to shoot him. Yeah. So you're lucky he doesn't blow your head off. If I was him, I would have already executed you. Just scaring him. But, yeah, that, that. That was a. That was a long shootout right there. [01:27:54] Speaker B: That's insane. [01:27:56] Speaker A: It's crazy. [01:27:56] Speaker B: And you're lucky, too, by the sounds of it. [01:27:58] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, we were. I was very lucky. [01:28:00] Speaker B: You're the character in the movie that gets a million bullets shot at him and somehow just feigned all of them. [01:28:06] Speaker A: Right, right. So, yeah, it was. It was. It was amazing. Was a long, long shootout. [01:28:14] Speaker B: So that was leading up into your operations and working within the cartels. Can you can tell me a little bit about how the Camarena investigation began? Obviously, there's a lot of work that you were doing leading up to that, to where you were familiar with how the cartels operated. You'd already proven yourself as some. As a good infiltrator and was very fluent in the proper Mexican dialects and things like that. So you tell me a little bit about Kiki's story and then how you came to be involved a little bit. I know you've had to tell this story a lot, but it's a key part in your story. [01:28:56] Speaker A: Well, I had met Kiki when he was working out of the Fresno office, before he was assigned to the Guadalajara, Mexico, office, before he was kidnapped, of course. And I had Been wanting to basically do a wiretap on this heroin trafficking organization in Indio, California, on this side. And I didn't have the informants that I needed the Appian's for a search warrant. They wanted to do a wiretap operation, Not a search warrant, a wiretap operation. So Kiki by then had transferred to, from Fresno to Guadalajara. So I asked around and they said, you know what? The guy that had informants in their area that you could probably use is Kiki Camarena. I said, okay, so I'll call Kiki and see what sources he can share with me, what informants you could share with me. So I called Kiki in Guadalajara and I said, kiki, I'm trying to go up on this, on this organization over here in India. And they tell me, you got sources out here that know everybody out here that are, you know, pretty good. He goes, yeah. He says, you can use Goyo and Catalino Nunez, their brothers, and they work together as informants. And yeah, I'll call him and have him report to you or call you. I was working out of the LA division then. And so he did. And the informants call me, hey, where are the guys that Hickey recommended you? You need us, you know, to work for you. And I go, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just. Where are you guys from? And this is all. We're from the Indio area. And I said, great, this is all that their organization was selling heroin out of. So I started working and they, they were the affiants and I was the affiant. And we testified, we were able to go up on the wiretap called Title 1 back then. I don't even know what they call them now anymore. But anyway, I was. As I was doing the investigation, I was calling Kiki back and forth and that's when he got picked up. As when camera was picked up right after that. It was right after that. Well, while I was talking to him. Well, not at the time I was talking, but at the time that I had been contacting him back and forth on the phone using his sources. Later I was at the working night at a gym and I saw that he had been kidnapped by the drug. [01:31:25] Speaker B: Lords and he was kidnapped by the drug lords, but was tipped off by somebody on our side. They were tipped off in terms of where he was and things like that as well. [01:31:34] Speaker A: Well, after that, I was sent to Mexico to go after the cartel guys that they suspected. Carol Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca, Miguel Feliz Gallardo and those Guys, I suspected they were behind his kidnapping. So I went over there and was involved in several shootouts, trying to try to get these guys. But they told me in headquarters before I went out of Mexico, go over there, and if you try to get him arrested and investigated for Kiki's murder, and we pretty much know they were the ones that were involved, they said, so if you got to kill some of them, well, go ahead and kill them. [01:32:14] Speaker B: Did they have any evidence at that point that they gave you? Like, here's the evidence that we have that these are the guys? [01:32:19] Speaker A: Well, they did have some sources that were reported that they had done it. [01:32:23] Speaker B: Okay, sources. [01:32:23] Speaker A: This is before I got involved in making the case, right? And then I'll get tell you when I got involved and what I suspected. So anyway, so I go to Mexico and I go after some of these guys and they came after me. They tried to kill me too. So they had to evacuate me out of Mexico because they put a. They were talking on the phone and it was was recorded by DEA that they were going to try to assassinate me because I was. I was basically going after them. And I had already had a couple of good shootouts with him and killed some of their guys. So they were after me personally, and they tried to kidnap my wife and my daughter, where they were at the beach one time. So then they evacuated me out of Mexico. When they evacuated me out of Mexico, that's when they assigned me to run the Camarena murder case. They had been investigating the case for five years already, and they didn't have any eyewitnesses. So when I get assigned the case, I get pulled back to Washington. And I was asked to do two things by the director of DEA back then. One was to get witnesses so that we could find out who picked up Kiki, how they killed him, how they interrogated him. And they also wanted to know basically what happened, because we didn't have any witnesses, number one. And number two, they also asked me, by then I had done a few operations with a CIA, and they asked me could I kidnap one guy, the doctor that had been involved in injecting Camarena drugs while they interrogated him. [01:34:02] Speaker B: And that was just for context, he was injecting drugs to revive him as he passed out, things like that, right? [01:34:09] Speaker A: Because when they were interrogating him from what the witnesses had told the investigators, and I wasn't involved yet, he was passing out because they were torturing him so bad that from the pain, the body can only tolerate so much pain. And after it reaches a certain threshold, you pass out. To defend yourself, the body passes out. So what they did is they brought the doctor in to inject him to get the heart fibrillating faster. We were injecting lidocaine right into his heart so that blood would flow to his brain and he would become conscious and they could continue interrogate him. And they wanted the doctor that did that really bad. So when they brought me in, they said, we really want this doctor bad. Can you get him? And I said, yeah, can get him. How are you going to get him? Give me some money. I'll get him. He said, you're going to kidnap him? No. First of all, they tell me it was really funny because they told me in headquarters, can you do an extraterritorial rendition? And I said, what's that, a kidnapping? Yeah, I can do that. And they said, okay, go ahead. And we want you to kidnap this doctor that basically injected camera in with lidocaine and stuff like that. Because by then they really had Kiki's body, and they found out that he had been basically injected with lidocaine to keep the heart. [01:35:41] Speaker B: And this was still the head of the da, Right? [01:35:43] Speaker A: This is the director of the dea. [01:35:45] Speaker B: Director. [01:35:46] Speaker A: So I said, yeah, I can. I can do that. No problem. And they go, okay, so what's it going to take? And I said, money. And you can do it? And I said, yeah. How much money do you think that's going to take? And I said, that's not much. Maybe 250,000, a quarter of a mil, so I can get it done. They said, okay, you do it. I said, okay, I'll do it. So those were my initial orders. Get witnesses and get the doctor kidnapped. Okay. And they asked me, how long will it take you to get this doctor kidnapped? I says, how long. How long will it take you to give me the money? They said, we can get your money to in a week. I said, I'll have him in two weeks. You have him in the United States, kidnapped and everything in two weeks? And I said, yes. I knew what I was doing. I had. It wasn't the first time I was. [01:36:30] Speaker B: Gonna do anything, obviously. [01:36:31] Speaker A: Yeah. No. So I knew they didn't know what I. What I had done because I was always, you know, loaned over to other agents to do all kinds of weird. [01:36:40] Speaker B: But anyway, you're working in dark circles, though. [01:36:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:36:44] Speaker B: Before, too. And just don't really recognize what you're doing. You work that deep undercover. It's not like it's broadcast. Right. [01:36:51] Speaker A: It's not broadcast, like I said. So we. We got him kidnapped and everything else. So. But when I come on the case, it was interesting because they tell me that Camarena was kidnapped because the traffickers were mad because of his involvement in. In. In seizing the Buffalo Chihuahua Fuels, which was the biggest ever seizure of marijuana in the history of drug enforcement. They seized 10,000 tons. [01:37:22] Speaker B: Billions of dollars. [01:37:23] Speaker A: Yeah, billions of dollars of marijuana from Caro Quintero Fonseca and the Guadalajara cartel. So I'm told that that's the reason that the traffickers wanted Kiki, because of he. They had identified him as being responsible for that seizure. And they tell me, okay, these are your targets. Rafael Caro Ernesto Gallardo, El Cochil Loco Sueta was his last name. I can't think of his first name right now. And these are your targets. I said, okay, so I don't get him enough witnesses. We want to get him indicted, because they weren't even indicted for Camarena's murder yet. And I said, okay. So then I called my compadre Charlie Lugo, who was in charge of the buffalo rays in Mexico, and he was now in Dallas. So I called him in Dallas and I said, charlie, what was Kiki's involvement in the seizure of the Buffalo Chihuahua field? You were in charge of the whole operation? He says he wasn't involved. What you're telling me that that's why the reason, the motive for his murder, that the cartels are mad at Kiki? He said the only involvement he had was when we found out about him. We couldn't. We couldn't drive in and do surveillance because all the roads leading into that area were blocked out by Mexican army soldiers and DFS agents. Director of Federal Security Agents. And I said, what? He says, so what we did is we called Kiki. He had an informant pilot that we needed to fly over overhead surveillance so that we can basically photograph the area. And that's all Kiki did. So when the pilot flew over the fields, he told me he photographed him and he flew back to Guadalajara and gave the film to Kiki. Kiki developed it, and then he took it to Mexico City. So he wasn't involved in the raid at all? He says, no, we didn't use. Kikiki wasn't involved. [01:39:44] Speaker B: Not even. Not even the reason why they knew about it. [01:39:47] Speaker A: Right. So I'm thinking to myself, why are they telling me? They, meaning my agency now I'm in charge of the murder investigation, that he was. He was. He was. He was killed by the traffickers. Because he was. He was responsible for the seizure of the buffalo Chihuahua field. So now the guy that was really in charge of it is telling me, no, the geeky wasn't even there. That made me suspicious. So I asked Charlie. I said, charlie? His name is Charles Lugo. Call him Charlie. I've been doing it for all my life. He's. By the way, he passed. But anyway, I told Charlie, I said, why are they telling me that Kiki Camarena is being basically held accountable by all the drug lords for the Chihuahua race? And you tell me he wasn't even involved? And he said, he wasn't. Then why are they telling me that's a motive for his murder? He says, brother, watch out. He says, it doesn't make sense to me. What? Kiki was not involved. I was there. We. We arrested over 7,000 peasants, and we seized over 10,000 tons of marijuana. He said, and Kiki was not a participant in the raids or anything. I ran the operation Actor. And I said, I know you did. So that kind of made me suspicious. Then as I started talking to the agents that had been working the murder case, I said, how did Caro Quintero fleet from Mexico when we were looking to arrest him for being involved in Kiki's murder? He said, oh. They told me a CIA pilot by the name of Warner Lutz flew him to Costa Rica. [01:41:23] Speaker B: Who's the they told you this? [01:41:27] Speaker A: The agents that had been investigating the case. Okay, I'm new, remember? I just got brought in. [01:41:32] Speaker B: Okay, this is part of your brief, right? [01:41:34] Speaker A: And I'm like, wait a minute. How do you guys know that a CIA pilot by the name of Werner Lutz flew Carlo Quintero from Mexico to Costa Rica so we couldn't arrest him? What's the CIA got to do with this shit? He said, we don't know, but we can't find a pilot. And you know, Hector, a lot of those pilots that flew for the CIA or fly for the CIA, those are not real names. Those are undercover names that they use. They're subcontracting employees, like informants of the CIA. I said, something doesn't smell right here. So then I find out that there was DFS agents, Director of Federal Security. Director of Federal Security Agents from Mexico involved in Kiki's kidnapping? I'm thinking to myself, I'm new here, but I'm thinking to myself, okay, a CIA pilot flew Kiki to Costa Rica so he could escape so we couldn't arrest him. And now the dfs I'm being told, were involved in picking up Kiki in front of the consulate. And I know because I worked with the DFS and I worked in Mexico for the CIA, that the DFS and the CIA are one unit. They work together. [01:42:57] Speaker B: Yeah, the CIA was part of putting that together back in the day. Right? [01:43:01] Speaker A: They put together the dfs. Yeah, the DFS worked under the agents and under the direction of the CIA in Mexico. So I'm finding out that now DFS agents were involved in picking up Kiki. So I decide that I'm going to basically recruit some DFS agents that can identify to me some of the agents who were involved in actually picking up Kiki Camarena, obviously. And so I. I recruit this one former DFS agent, and he says to me, he says, you know, there's an American that works for the dfs. What? Yeah, he's a. He's a. He's a electronic specialist. He specializes in. In wiretapping and communications and stuff like that. I said, he's an American working for that Directorate of Federal Security in Mexico. That's. That's unbelievable. I said, yes. I said, do you know him? He says, yeah. What's his name? I don't know his name, but they call him Torre Blanca. Torre Blanca, which is White Tower. Yeah, because he's white and he's real tall and he. He operates. He. He sets up repeater systems and radios and all that stuff. He's an electronic genius. And he was working for the dfs. You know him? He says, yeah. He said, will you fly to Mexico and put him on the phone with me? I want to talk to this guy. And I said, what is his name? He says, I don't know, but I'll find out. I'll go down there and I'll put him on the phone with you. He's a friend of mine. I know him. This is a former DFS guy who's now a source of mine. Okay? So I sent him down there. Two days later, he calls me and he says, I got. I got Larry here. His name is Larry Harrison. He's. He wants. He says, I'm gonna put him on the phone with you. And I get on the phone, and in English, I says, hello. He says, I know who you are. You're Hector Berreus. You're all over the news. He says, you're the one that kidnapped that doctor. And I said, you're right, that's me. I says, I need your help. He says, I'm not going to help you. I said, you don't even know what you're involved in. He told me, he says, f you, and he hung up on me. I said, okay. The informant comes back on the phone and I said, you. You tell the gringo to come back on the line right now. And he doesn't want to talk to you anymore. Hector, he says, tell that gringo that I'm gonna kidnap his white ass. And he goes, okay, I'll tell him. Tell him, I don't give a where he hides. I'm coming after him. Yes, I kidnapped that goddamn doctor and I'm kidnapping his white ass. This is my next kidnapping victim. So when we hang up, Foreman flies back and he says, didn't want to talk to you. He says, you don't know what you're involved in. And I said, ah, whatever. I said, I think he'll call me back sure as heck. About three days later, I get a call from Larry and he goes, I haven't been able to sleep at night. He says, you are going to kidnap me, aren't you? [01:46:17] Speaker B: No. That's what you're capable of. [01:46:21] Speaker A: I swear. So I started laughing. I said, yeah. He says, I'm glad you haven't been able to sleep. I wouldn't be able to sleep either because I've already got people hunting you down, dude. He says, I'm bringing you in whether you like it or not. He says, you work for the dfs and the DFS was involved in kidnapping and you're going to come here one way or another, but you're coming here, buddy. So he says, okay, okay. He says, I'll come in, but nobody must know that I'm. Nobody must know that I'm coming to see you. [01:46:46] Speaker B: Yeah, because it has to be quite a feat anyway, just getting the CIA. This is a CIA officer and like an operative working undercover, as you were. [01:46:55] Speaker A: I'm getting to there, okay? It gets better. The story. So he. They fly him into LA and they put him over here at. Off of. Off of Freeway 10 at the Barranca there at the Marriott Hotel. And so I go see him there, I meet him, and he's big, tall guy. And I said, you work for the dfs? He says, yeah, I work for the dfs. What do you do there? I'm a communications officer. I set up the repeaters, I set up their radio communications and stuff like that. And I go, okay. So I said, how did you get a job with a dfs, May I ask you? He says, you sure aren't very bright, are you? So what do you mean? Are you dumb? He Says, you think a white guy can just walk into Mexico and become a work for their spy agency, which is a DFS or their spy Intelligence Agency? Duh. I'm a CIA operative assigned there. I says, no. You're not lying to me, are you? He says, no. So what do you think? I wanted nobody to know this is. My agency doesn't know I'm here talking to you right now. I says, whoa. He said, look. He says, we, the CIA, are working with the Guadala Cartel. We, the CIA, are basically helping them ship all those weapons of the Conquerors through Mexico. We, the CIA, are bringing in cocaine and we're selling cocaine to support the country more, which Congress, through the Bolden Amendment, has denied helping. So we're doing it all clandestine. And I said, what did you guys have to do with Camarena's murder? And he told me, he says, Camarena, we found out, was going to investigate. Carl controls Ranch and Veracruz. We're training Contras there. What? Yes. And basically they were afraid that Camarena is going to find out about it, that we're basically working with the cartels. So they wanted to know what Kiki knew. That's why we had the cartel guys pick him up. Wow. I didn't know whether to believe him or not. I was floored. And how do you know about this? He says, because I was the one that set up ground to air communications from the Caro Quinteros Rancho Veracruz, where the training camps are, so that there would be communications with the planes flying in full of cocaine landing there. As a matter of fact, have you heard of Barry Seal? I said, yeah, I know. I know who Barry Seal is. Ask him. I met him there. He was flying in cocaine for the CIA into Caro Quinteros Ranch. A lot of people don't know what I'm telling you right now, but it's in my book. So anyway, I said, well, I, I, I can't say I believe all of this stuff you're telling me. So he said, well, I don't give a damn whether you believe me or not. I said, I'm just telling you the truth and you've gone too far and you better watch your body because you already know too much and are supposed to know all this. [01:50:42] Speaker B: And you've already seen what happens to people that knew too much or even suspected of knowing too much. [01:50:47] Speaker A: So immediately I go to the undercover phone, official undercover phone, and called the guy in charge of opr, our Internal affairs division, which is Office of Professional Responsibility, Pete Gruden. Is in charge. And I go, pete, I got this guy telling me all this stuff. He says, hector, is this guy 5150? Is he a nut case? I says, no. I said, do you believe him, Hector? I said, I don't know what to believe anymore. I'm. I'm lost. He said, what do you think we should do? And I said, well, I don't know. I said, I think we should maybe fly him up to headquarters and get a hit polygraph examiner to polygraph this guy, see if he's telling the truth. And now he's telling me that he can't go back to the CIA now because he's a double agent now. He's betrayed his agency. So he says, fly him up here. I want to meet this guy. [01:51:51] Speaker B: He's saying he couldn't back to go to the CIA because he was already working with you guys. [01:51:55] Speaker A: He couldn't go back to his agency because he's already giving all this information up on his own agency. [01:51:59] Speaker B: Okay? Right. [01:52:00] Speaker A: He's betrayed his agency. He's become a double agent, and those are his words. I've become already a double agent. I can't go back anymore. Yeah, you got to protect me now. You got to protect me now. Yeah, but I don't like what they did to Camareta. He told me I wasn't involved, but I know they did it. [01:52:14] Speaker B: Wow. Okay. [01:52:15] Speaker A: All right. So we take him back to Washington, D.C. he's polygraphed for three days on all this information about the Contras and the training camps and the CIA sending weapons south secretly because it was prohibited by the Bullen Amendment by Congress. They didn't want us involved in that war because we just came out of Vietnam, and they didn't want to be involved in another war. So he. All of that. He's polygraphed, and he passes three days of polygraphing by our head polygraph examiner, the guy in charge of a whole polygraph unit in dea. [01:52:51] Speaker B: Okay. [01:52:55] Speaker A: So then I have that. I still haven't recruited any witnesses yet that were there when Camarena was being interrogated. So finally, I get in. [01:53:08] Speaker B: The doctor you had. [01:53:09] Speaker A: Yeah, that being the doctor. Okay. This is. No. When Kiki was being interrogated, you know. [01:53:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:53:16] Speaker A: Who interrogated Kiki? What did they ask him? Everything. We didn't have any. Any other tapes or anything back then. [01:53:23] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. [01:53:26] Speaker A: So I bring in one of the witnesses, Jorge Godoy, who I knew had been involved in Kiki's murder because he had been arrested for it in Mexico and had been Released. So I sent one of my former recruiters to go recruit him. And after he got him drunk and everything else, got him on a plane and brought him over here, I got a chance to interrogate him. I actually went and put him up and hit him up in. Up in the mountains up here. Big Bear. We had a cabin out there where I. I hit witnesses and stuff like that up there with like a security places that DEA had all over the place for witnesses and stuff like that. And we used to use those cabins undercover to meet crooks and stuff. So I put him up there and so I started interrogating him. And he tells me about. Yeah, that he had been involved and word for Fonseca and Carlo Quintero had been a pistolero. And he tells me that. That one of the persons that had interrogated Kiki was a Cuban guy. And I said, who is this Cuban guy? I don't know. What's his name? He says, max Gomez. Why would he be interrogating Kiki? What's it. What's Cuba or Cuban have to do with this? He says, I don't know. But he in Mexican ran him through everything, text, ncic, everything. Nothing's come back on Mexicomas. Six months later, we bring in another witness, Rene Lopez Romero, who was in the car when they picked up Kiki in front of the consulate. And he identifies the DFS agents that were with him in the car. He was a state policeman. Okay. And again, I asked him who interrogated Kiki. And he says, well, Carl Quintero did. Coaching local did. Mexican government officials, did. Commandantes did. They were all interrogated Kiki. And again, there was a Cuban guy there. He did a lot of the interrogation. Again, who is this Cuban guy? Max Gomez. Ran again, the name Max Gomez, nothing. A year later, I get the third witness, Ramon Lira. I recruit him and he. We knew he was involved too. And he used to be in charge of Onseka security deal. So he is a little higher up in the hierarchy of the sicarios or the killers. [01:56:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:56:04] Speaker A: So I interrogated him and I said. He says, who can you were there, tell me who interrogated Kiki and who asked him what questions? What happened when they held him there? And he tells me, he says, well, these guys were asking him about what he knew about the Contras. I said, the Contras. Remember I had already talked to Larry. Yeah, yeah, the Contras, the Nicaraguan fighters that were being trained at Cato Quintero's ranch. And who is this guy? And he goes, max Gomez I said, I know that person doesn't exist. I've read him through all kinds of databases, and these are cops I'm talking to. So they understand the databases that I'm explaining to him. And nothing. I don't get a hit on him. Who is this guy? He says his real name is Ismael Felix Rodriguez. He's a CIA operative. He interrogated Camarena and he says, yes. And how do you know he's a CIA operative? Because he told me, and Fonseca told me that he was a CIA operative and his name is Ismael Ferris Rodriguez. Max Gobez is his CIA undercover name. Oh, I go, okay, and you know this guy? He said, yeah, I know. And how do you know him? Because he used to deliver weapons to Fonseca, and he's the guy that always showed up when Oliver Noel showed up. What did you just say? Yeah, Oliver north would come and meet with Fonseca. I said, wow, what do I do with this now, Hector? [01:57:56] Speaker B: Who are you going to report that to that's going to believe it? [01:58:02] Speaker A: So anyway, of course I reported it. And all of a sudden I'm getting called. Have you watched yours on that? My supervisor, who tells me that I was ordered not to write anything on official report, that everything had to go on memorandums, office memorandums that they could destroy. There's no record of them, and that's a story. So then I started getting involved in that. Next thing I know, I'm being told that I have no jurisdiction to investigate the CIA nor their agents. Which is true. [01:58:38] Speaker B: Right. [01:58:38] Speaker A: That. That my. That I'm supposed to report everything on secret memorandums. That the secret memorandums will be forwarded to the inspector General's office who does have the jurisdiction to investigate Felix Rodriguez and Oliver north or whoever. So therefore, you write that up and we'll forward it to them. You do not have jurisdiction to investigate the CIA. I said, oh, I'm just a soldier here. I'm just taking berets of nobody. Okay? That's the way the story goes. Okay, so. So, okay, now what has happened. What has happened is all that stuff was reported, and that's why I want people to watch the last night, because you see the witnesses tell the story in the last arc in the documentary that we did. Yeah. Which you've seen. But most importantly, don't listen to what I say. Listen to what my supervisor say. Hector Barreas was ordered not to investigate the murderer of Cameroon. I want to laugh. [01:59:55] Speaker B: Right? [01:59:55] Speaker A: How do you assign. How do you assign somebody to Investigate a homicide, but don't, don't. Okay, don't investigate the homicide. So what am I supposed to do? Sit there and go to the movies or what? Right. So. And he says, listen to him right there. Hector Barrez was ordered not to report investigations of CIA's involvement in Kiki's murder on DEA6S. Was our official reports that he's supposed to write them on office memorandums because they don't want these reports to get to congressional committees because the John Kerry Commission is investigating the CIA for being involved in drug trafficking. Wow. So then I'm here in la, and then I'm hearing. I'm investigating already. I'm already looking at, at the contrast, and I'm not really looking at the CIA. So what I found out, I'm involved in doing search warrants on two Nicaraguan control officials, Danilo Blandone and Edwin Menezes, because they are supplying Freeway Ricky Ross. So we arrest Freeway Ricky Ross and we never arrest Menesas, nor do we ever arrest Danilo Blandon. The control officials, they were supplying him, by the way, because, because they're CIA people, they're, they're off limits. All right, so I went 180 and the whole thing. And to this day, to this day, they're covering up that stuff up. [02:01:53] Speaker B: They just got a story and stuck to it. And you were the fall guy, essentially, at that point. Yes, because you just, you look like the buffoon that's trying to claim all these grandiose things that you actually discovered firsthand. [02:02:08] Speaker A: So then I become subject of investigation by my own agency. [02:02:15] Speaker B: Because what spurred that, though? I mean, because they told you, stand down or write this on memorandi, you sent it up and fine, so what then spurred it? Were you hollering and waving your hand, saying, wait a minute, where's my information gone? Or how did that happen? [02:02:30] Speaker A: No, I just leave it alone. But then they're afraid because they know that I know I see that I know that I know the whole truth. So therefore, then they start coming after me. First of all, they actually had a plan. And I have. Phil Jordan was during a meeting when they decided that they maybe, maybe they should turn me into the Mexicans. Because, remember, I had a warrant in Mexico for my arrest for kidnapping Dr. Machine, the guy that injected the drugs into Camarena, whom you were requested to. [02:02:58] Speaker B: Do by the director. [02:02:59] Speaker A: I'm going to go there. [02:03:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:03:01] Speaker A: So therefore, they, they, they, they, they decide that now they're gonna maybe turn me over to the Mexicans. And he decided that they do. I'll get killed over there. And then that. That was the point. They were trying to find a way to turn me over. Your own people to my own people? Yeah, to the. To the Mexicans. So then they decide not to do that, but then they decide that they're going to dirty me up and investigate me for the murder. I mean, for the kidnapping of the doctor. I want to laugh. Oh, God. [02:03:33] Speaker B: Well, you can laugh now. I bet you were crapping your pants. [02:03:37] Speaker A: Honestly, I couldn't believe it when the inspectors come in from Washington to LA and they said, we're here to investigate that kidnapping, that doctor, my shine. And they advised me on my criminal rights. By my. By my Miranda rights, I have the right to remain silent. Okay, okay, so what do you want to know? Well, talk to us about the kidnapping of Dr. Mashani. And I says, I kidnapped him. I did it, but I did it under orders of the director of the dea. Well, he says he didn't order you to do it. And I said, so how did I do it then if he didn't order me to? Where did I get the money to pay the people, the actual people that picked them up? I said, you guys are going to be joking with me. I said, you investigated me for kidnap, for doing a kidnapping that I was ordered to do by our director of the dea. Are you guys joking with me? This is. No, we're not joking with you. We're here to investigate you. I said, well, I'm just going to tell you guys one thing. Yes, I did it, and I did it under orders of the director of the dea. And I'm not saying anymore. And I'm going to get attorneys involved. [02:04:50] Speaker B: You know, it sounded like that was a smart move at that point. [02:04:55] Speaker A: I said, I can't sit here and deny that I did that. I did kidnap the guys all over the damn news. [02:05:03] Speaker B: That's a good thing. [02:05:04] Speaker A: So anyway, so where am I going with this is that I retire and I'm afraid to say anything anymore because I'm wanted in Mexico and I know these egg was want to send me to Mexico. And as I'm leaving, I turned 50 and I could retire and get my full benefits. I mean, told you better keep your mouth shut, you know, because, you know, you still have the warrant in Mexico and you might end up over there. So for 13 years I kept my mouth shut after that. And because it was. Yeah, because it. Because it's 20 years before the warrant expired in Mexico for my arrest for kidnapping a Mexican citizen. [02:05:54] Speaker B: So you had to wait until that 20 year expiration before you could. [02:05:57] Speaker A: So. So after the 20 years, Caro Quintero is released in Mexico because they had already picked him up in Mexico for Caro Quintero's pork murder. I'm talking about Rafael Caro Quintero, who is now here facing those charges. But anyway, so they call. The news media is all excited that Carol Quintero has upset that they've been released. And they called the director of dea, who was then Michelle Linhart, and they asked her about it and she says she, she's been told by the Obama people she can, she can't comment on it. And so she says, but Dr. Hector Varaes, he can tell you all about it. And I'm retired. So then they get a hold of me and who interviews me? Megan Kelly. [02:06:45] Speaker B: Really? [02:06:46] Speaker A: Yes. [02:06:46] Speaker B: Okay. [02:06:47] Speaker A: So I'm in the Megyn Kelly show and she asked me about what are my feelings about the Mexican government releasing Caro Quintero. And I explained to her the whole thing about how it was. It was, it was. It was basically a, a legal strategy, an illegal strategy. I said to release him because they're saying they're releasing Carl Quintero because he should have never been tried federally, that the homicide was a state crime and that Carl Cantero should have been charged on state charges. And that's why they were releasing him. [02:07:24] Speaker B: The technicality. [02:07:25] Speaker A: The technicality. And then I explained on the show that basically when we're in Mexico, La Kiki was. We are given permission by Exterior Relations, which was an agency of the Mexican government, that we can work over there like federal agents. So therefore it was just an illegal strategy to release him. And by the way, I said, you know, that our CIA was complicit in that murder. And she almost fell out of her chair. He says, what did you just say? Yeah, and I stated the CIA was complicit in, in Kiki Camarina's interrogation and murder. I said it right live on tv. That was the first time I had exposed it. So it was. Wow. [02:08:16] Speaker B: And the turmoil that followed, you and your family and all that. [02:08:22] Speaker A: Absolutely. I became like, to this day, they say I'm a liar. How can they say I'm a liar? They still say that none of it is true. Matter of fact, they warned the agencies, warned, both CIA and DEA warned Amazon that if they put on the last arc that they were going to sue them because it wasn't a credible story, that the witnesses are credible. But the witnesses testified in three federal courts and we convicted seven People for Kiki's murder on the witnesses of the ones that you see in the last arc on their testimony. Yeah. [02:09:00] Speaker B: And they haven't, they haven't recanted. [02:09:02] Speaker A: No. Well, not to this day. [02:09:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:09:05] Speaker A: So now what, what have you got? You got them actually destroying the case because those witnesses, they call them liars now and they, they can't revive him anymore. So now we're going to get to. Now Trump gets elected. He sends Ruble down there to meet with the president of Mexico and says, hey, we want these guys, we want them in the United States, and if you surrender them to us, we will not basically take them out, we won't go in there because now they've been declared terrorist organizations. Right. And now if you don't cooperate with us, if you don't take them out, we're going to take them out for you. Most of orders of Donald J. Trump. So the President of Mexico says, well, we can't legally extradite him to the US because we don't believe in the death penalty. On the list was Rafael Caro Quintero and we can't do it. So. Well, you better figure out something because Donald J. Trump is very serious. He's not playing with the cartels. So they decide to expel them, not extradite them. So they throw him out like trash. So now we have Rafael Caro Quintero in New York. [02:10:31] Speaker B: That's just this year. He was picked up, right? [02:10:33] Speaker A: Talking about six, eight months ago. [02:10:35] Speaker B: Yeah, recently. [02:10:38] Speaker A: Okay, so what is he doing in New York? He's being tried in New York on CCE and RICO drug trafficking charges. The warrant for Rafael Caro Quintero for Kiki's murder is out of the Central District, out of Los Angeles. What does it tell me? That they're covering it up. They don't want to try him on Kiki's murder because all this CIA, that stuff that I just mentioned to you will come out. Right. So they're hoping to indict him on cce, Enrico, convict him and he gets life and it'll be the end of it. [02:11:22] Speaker B: Everybody be quiet and everybody's happy. Camera and his family hopefully be happy, even though it's not a conviction on his murder, which is never going to happen. Right. I mean, they're never going to be. They're not going to arrest. [02:11:34] Speaker A: I don't know. [02:11:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:11:36] Speaker A: But the. Remember when Carlo Quintero was brought in, our president, Donald J. Trump went public and he said, we got the guy that killed Camarena and we're gonna charge him with Camarena's murder and basically apply the law, basically the full force of the law against Carl Quintero for killing Camarena. And they got him. And they haven't even charged him with Camarena's murder. [02:12:00] Speaker B: And the politics settle in. [02:12:03] Speaker A: So basically, do you see where it's at now? Is it going to be. Is he going to be tried? I don't know. Because when people find out that he's not being charged with Camarena's murder, you're going to say, why? Where's the case on Carl Quintero killing Camarena's murder. Being Camarena's murder. Excuse me. And killing Camarena, what do you think is going to happen now? [02:12:31] Speaker B: I don't know. I think they're going to sit on that and his co conspirators until they perish. That's what they're going to do. Because once they're dead, what are you going to do? All you do is drag your feet long enough to where it never gets addressed again. I mean, his co conspirators, what, 95, four or something? I don't remember which cat's name. The other. [02:12:58] Speaker A: El Mayo Sambara, you mean? No, they're not that. They're in the 60s or 70s. You're not 90s. [02:13:03] Speaker B: Okay, I thought. I thought one of the kingpin guys. [02:13:06] Speaker A: One of the might be. But he's in Mexico. He's not here. Yeah, so what I'm. What I'm curious about is what are they going to answer to the reporters when they find out that he's not being charged with Kiki's murder? What are they going to say? We don't need to, because we already got him life. Well, wait a minute. Isn't murder, especially of a federal agent, more egregious than drug trafficking? [02:13:31] Speaker B: Why wouldn't you start with the murder? [02:13:34] Speaker A: Why is he not here in LA with the murder? [02:13:37] Speaker B: Well, it may be because they've been the ones to discredit the only witnesses that can help him and you. [02:13:44] Speaker A: Thank you. And they don't want to be exposed to that. Why? To protect who? [02:13:51] Speaker B: Themselves. The CIA is still working hard to keep all that stuff under protect killers. [02:13:57] Speaker A: Rodriguez, Oliver north and further up the Bush administration. [02:14:05] Speaker B: Do you think it got past Ali North? That's sort of a side topic. But do you. You know, obviously he swore. Hey, I kept it here. Do you think he ever reported all the way up? [02:14:14] Speaker A: I mean, was former CIA director. They were involved in all that stuff and doing the Clandestine shaping of the weapons of the Contras and the money and the drugs and all this other stuff to support the war, which was an unauthorized war by Congress. And remember, they were also under investigation by the Kerry Commission for being involved in that, and they covered it up. So it's bigger. This thing is way bigger than people realize it. Absolutely. Now I'm just wondering if Donald J. Trump finds out about it. I don't think he knows. I don't think he knows that they haven't even charged him with Hickey's murder. I wonder what he would do. Because, remember, he has no love for the CIA. [02:14:56] Speaker B: Yeah. He has no love for any of this. [02:14:58] Speaker A: Federal agencies or the FBI. He doesn't. [02:15:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, let's get it out there. Let's get it out there. I mean, all we can do is just try to promote the story, because I think justice is justice is justice, and that's really what it comes down to. And I. I do feel like the. The turmoil that you had to experience following that, your. Your family's turmoil and all the experiences that you. That have followed you is terribly unfair. And you are. We're already dealing with another injustice on your behalf. It's stacked upon Kiki's injustice. So I. I do feel like it's an important story to tell and, you know, greatly appreciative of the fact that you're willing to share it, because I know at your own risk you're having to share this stuff as well. You don't know to what degree people are going to go to in order to protect this information. But I think it's important that we know about it. [02:15:49] Speaker A: Absolutely. I honestly feel that. And I know because I've already been called by numerous reporters saying, hey, what's happened to the Camarena murder case? What's happening to the case in LA on the murder? And we've already contacted DEA and Main justice, and they don't have any answers for us. They don't. They're not going to answer. They don't know what to say. [02:16:10] Speaker B: They probably don't even know what the status is either. I mean, now you've got people that are in charge that really had nothing to do with any of that back when it was happening anyway. They have plausible deniability now. I don't know nothing. Right. [02:16:25] Speaker A: Yeah. But the warrant is still outstanding for Kiki's murder. How are they going to answer that? There's a murder warrant for Carlo Quito for Kiki's murder, and he's being tried to just on drug trafficking. Why is he not here facing the murder charge? Somebody's got to answer that somehow. [02:16:45] Speaker B: I don't know who could answer that. I mean, it's got to be somebody in the Justice Department, though, still would have an answer. Wouldn't you have the right U.S. attorney ask that question? [02:16:55] Speaker A: Remember, there's no statute of limitations for murder. Yeah. Especially of a federal agent. So the warrant is still there. They have the guy, but they're not going to charge him with it. That is where we're at, and that's what's happening right now. [02:17:10] Speaker B: Well, it's a mess, man. Do you have a plan? You have a good plan for how we get this across besides telling the story? [02:17:16] Speaker A: You know what? I am so jaded anymore with all the corruption that we see nowadays. All the corruption that I'm like. I'm like, there's so much corruption anymore that I don't trust neither party. Yeah, there are. There are. There are. There are bad folks and the deep state. It's not just in the Democratic Party nor in the Republic. They're both. It took somebody like Donald Trump to come in, who was not a politician to say, hey, folks, I'm coming in. And he came in like a bull in the China cabinet. That's why they've tried to kill him and everything else, because he's, you know, this guy basically exposed the whole deep state, the whole corruption. How do you think, for instance, DEA guys felt when we were seizing plain loads of cocaine? And I'm talking plane loads of cocaine flown by CIA pilots, and we're told to let the pilot go and let the CO give. Give them back their cocaine, but yet they're considering go arrest some. Anybody idiot down there for 10 ounces and put him away for 15, 20 years. And these guys are bringing in tons. How could you do your job after that? How could I do my job? And I'm talking back when I was today, 30 years ago. Yeah. And it's gotten worse. [02:18:44] Speaker B: Yep, it is worse. [02:18:46] Speaker A: And I see the corruption now, and I'm like, what, you don't know what to believe? Oh, Charlie Kirk just got shot. The Mossad was behind it. What? Why would the Mossad want to kill Charlie Kirk? Well, no, it wasn't the Mossad. It was some other conspiracy theorists thrown out there. You don't know what to believe anymore. [02:19:07] Speaker B: Right. You know, and that's what you're up against, too, is you're. Now that they've. They've tried to discredit you, then you sound like a conspiracy Theorist coming forward. But you're just telling a firsthand account, and that's what we need to make clear. This is. This is an experience that you have firsthand. This isn't. I've. I've heard about this and heard about this and retelling somebody else's story. I mean, you were the guy inside this, and you still have the witnesses, and you were damn good at vetting your witnesses as well. These were all independent witnesses. [02:19:39] Speaker A: Right, right, right. And not only that, the way we handled it was we would get one witness, and we would basically segregate them, where, when we got the second witness, they didn't even know that he was here. They couldn't compare. In other words, they were all segregated so that we could get the pure truth. Because, you know, when one witnesses, like, there was a. When they killed those two Americans, said, I'll never forget it. They killed those two Americans at the restaurant Carol Quintero and the folks. They killed two Americans at the Langosta restaurant. And one witness tells me that Ruben Zuno, Arcy was there. Ruben Zuno, arson, being the owner of the house, Waikiki, was interrogated. Interrogated, tortured and murdered. And he said he was there, too, when they killed those two Americans. And one of the witnesses says, I remember him being there, and he was the only one wearing, like, a suit, but it wasn't a suit. He was wearing a blue sports jacket. Write it down. Okay. A year later, he comes, another witness that was there, and he says, yeah, Ruben Zuno was there. And I remembered. What was he wearing? Kind of like a sports jacket. It was blue. I mean, two. Two people that haven't talked that come in a year later after each other, and, you know, they were at the same, let's say, party or whatever, and they even say who was there and how they were dressed. So it's like this. When I first brought the first witness, and they told me that this guy, Max Gomez, was involved in interrogating Kiki, at first, you don't know whether to believe it or not. But then when you have another witness comes in and tells you the same story that this guy was involved in interrogating Camarena, you got to tell yourself, wait a minute. It's like this. If I say, if we send an astronaut to the moon and he tells us that they're extraterrestrials, they're four foot tall, they're green, and they have three fingers. And then a year later, you send another one. He says, yeah, I saw the extraterrestrial. And he was 4 foot and it was green and had three fingers. You're going to say they got to be extraterrestrial in the moon because they know. [02:21:47] Speaker B: Yeah. If the first one hadn't made it public, of course. [02:21:49] Speaker A: Thank you. Exactly. So that's the way it was, the Camareta case. I mean, this is how we were able to distinguish by asking them different questions, like, as you know, they mean anything, like what was the guy wearing, what food was being served there, what mariachi group was playing there, what songs were, what was the atmosphere like. And when you have people that were there that say basically the same thing, you got to they're telling the truth. [02:22:15] Speaker B: Easy to distinguish. Exactly. [02:22:18] Speaker A: My take is this, very simple. I brought in three witnesses that were present and saw who interrogated Camerana. And not only did they saw who interrogated him, saw how they tortured him, who tortured him, how they water bordered him, and also basically could tell me what Camarena was asked. Okay, three, not one, not two, Three witnesses that were there when came arena was tortured and murdered. They, meaning the government says, well, they're not credible. Why can you say they're not credible? Have you got one that was there? [02:23:07] Speaker B: Just one with counter information? [02:23:09] Speaker A: They will give counter information and say different than what the three that corroborate each other said. So how can you say these guys are not credible? [02:23:19] Speaker B: Yeah, and they're all going to be bad guys, you know, so that's a cop out too. When people say, well, these guys are criminals too. Well, those are the only witnesses were other criminals. [02:23:30] Speaker A: So you're an investigator and I'm an investigator. And you tell me, Hector, how do you know those three guys are telling the truth? I'm going to say, have you got one that was also there that you know 100% that's telling you something different. And you tell me no, then how can you accuse these guys of lying? You can't. [02:23:49] Speaker B: Because even if they conspired, you're talking about going so deep and thorough into your questioning that they couldn't have possibly thought to conspire and come up with these. But they didn't even know one another were even talking to you. [02:24:02] Speaker A: Right. And here's another thing. The DEA wasn't just the only ones that interrogated these witnesses. You had top level AUSAs talking to them without us. Sometimes AUSA was bringing in, I get him ready, I gotta get him ready for court. So it wasn't just us. And you saw Manny Medrano, the prosecutor on the last arc. He says, I spent hours interrogating these guys? I asked them. Basically, upside down, everything. Yeah. So not depending on our reports and not even depending on what we were saying. They had our report, but then they had them in person. Yeah. [02:24:45] Speaker B: It's not a hunch. But then those guys aren't. Those guys got silenced. [02:24:50] Speaker A: Exactly. [02:24:51] Speaker B: So. Yeah. [02:24:52] Speaker A: So now they're saying, okay, well, don't put on the last dog, because those witnesses. Incredible thinking that Caro Quintero was never going to be brought over here. Now, what have they got? What have they got? [02:25:08] Speaker B: They got Quintero, but they don't have a case, apparently. [02:25:11] Speaker A: No. Because you are defense attorney. What are you going to ask the dea? Okay. Didn't you call over there and tell them that this was incredible? So now I'm supposed to believe that now you're going to say that. That they're credible to justify. They ruined the case? [02:25:29] Speaker B: I think. Yeah. I. I absolutely support. Oh, I'm gonna make a mess. I absolutely support your. Your story. I've got the book here. I've dug into the book. It's a. It's a great documentary, but obviously you got to get the book, too. I'm gonna get. [02:25:45] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. The book is more detailed and I. [02:25:47] Speaker B: Expect the signature from this today. [02:25:49] Speaker A: Okay. [02:25:50] Speaker B: I got. I got a little something for you, too. Just being a brother and investing time to come out here. I really appreciate it. [02:25:59] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [02:25:59] Speaker B: Don't get all excited about the Nordstrom bag. Has nothing to do with Nordstrom. That's all from my wife. [02:26:05] Speaker A: That's from your wife. Okay. Well, thank you. [02:26:08] Speaker B: You know. [02:26:09] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [02:26:10] Speaker B: It's a little Blackland whiskey from Texas with some Texas grasses, if you like. If you like bourbon and, you know, just a little tip of the hat to you and then copy of my book if you ever get bored enough to read. [02:26:23] Speaker A: Okay. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'll read your book, Petersen. [02:26:26] Speaker B: Absolutely honored to have you here, man. You're just a wealth of information and the fact that you're willing to come share this stuff is just amazing. So anything I can ever do for you, I'm. I'm more than happy to. You know how to reach me now, so. [02:26:38] Speaker A: Okay. [02:26:38] Speaker B: If there's anything I can do. [02:26:39] Speaker A: Really pleasure, you know, talking to you and meeting you, it's great. And like I said, I mean, I don't know what's gonna happen, but we gotta get the story out. We gotta let people know that, hey, there's corruption out there, man. [02:26:54] Speaker B: I'm really appreciative of you being here. [02:26:56] Speaker A: Thank you for having me? [02:26:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:26:57] Speaker A: Thank you so much. [02:26:57] Speaker B: I can do, brother. [02:26:58] Speaker A: Okay. Thank you. [02:27:01] Speaker B: What's it take? What you gonna do? What you're gonna do? Success around the sandbox the second grade. [02:27:09] Speaker A: Rules. [02:27:11] Speaker B: A confident fake to make you do make you do what they want when they won't pay the fool A diplomatic bas is the one to see it through don't let those bigots take you off your game or just a lot of moves Just sit here in the front seat, Baby, ain't that sweet? Take a little honey from the money bee but don't pay the fool. [02:27:43] Speaker A: An. [02:27:43] Speaker B: Apolitical magical potion A missing piece at the end of the game A slow roll See the truth of soul motion never found in 60 frames like five winding motion the truth lies between blurry lines if you're gonna call me back.