Now, when you have a chance, I want you to take a look at the barrels behind me.

There are,300 barrels filled with precursors to methampetamin.

It will take 241 18 wheelers to take these precursors to a storage facility in a safe location.

We’re talking 2418 Wheelers, 1,300 barrels, and a cool half a billion dollars in poison that was headed straight for American streets.

But this was no ordinary drug bust.

This was something that had never ever been pulled off in US history.

And what happened next completely rewrote the playbook.

This was the seizure that changed everything.

Just imagine 24 big rigs all lined up, all set to haul 1,300 barrels of chemicals.

And not just any chemicals, but the literal building blocks for a methueled nightmare designed to flood every street in America and tear apart countless lives and families.

Now, this isn’t some scene out of a blockbuster movie.

This is the real deal.

And what you’re about to hear is one of the biggest wins in America’s long, messy war against the drug cartels.

On a day that will go down as a major turning point in the whole trafficking fight, the US attorney and a bunch of federal law enforcement bigwigs held a press conference at the Port of Houston to announce something wild, something that was a total first, something that fired a warning shot so loud and clear that drug cartels all over the world could hear it.

The message was simple.

America is done playing defense.

Thank you all for coming out today.

We think that this is a very important issue and I flew down from Washington uh because I think that this is so significant.

Every day tons of chemicals that are used to create synthetic drugs like methampetamin and fentanyl are shipped from China to Mexico in China’s undeclared war against America and her citizens.

Federal agents intercepted two massive shipments making their way across the ocean.

These weren’t a couple of packages tucked away in a suitcase.

These were full-scale industrial operations like meth and fentanyl are being shipped out.

And here’s where the story gets even crazier.

If those chemicals had actually reached their destination and landed in the hands of the Sinaloa cartel, they would have been turned into something way, way deadlier.

The math on this is just terrifying.

These precursors would have been used to cook up 420,000 lbs of methamphetamine.

£420,000.

Just let that sink in.

What does that even look like in street terms? In Houston alone, the street value would have been $569 million.

And that number would have just climbed higher as it moved up the east coast to places like New York City.

We are talking about over half a billion dollars of poison that from China to Mexico in what’s basically China’s undeclared war on America and its people.

Let me break down exactly what we’re looking at here because the numbers are absolutely nuts.

The journey these chemicals took tells a story that’s become depressingly familiar in this whole drug crisis.

The starting point was Shanghai, China, and the drop off point was Mexico.

This is the super highway that’s been fueling America’s addiction nightmare, a pipeline stretching from Chinese chemical plants across the Pacific and into Mexico before finally bleeding out into communities all across the United States.

But what makes this bust so radically different from every other one? What makes this a real turning point and not just another blip on the news radar? The answer is a historic little label that changed the rules of engagement for good.

Now, the labs that were under construction that were being used to integrate these uh uh chemicals to make the methamphetamine were under the geographical control of the Sinaloa cartels.

Because President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have declared the Sinaloa cartel a foreign terrorist organization.

It gives all of us in law enforcement the ability to move quicker and to seize quicker.

This was completely unprecedented.

By officially labeling the Sinaloa cartel a foreign terrorist organization or FTO, law enforcement suddenly got a whole new set of powers and the implications are absolutely massive.

The moment you call an organization a terrorist group, everything changes.

The legal rule book gets a rewrite, the ability to seize their stuff expands like crazy, and the speed at which law enforcement can operate kicks into overdrive.

Let me spell out what this means in the real world.

Under this FTO designation, the authorities can now grab any property linked to these guys anywhere on the planet.

Not just inside US borders, not just on our turf, but anywhere on the globe.

This is the kind of weapon that doesn’t just change the game, it completely flips the board.

Because let’s be real, cartels operate internationally.

They hide their money in different countries and use complicated financial webs that span continents.

Well, the FTO designation just cuts through all that nonsense.

And here’s the part that should feel like a little bit of justice for everyone who’s been affected by this drug plague.

Anyone caught working with these cartels, whether they play dumb or not, if they know they’re helping out, they are now providing material support to terrorism.

It’s not just a drug offense anymore.

It’s a terrorism charge and the punishment fits that crime.

The Sinaloa cartel isn’t just another criminal gang.

These guys aren’t just drug dealers.

They are one of the biggest fentanyl producers and traffickers in the world and they use murder, kidnapping, torture, and extreme violence as just another part of their business plan.

These guys are terrorists in every sense of the word.

They terrorize communities.

They destroy families.

And they leave a trail of bodies behind them.

And let’s be real, for way too long, these guys were basically operating with a free pass, playing games with international law and jurisdictional loopholes.

So when the US attorney stood in front of those 1,300 barrels at the Port of Houston, she dropped a line that really gets to the punchline of this whole thing.

2418 Wheelers, just picture that.

That’s not your average drug bust.

That’s shutting down a full-blown industrial operation.

That’s yanking the plug on a supply chain that would have been mainlining destruction into American communities for months, possibly even years.

The sheer scale of this stop is almost hard to wrap your head around.

And let’s be real, for way too long, these guys were basically operating with a free pass, playing games with international law and jurisdictional loopholes.

So when the US attorney stood in front of those 1,300 barrels at the Port of Houston, she dropped a line that just chew on that for a second.

Not one ton total, one ton every single week.

That’s 2,000 pounds of poison flooding into neighborhoods every seven days.

Now start multiplying that over a few months and you start to grasp the absolute catastrophe these chemicals were about to unleash.

But this seizure did something else that was a total gamecher.

It stopped the planned drug labs from ever opening for business.

I mean those labs were being built.

Money was already sunk.

Infrastructure was going up.

Supply lines were all mapped out.

And now poof, the whole enterprise is dead in the water.

The financial haymaker the cartel just took is massive.

But way more important is the immeasurable human tragedy that was prevented.

The US attorney then said something else that should stick with everyone watching this.

And before you leave, I want to make sure that you look at those 1300 barrels.

And I want you to have a visual of dead Americans instead of where those barrels are because that’s just chew on that for a second.

Not one ton total, one ton every single week.

That’s 2,000 lbs of poison flooding into neighborhoods every 7 days.

Now start multiplying that over a few months unless you really get into the nuts and bolts.

The Sinaloa cartel labs they were building to process these chemicals.

They were set up to crank out more than one ton of meth a week.

Dead Americans.

That’s not just talk.

She wasn’t exaggerating for effect.

In the past few years, the death toll from this stuff in America has exploded to more than 100,000 casualties every year.

100,000 Americans die annually from drugs.

That’s more than we lost in the entire Vietnam War, happening year after year.

And a huge chunk of that number can be traced right back to operations just like the one they shut down at the Port of Houston.

Every single funeral, every family shattered, every kid left without a parent, every parent who has to bury their own child, working hand glove with manufacturers in China.

This wasn’t a lucky break.

They didn’t just stumble onto this shipment by accident.

This was the result of some seriously next level intelligence work.

Insane coordination across a bunch of agencies.

And so, how’d they do it? Let’s get into the mechanics behind the seizure.

So, how exactly did law enforcement pull off what’s being called the single largest seizure of precursor chemicals in the history of the United States? How do you even intercept massive shipments sailing across the ocean from China to Mexico? How do you ID, track, and ultimately snatch 1,300 barrels of chemicals before they end up in cartel run labs? The answer pulls back the curtain on a level of sophistication and teamwork that marks a whole new chapter in America’s fight against narot trafficking.

And it all revolves around something called Operation Hydra.

I also want to thank Customs and Border Protection for hosting us today, as well as all the other law enforcement partner agencies that were involved in this seizure.

the FBI, the DEA, the Department of Defense Joint Inter Agency Task Force, US Northcom, as well as the Texas National.

It all leads back to shipments like these to organizations like the Sinaloa Cartel, and to this undeclared war being waged on American citizens by foreign criminal corporations, the Department of Defense, US Northcom, and the Texas National Guard.

This wasn’t one agency going it alone.

This was a coordinated multi- agency super team and get a load of the guest list, the FBI, the DEA, Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security investigations.

It’s a pretty brilliant strategy when you think about it.

Traditional enforcement is all about chasing the finished product, seizing the cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, or meth times after asterisk.

It’s already been cooked up and is being moved or sold.

But Operation Hydra completely flips that script.

Instead of waiting for the bad stuff to be made, and then trying to play catch-up, Operation Hydra targets the chemical precursors, the raw ingredients you need to even start the recipe.

So, why is this so insanely effective? It all comes down to the multiplier effect that brought together the best minds from across the federal government and state military forces.

But what makes Operation Hydra so radically different from your standard drug bust? You’ve completely sabotaged an entire production pipeline.

You’ve sent the cartels scrambling for new suppliers, new shipping routes, new pop-up labs.

The two shipments they nabbed in this operation came from the very same vendor in China and were headed straight for the Sinaloa cartel.

Just think about the intel work it took to make that connection.

Someone had to ID the Chinese manufacturer.

Someone had to follow the money.

Someone had to watch the shipping logistics.

And someone had to definitively link it all to the Sinaloa cartel.

When you seize a finished product, you’ve taken that specific amount off the board.

But when you seize the precursor chemicals, you’ve stopped multiple tons of drugs from ever even existing and some serious brain power on crossber trade to flag these packages before they landed in the wrong hands.

And when I say sophisticated, that’s putting it mildly.

We’re talking about sifting through mountains of shipping data, playing follow the money across the globe and basically listening in on some very interesting communications and their labs that were under construction in Mexico.

Under Operation Hydra, HSI unleashed sophisticated analytical tools and a whole slew of advanced investigative techniques.

Now, this is where that FTO designation became the absolute key to this whole operation success.

For the very first time, a seizure warrant was handed down using the laws against providing material support to terrorists, all while buddying up with international spies to solve a giant jigsaw puzzle where the bad guys are actively trying to burn the pieces.

And the fallout from this should be giving cartels and anyone on their payroll some serious night sweats.

Under title 18 USC2339B, the material support of terrorism statute, anyone caught helping these newly labeled terrorist groups is looking at some major league federal heat.

Getting busted for drug running is bad.

Sure, you’ll be away for a while.

But getting hit with a charge for helping terrorists, that’s a whole different ballgame.

The penalties are way worse.

The number of agents digging into your life multiplies.

The spotlight gets blindingly bright.

And here’s the best part.

Their legal reach to grab you expands across the globe.

This executive action completely rewrote the rules of the game.

The power to get warrants under terrorism laws was only on the table because of that executive order that officially slapped the foreign terrorist organization label on the bigname drug cartels.

Without that piece of paper, law enforcement would have been stuck using their old drug busting toolkit strong for sure, but with some serious handcuffs on what they could do.

All right, now let’s get into the operational headache of actually grabbing these chemicals.

This wasn’t some simple raid on a warehouse in Texas.

Oh no.

The authorities snatched both of these shipments right out on the open ocean, which means they were intercepted while cruising through international waters.

That takes Navy ships, boarding teams, and a whole army of lawyers to navigate the wacky world of maritime law, not to mention the ability to safely handle and move massive amounts of hazardous chemicals.

After they got the goods, HSI International teamed up with their law enforcement buddies from other countries to get everything together in Panama and then reroute it all to the port of Houston.

Just think about the logistics for a second.

You’ve just pulled off two huge heists on the high seas.

Now you have to consolidate it all at a secure spot in Panama.

Get the Panameanian authorities on board.

Book a ride to Houston and make sure the evidence’s chain of custody is spotless for the lawyers.

All while playing with chemicals that are, let’s just say, extremely unfriendly in the wrong hands.

HSI agents in Guatemala, Panama, and Mexico were giving major backup to the main homeland security investigation team in Houston this entire time.

This is what real international teamwork looks like in action.

You’ve got American agents coordinating with their counterparts in multiple countries, sharing secrets, keeping tabs on suspects, tracking packages, and ultimately pulling it all together for a successful takedown.

The Houston Galveastston Seapport area is just massive.

It’s one of the most chaotic port complexes in the United States.

Thousands upon thousands of shipping containers are rolling through there every single day.

Finding two specific shipments packed with precursor chemicals in that ocean of legitimate trade takes some next level detective work and seriously fancy technology.

All those barrels of chemical goodies were directly linked to one of the most dangerous and deadliest networks out there, the Sinaloa cartel.

And just so we’re all crystal clear about who we’re dealing with here, the Sinaloa Cartel isn’t some friendly neighborhood operation.

They’re one of the most vicious and ruthless terrorist organizations on the planet.

They’ve cooked up and shipped out record amounts of product worldwide, leaving a wake of countless deaths, devastation, and wrecked communities in the United States and beyond.

This operation really drives home a critical point.

This seizure is one of the biggest of its kind in history.

And it shines a massive spotlight on the vital role of inter agency collaboration and sharing intelligence when you’re fighting threats from drug trafficking organizations and terrorist groups.

Inter agency collaboration.

I know the phrase sounds incredibly bureaucratic, but what it really means is getting people from different government tribes, often with totally different cultures, priorities, and rulebooks, to somehow work together perfectly toward one single goal.

And when that collaboration clicks, like it clearly did in this operation, the results pretty much speak for themselves.

You’ve got to call these people what they are, heroes.

We’re talking about people willing to put their lives on the line, work insane hours, analyze intelligence, coordinate with foreign partners, and execute full-blown operations on the high seas.

All to keep that poison from ever reaching American streets.

They deserve a medal, a raise, and a whole lot more firepower to keep this crazy fight going.

So, how exactly do Elmano and his crew walts right through America’s defenses? You know, there’s this one nagging question that pops up every time the good guys score a win, a big bust, a massive seizure.

It’s the question that keeps cops up at night, but they’d rather not talk about it in polite company because the answer is just plain ugly.

It’s a simple one, really.

How in the world do they keep pulling it off? How are these guys moving literal tons of product across borders that are supposed to be locked down tight? How do they get these giant shipments past all the fancy gadgets and eagle-eyed agents at our ports? How are they always playing chess while law enforcement seems to be playing checkers, dodging operations that should have put them out of business years ago? And hey, the answer isn’t just that they’re master smugglers or that they have secret tunnels and uncrackable codes.

Nope.

The real secret sauce is way darker and hits right where it hurts our national security.

The answer, my friends, is good old-fashioned corruption.

It’s a calculated, brutally effective kind of corruption that flips the script, turning our protectors into partners in crime.

And let me tell you, nobody has perfected this particular brand of evil kite.

Like a guy named Nessio Oera Cvantes.

You probably know him as Eleno, the top dog of the Halisco New Generation Cartel or CJNG.

Now, while the Sinaloa crew has been hogging the spotlight, even getting that fancy foreign terrorist label, Elmeno’s CJNG has been in the background quietly and sometimes, you know, not so quietly piecing together what might just be the most terrifying drug empire on this side of the planet.

They deserve a medal, a raise, and a whole lot more firepower to keep this crazy fight going.

It’s a calculated, brutally effective kind of corruption that flips the script, turning our protectors into partners in crime.

And let me tell you, nobody has perfected this particular brand of evil and about the systems they build.

Everybody’s got a number, and every wall has a crack.

The way the CJNG handles corruption isn’t just bribery.

It’s a full-blown military operation.

They’re not just slipping cash to some random cop on the fly.

Oh, no.

They run a whole HR department for this stuff.

They scout, target, recruit, and then manage assets in law enforcement, government.

Even though his organization cranks out meth and fentinol like it’s a factory assembly line.

No, he built his kingdom by grasping a simple ugly truth about people.

So, this isn’t your garden variety corruption, a little cash under the table here and there.

This is building a whole secret government, a parasite living inside the real one, and basically anyone with a pulse who could be useful to the company.

Let’s break down what this looks like on the ground.

Say the Sinaloa cartel is bringing in a shipment of ingredients from China.

They need a customs agent who suddenly has to take a long bathroom break.

Then when it’s on the road to their labs, they need local cops who decide to be busy somewhere else when the finished product is heading for the US border.

Yep, you guessed it.

They need a friendly face at the border to give them a green light or at the very least a heads up about any party crashers so they can take a detour.

Every single step in that chain is a chance for the good guys to stop them and well, a chance for the bad guys to buy a friend.

And boy, has Elmeno’s crew gotten really, really good at exploiting those chances.

Now, let’s talk about the US Mexico border, which is supposed to be the fortress, the front line in this whole war.

We’re talking heavily fortified, watched like a hawk, and staffed by thousands of dedicated pros.

Customs and border protection has all the cool toys, giant X-ray machines, super sniffer dogs, fancy biometric scanners, and brainy software that crunches all the data, all there for one reason, to catch the bad guys.

And yet, tons of product still sails right on through every single day.

So, how? Well, here’s the part nobody likes to talk about.

The cartels have got people on the payroll.

We’re talking agents, officers, and officials on both sides of that line.

It’s not always some big movie scene where an agent is driving the truck himself.

Although that definitely happens more often, it’s a lot more subtle.

It’s the guy on the inside who passes along a little tip, a little heads up about where the patrols are going to be, who can spot the weak links and security protocols, or who, you know, just happen to look the other way at exactly the right time.

Their recruitment game is sharp and absolutely brutal.

The cartels are experts at finding your pressure points.

Whether it’s money problems, family drama, or some skeleton in your closet, and believe me, they will squeeze without mercy.

Sometimes it’s the classic financial pitch offers of cash that sound like a lottery win to folks holding down government jobs that barely pay the bills.

An agent pulling in $60,000 a year might get a little whisper about $10,000, $20,000, or even a cool $50,000 for one tiny favor.

For somebody drowning in debt, staring down medical bills, or just trying to keep their family afloat, that kind of money looks like a godsend.

But cash is just one trick in their playbook.

Frankly, fear is often a better motivator.

The cartels will do their homework on an agent’s family, their kids, their spouse, their parents.

Then they’ll casually let it be known that they have this little dossier.

They’ll put on a little show, sometimes subtle, sometimes not so much, just to prove they can and will bring harm to those loved ones.

If the agent gets any bright ideas about not cooperating, all of a sudden an agent isn’t weighing right versus wrong, they’re choosing between upholding the law and keeping their child safe.

That’s a decision most people aren’t built for.

And the second an agent is on the hook, either by cash or by fear, the cartel owns them.

They can start asking for bigger favors, threaten to blow the agents cover, or just keep the cycle of payments and threats rolling.

The agent is completely stuck with no way out that doesn’t end in a prison sentence, a ruined career, and a very real possibility of danger to them and their entire family.

Look, when we’re talking about cartel corruption, this isn’t about some petty cash skimming or a few bad apples.

We are talking about enterprises that are moving billions.

Yes, that’s billions with a B.

The profits from their main product line are so mind-bogglingly huge that the cartels can drop hundreds of millions of dollars a year on operational expenses and still rake in insane amounts of cash.

Just do the simple math.

If a cartel is pushing $10 billion worth of product into the US each year, they can easily budget $1 billion for their corruption fund that covers bribes, payoffs, protection money, recruitment, and the whole support system for their criminal machine.

And they still walk away with a clean $9 billion in profit.

And that’s not even counting their side hustles like human smuggling, extortion, kidnapping, and the portfolio of legitimate businesses they use as fronts.

That kind of money buys a whole lot of friends.

It buys the silence of anyone who might talk.

It buys a heads up before law enforcement kicks down a door.

It buys intel on what the competition is up to.

It buys political clout and protection.

And this is the really scary part.

It buys a mask of legitimacy, letting these operations hide in plain sight behind what look like normal businesses and the officials they have on their payroll.

The moneyaundering schemes these guys run are more sophisticated than you can possibly imagine.

Yes, that’s billions with a B.

The profits from their main product line are so mind-bogglingly huge that the cartels can drop hundreds of millions of dollars a year on operational expenses and still rake in insane amounts of cash, crypto transactions, real estate portfolios, and everyday businesses that are just there to scrub the dirty money clean that covers bribes, payoffs, protection money, recruitment, and the whole support system for their criminal machine.

And they still walk away with a clean $9 billion in profit.

The agent is completely stuck with no way out that doesn’t end in a prison sentence, a ruined career, and a very real possibility of danger to them and their entire family.

Hide and sanitize billions of dollars from their illicit business.

Now, what really sets Eleno CJNG apart is their enthusiasm for using extreme violence, not just on their rivals.

And these schemes need help from bankers, accountants, lawyers, and business owners.

Some of them jump right in, tempted by the ridiculous fees the but as a core business tool for corruption and control.

While the Sinaloa cartel often tried to fly under the radar, using their established connections and avoiding direct throwdowns with the Mexican military, they’ve knocked military helicopters out of the sky.

And they’ve gone toe-to-toe with state and federal authorities in gunfights that look more like actual warfare than a crime scene.

This over-the-top violence is a multi-tool for them.

It’s a power move that flexes the cartel’s muscle, terrifies anyone thinking of opposing them, and sends a crystal clear memo to potential recruits inside the government.

Either you’re with us or you’re against us and you really don’t want to be against us.

The rise of CJNG has been absolutely explosive.

In less than 10 years, they went from being a small-time crew to one of the most dominant global trafficking organizations with a footprint across Mexico that stretches into the United States, South America, Europe, and Asia.

It’s a real comforting thought to believe that cartel corruption is strictly a Mexico problem, that American law enforcement is somehow magically immune to the same tricks that have worked so darn well south of the border.

But that kind of comfort is a dangerous fantasy.

The cartels have had no trouble recruiting American citizens.

We’re talking Border Patrol agents, customs officers, local cops, and even big shots in positions of serious power.

These cases, when they finally surface, are just shocking in their sheer nerve.

Agents using their badges to just wave drug shipments right through checkpoints, officers feeding them intel on upcoming raids, and officials taking fat stacks of cash to help them wash their dirty money.

But for every single case that sees the light of day, you have to wonder how many are still in the shadows.

How many dirty officials are still on the job completely undetected, feeding priceless information and help to these criminal empires? Cops will tell you off the record that they’re probably only catching a tiny fraction of the compromised people.

And that thought alone should keep you up at night.

The cartels getting their hooks into American law enforcement isn’t just about a few bad apples.

It’s a full-blown threat to our national security.

When the very people paid to protect our borders, uphold our laws, and take on organized crime are actually moonlighting for the criminals, the entire system is a joke.

Intelligence gets leaked, operations are sabotaged, cases fall apart because evidence just up and vanishes or witnesses suddenly get amnesia, and the drugs just keep pouring over the border like it’s nothing.

So, what’s the play? How do you possibly fight an enemy that’s ready to throw billions of dollars around to buy the very people supposed to be stopping them? How do you shield agents and officers from the one to two punch of a briefcase full of cash and a threat against their family? There are no silver bullets here, but a few ideas have some promise.

We’re talking more intense background checks, keeping a closer eye on the finances of agents in key spots, and psych evaluations to spot the weak points before the cartels do.

Look, this isn’t about not trusting our men and women in uniform.

The overwhelming majority are straight arrows.

This is about protecting them and the whole mission by plugging the holes before the ship sinks.

One genius way to make folks less vulnerable to a bribe is to pay them a salary that actually matches the insane dangers they face and the importance of their job.

An agent who isn’t worried about making rent is a whole lot less likely to be tempted by a duffel bag of money.

By that same token, giving real support to agents dealing with stress or personal drama can patch up those psychological holes.

If cartels start using agents families as a bargaining chip, then law enforcement has to be able to protect those families, no questions asked.

Solid protection programs can take one of the cartel’s favorite and nastiest tools right off the table.

Anyone caught working with the cartels needs to face the absolute toughest consequences imaginable.

And that doesn’t just mean the agent who flipped, but the entire network that helped them do it.

By using terrorism laws, which is now on the table since they’ve been labeled foreign terrorist groups, you can bring way heavier penalties than your typical corruption charges.

Corruption doesn’t care about borders, and our fight against it can’t either.

We need tighter teamwork between US and Mexican law enforcement, sharing intel on who’s been bought, and hitting the financial networks that fund this whole mess with coordinated strikes.

Think high-tech surveillance systems, using blockchain to track shipments so they can’t be lost, and using AI to analyze data for patterns that scream corruption.

Technology can be the secret weapon that helps spot and stop the rot that might otherwise go completely unnoticed.

Every huge drug bust, every successful hit on a cartel cell is a win for sure.

But for every victory, we have to ask how many other shipments slipped right through because somebody was on the cartel’s payroll.

How much inside info was leaked? How many raids were a total bust because the cartels got a friendly heads up? Thanks for tuning in.

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