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150 min read · 30,227 words- 0:00 – 1:02
Ed Calderon’s work: surviving “non-permissive environments”
- JRJoe Rogan
Boom, boom, boom, boom. Boom. What's up, Ed? How are you, man?
- ECEd Calderon
Great.
- JRJoe Rogan
Thanks for coming here, man. I appreciate it.
- ECEd Calderon
Thank you for extending the invitation.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I love your Instagram. It's very in- it's very informational and, uh, well, tell everybody what you do so people get a, a handle on this first.
- ECEd Calderon
Yes. Um, uh, I'm a non-permissive environments specialist. Basically, I teach people how to live, move, and travel in places where they probably shouldn't be traveling.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- ECEd Calderon
Um, you know, how to get out of handcuffs, how to get out of zip ties. Um, and, uh, you know, I show people how to survive in s- such environments. Uh, my background is in law enforcement in Mexico, so, you know, I spent a lot of time down there.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
And, um, over the years, that's kind of led me into teaching myself how to survive in that environment. And, uh, apparently, after a while, that, uh, made me kind of, uh, sought after as far as teaching other people how to survive in such environments. So I've been doing that, uh, uh, for a while here in the US to military, law enforcement, civilians also.
- 1:02 – 3:58
Joining Mexican law enforcement as the cartel war ignites (2004–Calderón era)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, and you started working in law enforcement what year?
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, it's 2004, 2004, uh, north-
- JRJoe Rogan
So you started before everything got really crazy in Mexico.
- ECEd Calderon
Yes, yes. Um, so you can, you can kind of trace back where it officially kicked off, uh, by the, uh, the start of the, uh, Felipe Calderon's presidency, which is the, uh, uh, the second to last president we had. Uh, he basically said, you know, full on war against the cartels. Um, and by that time, I was kind of just, uh, getting done with my training, um, in northern Mexico as a, uh, police officer. And what I thought was gonna be, you know, community policing and stuff like that turned into a full on, you know, "Here's an assault rifle and just go climb up on that Humvee with those military guys and let's go arrest cartel members."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, Jesus Christ. So you thought you were just getting a regular law enforcement gig?
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, yeah. I mean, (laughs) realistically there was no such sort of kind of job description. This was post 9/11. I was actually in med school and that, uh, the economy and all over the border with the, uh, tightened security and stuff like that kind of went down, you know, down the drain. And most of, uh, most of the money that I was using for med school, you know, went away. And, uh, you know, ad in the newspaper, young unmarried individuals that don't have any kids, y- you're welcome to join type thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. Young unmarried individuals with no kids. They want that specifically.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, that was, uh, probably a big alarm bells sort of sound in my head, but the, uh, but the, but the, um, the, the, you know, there were, there weren't a lot of opportunities for somebody my age there that didn't have a career. And I thought it would be... You know, everybody said, "Don't go." You know? But-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. I would've said that. (laughs) If I was your friend I'd, I'd be like, "Ed."
- ECEd Calderon
But it was, it wa- it, to me it was a challenge. Uh, and a lot of people said I couldn't do it and I did it, and then it turned into something that wasn't what it, most, most people expected when they went into it. And it was a full on urban warfare type situation.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. So post 9/11 the borders get tightened up and the economy gets very bad in the border towns? Is that what happens because people can't get through as easily?
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, it's, uh, yeah. There's heightened security so commerce isn't, uh, as freely done on both sides. Uh, border waits that used to take an hour now would take three hours or four hours depending on the time of day. So, you know, things got affected. Um, also, you know, a worldwide recession, uh, situation kind of happened. So everything kind of went down the toilet, you know. I, I have a lot of family in the border region and all, like, most of our family businesses that, uh, that we had, you know, basically kind of tanked in that, during that time.
- JRJoe Rogan
So from 9/11 to here we are 18 years later, it's been a pretty radical change.
- ECEd Calderon
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that safe to say?
- ECEd Calderon
Yes, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like 100% change? Like what, what if you had to, like, try to describe it?
- 3:58 – 7:55
Overt cartel power and ‘look the other way’ corruption
- ECEd Calderon
So I mean, uh, basically the, uh, the, the part of the country that I had most of my experience is the Baja Sonora Juarez type region, uh, northern Mexico basically. What happened is that all the cartels started fighting for the most rich drug routes on the planet. Uh, one of them, of course, being the city of Tijuana. So the city of Tijuana is, that's the corner of Latin America. It's the most, uh, it's the most cross border, uh, on the planet. And with that, you know, there's a lot of commerce that goes on in that region. A lot of things get shipped to Tijuana and then dr- driven up into, into San Diego and a lot of people have businesses on both sides. And amongst a- among all of this, uh, movement, you know, there's a g- giant organized crime war going on and it used to be overt, like, on the streets. Uh, mid, middle of the day you would see these cartel convoys, uh, arriving at a restaurant and all the cartel guys outside with their AKs and stuff like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- ECEd Calderon
This was 2004, 2005 era. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
And what, how, what is the military or law enforcement attitude towards that? Like, how do they handle that?
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, so we go back to 2004 when I first got it started and it was look the other way.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- ECEd Calderon
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Look the other way?
- ECEd Calderon
Look the other way. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That was specific in- instruction that you got?
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, it was, uh, one of those things where I went there and I got, uh, I got a firearm. Here you go. Here's your Glock 17. Uh, here are your two magazines. Uh, here's your Mossberg, uh, 500. And, uh, you see all those, uh, cars over there? We don't, uh, ask them for anything. Let them pass. That's, you know, we don't do anything-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- ECEd Calderon
...of that nature. And then we'd see members of the military as well kind of, uh, go the other way type situation.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- ECEd Calderon
You know, 2000, this is 2004.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think that this was just to avoid conflict or w- was it because of corruption?
- ECEd Calderon
It's, it's always corruption. I mean-
- JRJoe Rogan
Always?
- ECEd Calderon
It always levels, at a- a- at all those types of levels down there during this time, there was a lot of corruption. Um, things changed, but, you know, things in, in a way in some levels are always the same.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, there was definitely some sort of pact going on, some sort of fear-based pact during that time. And...... when, uh, Felipe Calderón finally said, you know, "Enough is enough, we're gonna declare war," uh, he basically militarized a lot of the counter-narcotic efforts in Mexico. So the military went from being, you know, in their, in their, uh, bases or, uh, manning, um, stations out there to actually actively going out and looking for cartel cells and trying to eliminate them, right? Uh, so basically army on the streets type situation. And another thing he did was basically all of the police chief, a lot of the police chiefs around the country were being traded out for former military, uh, officials or f- or military guys, uh, officers. One of them was Lieutenant Colonel Eizaola. Um, I don't know if your... maybe your audiences, audience could look him up. Uh, he's a very famous lieutenant colonel from Mexico. Actually has a documentary on him called, uh, Mexico's Most, uh, uh, Bravest Man. Very pretty interesting guy. Um, he was the one that, uh, headed us up. He directed us at the start of this, these operations against the cartels. And he basically said, you know, this is, uh, this isn't a policing problem, this is a counter-insurgency problem. So we're gonna-
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- ECEd Calderon
... we're gonna militarize it basically. And after he kinda took control, everything, everything... and, and then it changed, you know. There weren't as a... the cartels weren't as vert- as they were, so they started going underground.
- JRJoe Rogan
So when you joined, you expected it to be t- regular law enforcement. When it became this counter-insurgency, militarized effort against the cartels, was there every time you... where you were like, "I gotta get the fuck out of this job."
- ECEd Calderon
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Like this is too dangerous.
- 7:55 – 11:22
Personal danger: deaths, impersonation kidnappings, and nonstop stress
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, yeah, I mean, uh, my generation, I was part of the seventh generation of p- of, uh, officers going through this, uh, this program, uh, policing. And out of my generation, the first year we had two of them in jail for corruption charges and three dead, you know, just from-
- JRJoe Rogan
Out of how many?
- ECEd Calderon
Out of, uh, 23 guys. So just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Out of 23 guys-
- ECEd Calderon
Two in jail.
- JRJoe Rogan
... five, five gone.
- ECEd Calderon
Five gone. Uh, w- two of them very dramatic. That's... two of them were kind of the origins of how I got into the whole counter-abduction type thing. Uh, two of my guys got, uh, picked up outside of a hotel in the downtown Tijuana. And, uh, by, by cartel members dressed as federal poli- police officers, the, the whole nine yards, the uniforms, the car, everything cloned. They got, uh, they got asked for their papers outside and got put into a van. They found them a day later, you know. Uh, p- p- horribly, you know, mutilated and all this type of stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Tortured.
- ECEd Calderon
Tortured. You know, and that kind of, you know, that was the... this-
- JRJoe Rogan
This is real.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. This is real and I should probably have a, you know, escape plan. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
And, uh, but it wa- it wasn't, uh... I didn't know anything else basically, so it wasn't like I had something to fall back on, so.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ECEd Calderon
And it was good pay for what it was and, yeah, but fear... that, that's when fear got, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
The stress must be insane.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. It's... you're always on, you know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, there's a... you know, we always had this thing on the, on the meeting wall, it said, "There's no vacation even when there's vacation." You know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ECEd Calderon
You would go on vacation, you would get your gun to go on vacation.
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course.
- ECEd Calderon
You know, it was pretty insane.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now have you ever been confronted or-
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Of course. I mean, there's no, there's, uh, there's no, uh... it's not, you know... I have a lot of friends that are in, uh, military up here in the US (coughs) and it's not like, um, it's not like them. They go off, uh, overseas and they, they do something in a different country with different people with... don't speak the same language. I was doing all of this in the place I grew up.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ooh.
- ECEd Calderon
Right. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
(coughs)
- ECEd Calderon
... I knew some of these people a- at times, you know. I, um... we, we... a- every now and then I would say, "Hey, I know that guy from when I was a kid," or "We were in school together and now he has a plate carrier with an AK-47 and a gold gun on his person." Right? And it's like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- 11:22 – 18:04
El Chapo: tunnels, fear-based corruption, and folk-hero status
- JRJoe Rogan
Now if everything is so corrupt down there, how does a guy like El Chapo keep getting popped?
- ECEd Calderon
Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, 'cause when I, when I saw his escape-
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... I was like, this is hilarious. The fact that this guy goes to the toilet and then he opens a door and whoop, he's in a tunnel and on an electric scooter and goes a mile, pops up on the other side-
- ECEd Calderon
(coughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... and they had everything set up for him with electricity. Like-
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, I mean, uh, you know, the, uh, I think the, the, the thing that people kinda don't understand about the corruption is it's not just corruption because people are greedy, it's al- uh, it's also fear-based corruption. So if you don't do what I say, we're gonna kill everybody in your family, even your dog. That type of thing, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ECEd Calderon
So, uh, after El Chapo got... escaped that last time, um, you know, all of the staff at the jail got, you know, put in prison. And, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?So, they were all a part of it?
- ECEd Calderon
There's rumors that they were, you know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- ECEd Calderon
Um, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Seems like somebody had to hear all that digging.
- ECEd Calderon
Of course, you know.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, it's, um, only a mile away they d-
- ECEd Calderon
Well, it was pretty-
- JRJoe Rogan
... dug the tunnel.
- ECEd Calderon
It was pretty deep.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, some, some, some things that should've been patrolled weren't patrolled. Uh, it was a pretty good, well-made tunnel for what it was.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really well-made.
- ECEd Calderon
So, a lot of the people that El Chapo actually used for these, um, tunnel operations, because, uh, he, the same people that he used for the tunnels in the border region, all the active tunnels that are somewhere, you know, along the border, uh, all of those guys were pulled in from, uh, from, uh, silver mining, uh, companies that used to operate all over Mexico. That kind of went into the toilet, so they were looking for jobs and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. Get El Chapo out is a good job. (laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
That's the ore (laughs) man, or, or drug tunnels, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
When you saw all that shit go down with Sean Penn, and Sean Penn visiting El Chapo, and Sean Penn writing an article for Rolling Stone, like-
- ECEd Calderon
Thoughts.
- JRJoe Rogan
Were you like, "What in the fuck is going on here?"
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, yes. Uh, for a lot of, b- for some reason that might not be, you know ... M- mainly was why are they giving him, uh, uh, why are they giving him this celebrity status?
- 18:04 – 19:39
Power vacuums and cartel evolution: heroin, meth, and CJNG
- JRJoe Rogan
What happened?
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, well, the main thing is a power vacuum.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ECEd Calderon
And with the power vacuum and, um, legalization on this side of certain subs- substances like, uh, uh, marijuana-... uh, the po- the, the pot fields are now poppy fields.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- ECEd Calderon
And, and new, new things like, uh, like, um, like them now dedicating themselves to heroin instead of, uh, instead of the weed was, but mysteriously there's still weed fields down there for some reason. (laughs) You know, you guys are way better at making it than-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
... anybody down there. But for some reason, there's still some weed fields.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I think it's a lot of it is access, especially in the states where it's prohibited.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just, they're probably more willing to get it to the people.
- ECEd Calderon
That's probably it. Uh, meth, uh, meth precursors being brought in from China and, uh, to Mexico are now being made in Mexico.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ECEd Calderon
Like industrial-level stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ECEd Calderon
And a new up- a new upsurging cartel down there that is trying to overtake the Sinaloa cartel, uh, the New Generation cartel. Uh, it, uh, is coming out of Guadalajara, and they're kind of really militarized kind of wing of cartel activities that are trying to, you know, take control over the whole thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
What is the plan in terms of the government? I mean, if they, if they can take out a guy like El Chapo, what is the plans to eradicate all this? And is there really a plan to eradicate it or is it one of those things where it's sort of a plan on paper but realistically they sort of accept the fact they're never gonna get rid of these people?
- 19:39 – 22:49
Mexico’s ‘six-year amnesia’ and the whiplash of cartel policy
- ECEd Calderon
So, uh, I have a, like, I have a thing, like, that, like, basically, uh, Quetzal- Quetzalcoatl was a feathered serpent, and I have a image of a feathered serpent biting its tail. Mexico has a problem with amnesia, a six-year cycle of amnesia. Every president comes in, has all these plans to eradicate the cartels. President goes out, nobody likes him anymore, new guy comes in and says, "Well, I have a better plan." You know? And that's the cycle we always go through. Yeah, well-
- JRJoe Rogan
So it's a big issue in Mexico.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. And current, currently we have a leftist president that doesn't want to have anything to do with the past, uh, administrations that are more on the right of the spectrum.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ECEd Calderon
His name is Andrés Manuel López Obrador, AMLO. Uh, vocally supporting Venezuela.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- ECEd Calderon
Tha- that, that type of guy. Apparently he has a good relationship with, uh, with Trump. Uh, that's, that's what people say. Uh, but his whole thing was amnesty for the cartels as a campaign promise.
- JRJoe Rogan
Amnesty?
- ECEd Calderon
Yes. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
What does that mean?
- ECEd Calderon
Exactly. Nobody knows what that means. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
But that's what he was saying?
- ECEd Calderon
That was-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did he have a plan for this amnesty or is it just, like, uh, a statement?
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, it was a statement, and now y- if you see d- uh, counter narcotics operations throughout the country, they've, uh, the military is not as active as it used to be.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, some of the cartels are growing in influence, um...
- JRJoe Rogan
Because of amnesty?
- ECEd Calderon
Could be. You know? Uh, it basically, I don't see the efforts that were there, uh, when I was active down there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, geez.
- ECEd Calderon
Things change, you know? So I don't know. I, I, uh, I, I, I truly think that the upsur- because we're, we're on route of be- to, to having the most violent year in Mexico as far as, uh, car- cartel-related deaths, right? Um, when I got out, Tijuana had been on the top most dangerous cities on the planet list. And I actually worked there when it was on the top. And through efforts both b- for the, from the government and, and through people like, uh, Lieutenant Colonel Lay Zavola, uh, Tijuana w- was gone off the list of most dangerous, uh, uh, cities in the world. And now it's again at number one. Right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, you sent me that. I was pretty shocked 'cause you don't hear about that here.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, it's, uh, six murders a, a night, you know? I was down there, uh, two days ago and it was... It's, uh, basically cartel on cartel, so they're cleaning each other out and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, geez.
- ECEd Calderon
... just bodies appear i- in the morning, you know, on, on bridges, hung from bridges, um, tortured, shot, you know, that's, you know... But again, the, there's nobody doing anything about it. They should, you know, but they're kind of turning a blind eye in a lot of ways.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, man.
- ECEd Calderon
(coughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And so with this leftist president, this guy w- who has this idea of amnesty, the, the people that are in charge of handling the cartel, the, the military and the police officers, they've gotta feel like a little abandoned.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. Or maybe some of them have a business plan and they're working a- one side.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, so that's a problem too.
- 22:49 – 28:52
Broken institutions: fragmented policing, rebranding agencies, and compromised units
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. So, so people that aren't aware, you know, we have a separation of powers down there as well, so the army constitutionally shouldn't be engaging and combating the cartels. They shouldn't be engaged in police roles, but there were some amendments done to the con- constitution and, you know, laws passed. But you have to realize that some of these people that are fighting the cartels in a policing type role from military, uh, some of them can't read, right? Or some of them come from rural parts of Mexico that shouldn't, they shouldn't be doing that type of activity. So you get a lot of, you know, a lot of, uh, failures on that side of, of the fence. We do have some high-level SF, uh, com- uh, community members in, in Mexico that are doing the work, but they're few and far between. And then you have the federal police, uh, which has gone through about four or five name changes in the past, you know, 10 years. Because every time the, "Well, not gonna call them that and change his uniform because they're all corrupt."
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus. (laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
But now they're, now they're this police, right? So, um...
- JRJoe Rogan
So they just change appearances.
- ECEd Calderon
They change the name, you know, but, like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Try to refresh the public opinion of it.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, there was a famous, uh, uh, you know, modi- uh, investigation, federal investigation police called the AFI, and they were, like, modern investigative federal police that's gonna g- go after... man, they were corrupt as hell, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
And they, all they did was, you know, get a name change and all these guys got shuffled around and looked around and was like, "Hey, I know you." Like, "What, what? No, I'm, I'm this now," you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
But they're still the same person who compromised.
- ECEd Calderon
Yes. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
So, those are the federal guys, right? Currently, they, they wanna do like a national, uh, national police force. And you're like, "Wow, they're gonna get new people that are gonna be national police force?" No. It's the same guys changed uniforms, change a hat. So, that's on the federal side, you know. So, we're pretty, you know, wanting there. Uh, state side, each state has their own police force. Uh, investigation police force and a preventative-type force. And these are politicized because each state government may be opposed to the federal government, so there's a... there's some static there now.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs)
- ECEd Calderon
And each municipality has its own police force. And they may... might be completely different, uh, politically than the state and federal, so...
- JRJoe Rogan
It must... (coughs) F- for you to have your life on the line over there and see all this chaos and obvious-
- ECEd Calderon
(coughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... either lack of organization or outright corruption, it must be insanely frustrating.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, I mean, well, the, uh, the peop- putting people in c- that were clearly, uh, guilty of things, you know, and then seeing them come out or the legal system down there that I got... that I had to endure, you know, you would have to go and do a face-to-face with all these people. Right? Go into a federal courthouse, leave your firearms behind, do a face-to-face with these people inside that you just got... uh, that you just got for however many tons of cocaine or pot or whatever. And then go outside and they're outside, you know. "Now, now I know who you are." You know, there's no anonymity in that, in that regard. So, uh, you, you would have to sign things, you know. And then seeing some of the people that were with you working on your side and seeing then how some of them would fall into corruption charges and then sue the government and then get their jobs back, but now you have somebody's who's compromised within your own unit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- ECEd Calderon
Right? So, they, they did try a few things to try and clean out police forces. Um, one of them was a plan they called, uh, the s- the C3 Plan. It was like a, like a filter for police officers down there. It's still in, it's still in action, but, you know, it's questionable if it's, uh, effective or not. I've saw a lot of people go through it and (laughs) later on, they would turn out to be cartel guys. Basically, they would do a background check, FBI background check, a polygraph exam, a drug testing, uh, all the, all of these things to see that you were, you know, clean to work on these police forces. Uh, the problem is that the polygraphs turned out to be unconstitutional to fire somebody over them. So, a lot of these people (laughs) got hired back after they would fail polygr- basic polygraph exam.
- JRJoe Rogan
(inhales deeply)
- ECEd Calderon
So, uh, again, there's a lot of attempts to clean it up, you know, and I, uh... you would be on the, on the level and all these people wouldn't be on the level, but they were still there. So, you would feel-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, what, what percentage of people are not on the level, if you had to guess, roughly?
- ECEd Calderon
(sighs) The... I mean, I w- I'd say it would depend. I'd say 30% probably.
- JRJoe Rogan
(exhales loudly) That's a lot.
- ECEd Calderon
But like, uh, the... on, on, on, uh, of my experience of the people that I worked with, 30% weren't on the level.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, you must cherish the 70?
- ECEd Calderon
Oh, uh, like family.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 28:52 – 34:06
The U.S. factor: legalization effects, walls vs tunnels/drones, and smuggling innovation
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs) Wh- who was it that recently called for decriminalization? The c- was it th- your president that called for a decriminalization-
- ECEd Calderon
(coughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... of all drugs in America to go along with Mexico? Is that what it was?
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
To try to do something about the cartels.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. We, we, we are on the, uh, brink of, uh, legalizing marijuana in, in Mexico right now. Like, there's been a few landmark cases and, you know, it's gold rush type situation right now.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ECEd Calderon
There's a lot (laughs) of companies down there that g- that have had experience up here that wanna go down there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, so the culture is ready for it, I think.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think that would help?
- ECEd Calderon
(sighs) I don't know. Uh, uh, when it comes to legalizing pot up here, it hasn't helped down there as far as lowering things. It's actually made things kind of worse.
- JRJoe Rogan
How has it made things worse?
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, they changed-
- JRJoe Rogan
(coughs)
- ECEd Calderon
I don't know. They changed the, uh... they changed what they were producing. So, I think that, the, the reason-
- JRJoe Rogan
They moved to meth, yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
The reason why there's a heroin, heroin epidemic up here and fentanyl, uh, epidemic up here, uh, I think has some relationship with how things got legalized up here and how they switched, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- ECEd Calderon
... product down there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- ECEd Calderon
So, um, lighter-colored heroin is coming down from Mexico and I've seen... I, I, I, I work with law enforcement, uh, up here in the US, uh, doing classes and, and kind of, you know... They send me things like, "What do you think about this, Ed?" Um, and I've s- I've seen that lighter-colored heroin pop up in places as far off as Chicago.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's... so you know it because of the color?
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, the color, the smell, the consistency. You can kinda tell if it's Asian or from Mexico-
- JRJoe Rogan
How... like, is it a different strain? Like...
- ECEd Calderon
It's pr- it's, uh, probably a different strain and it's also the amount of sun it gets in the region where it's con- being grown.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- ECEd Calderon
It's high, higher altitude.So it's lighter color, not as stinky. I don't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ECEd Calderon
Um, but I think it's a relation- that, that kind of relates to the legalization issue down there. They didn't affect them in the pockets. They just switched, uh, product.
- 34:06 – 41:56
Fast and Furious fallout and the arms-race escalation
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, uh, Calderon era and Bush administration era, it, there was a lot of, there was a lot of stuff going on. Uh, Obama administration era, after, uh, the whole Fast and the Furious thing, things kind of got ... went dark for a while.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Explain the Fa- A lot of people don't know what the Fast and the Furious is.
- ECEd Calderon
(coughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
It was a ... They had sold guns to the cartel under the guise that this is the way they would track the guns.
- ECEd Calderon
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
It seems so fishy.
- ECEd Calderon
Oh, I, I, I, I, I learned about it from CNN and I ... A few of my friends were killed with some of those guns down there which is ... You know, everybody talks about the, the US agent that was in Mexico was killed by some of these guns, but there was a lot of, you know, Mexican agents and people, civilians killed by these guns as well. So there were very specific types of guns, you know. So like, imagine somebody giving you a shopping list about types of guns you want, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ECEd Calderon
Including in these lists were .50 cal Barrett gun- Barrett rifles and FN Five-sevens which are very, uh, it's a, it's a pistol with a very high velocity round that could, goes through, uh, soft armor. Like this, this, this type of stuff that was issued to us. All right? So all of the sudden we're seeing these space pistols (laughs) in the hands of the cartels in very specific parts of the country and we're like ...
- JRJoe Rogan
But what a preposterous idea that they were gonna sell it to the cartel-
- ECEd Calderon
To track 'em.
- JRJoe Rogan
... so they could track 'em.
- ECEd Calderon
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, th- that, that sounds like horse shit to me. That sounds like someone's trying to make money and they said, "Ah, we'll just, uh, say we're selling it to them to track it."
- ECEd Calderon
Well, the, the, the, the suspicious part is that all of them went to one specific cartel, the Sinaloa cartel, so ...
- JRJoe Rogan
It sounds like such horse shit. The fact that ... I mean, who went to jail for that? Eric Holder didn't go to jail.
- ECEd Calderon
Oh, he should've. He should've.
- JRJoe Rogan
He should've.
- ECEd Calderon
He should've. I mean, there's, there's blood, you know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
There's ... People died. I, uh, there was a ... And I, I can't say the name, uh, but somewhere in, uh, in Baja, uh, a little girl lost her arm, uh, an agent that was a friend of mine got killed and, uh, the wife got killed with FN Five-sevens that were (laughs) directly related to that, uh, whole thing. Right? So ...
- JRJoe Rogan
You can go to jail for fucking tax evasion-
- ECEd Calderon
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... but this guy can get away with that?
- ECEd Calderon
Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Just the, the, the idea that you would r- run that by people and they would go, "Yeah, good idea."
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
"Give them guns."
- ECEd Calderon
And, and to be clear, I don't know the, the realities of that operation on this side. People say it's, uh, that was, it was, uh, it was happening way before. All I know is that when that happened, nobody told us and there was definitely some weird resentment on part of the, the government down there-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's sick.
- 41:56 – 54:39
Industrialized violence: disappearances, body disposal, and societal collapse
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, that's, that's, that's the thing that, you know, you ha- you have to think about. The ... So killing and death is not a- a- at the industrial level, uh, it's, that is being done in Mexico. Not just killing, but, you know, disappearing bodies. Uh, making bodies disappear. Uh, I was, uh, I was, uh, I was around when they got, uh, the Stew Maker. The Stew Maker was a guy, uh, that worked for the Sinaloa cartel in Tijuana, and he would get rid of bodies using caustic soda, all right? So he would get bodies every night and he had these, basically these industrial level just barrels of it just going-
- JRJoe Rogan
What is caustic soda?
- ECEd Calderon
It's a chemical mixture. Uh, you can get most of the components at a hardware store. Basically it dissolves bodies, you know? He would get, get some of this, uh, mixture. He, he said in interviews, uh, that he got trained by Israelis that ... how to do that. So who knows if that's true or not. Uh, but in the night, he said he would get rid of, you know, dozens of bodies.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs)
- ECEd Calderon
And this gets rid of everything, you know (coughs) ? DNA-... bone, everything. So, uh, there's a lot of families in Mexico that are looking for their kids for years, and there's just no way of giving them a body. Um, and the amount of ju- youth that goes into cartel work and just gets, you know, killed there, it's just, it's, uh, whole generations and whole towns, uh, of women and old men. You know? They're out there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- ECEd Calderon
Which is... Like, whole generations just gone, you know? All the men in the... gone. I've, I've gone to, gone to a few small towns where, like, they looked at me like... "Youth," you know? "A young man," just like-
- JRJoe Rogan
So, it's rare.
- ECEd Calderon
At some places, it is.
- JRJoe Rogan
Because the men are all getting killed?
- ECEd Calderon
All getting got, got, got in the, uh, you know, in the cartel operations and killed or just recruited, you know, forcefully recruited or, you know, voluntarily recruited, but, you know, whole generations just wiped out.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, the people in your line of work.
- ECEd Calderon
(clears throat)
- JRJoe Rogan
The people that are boots on the ground, who really understand the problem, what is the thought in terms of what could be done to fix this?
- ECEd Calderon
I think, uh, main thing is any sort of, uh, any sort of plan-
- JRJoe Rogan
(coughs)
- ECEd Calderon
Any sort of plan to fight the cartels, that involves just a six-year plan, won't work. Because that's what, that's what the main problem has been with Mexico. Each president coming-
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that what your, your presidential, um... Each, e- each term is six years?
- ECEd Calderon
E- each president comes in with a six-year plan.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ECEd Calderon
He either does really good or does really bad, and then it gets forgotten and another one comes in and... Uh, there's also definitely an addiction to money, uh, from the US side for car- uh, counter-cartel operations. Uh, there's a, uh, Plan Merida, it's called. It's a international plan where the US pays for, uh, counter-narcotics type operations in, in, in Mexico. So, there is an addiction to that money on the side of the government, so it, uh, there's a lot of interest for that to keep going.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- ECEd Calderon
You know?
- JRJoe Rogan
So, they don't want to resolve the problem as much as they wanna, like-
- ECEd Calderon
I- in some ways, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
Um, uh, they, they, they refuse to professionalize the police forces down there. Uh, they don't put en- enough effort in that, in that regard. You know, good people that are there that I ve... I know there's some amazing guys down there doing amazing work. Uh, and they get passed up for promotion because they don't, they don't have any... they don't know anybody high level, uh, they don't work for... by their side of the gang, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
(coughs)
- ECEd Calderon
So, a lot of these people just get cast aside, you know? And, uh, you know, it's kind of hopeless in that, in that regard, you know? A lot of, a lot of the good guys, uh, when they get, uh, when they come out of the job, there's only a few options for them, right? Um, I had, I had options, but a lot of the guys that go out of a job don't, so they get recruited by the cartels, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you... Did anybody ever attempt to recruit you?
- 54:39 – 56:27
Cartels as diversified enterprises: trafficking, extortion, and global reach
- ECEd Calderon
So, the, the, the cartels aren't just a drug-fueled business.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ECEd Calderon
They also have money that is in property and i- illegitimized businesses. Uh, they work in human trafficking. Like, they ac- you... it used to be you can cross that border and go to the desert and cross it yourself, but now you have to pay a toll. Uh, protection rackets across the... on both sides of the, uh, of the border. Um, sex trafficking, um, p- piracy.... like, like, you name it, they have, they have hands in it, right? So-
- JRJoe Rogan
So, they just essentially took that drug money and just-
- ECEd Calderon
Diversified.
- JRJoe Rogan
... created a, a crime business?
- ECEd Calderon
They diversified. You know, they've been-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
... diversified for a long time. Like, y- yeah, there was recently two, uh, three, three cartel members from Sinaloa, uh, in Malaysia released, out of all places. So you, th- just think about that. Two Sinaloa cartel guys somewhere in Malaysia got caught somewhere, and now they've been released and, and they got, like, a hero's welcome in Mexico.
- JRJoe Rogan
They got a hero's welcome?
- ECEd Calderon
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- ECEd Calderon
Well, Sinaloa, that, you know, again, Sinaloa is a pretty ... That's, uh, I have this, uh, nickname for Mexico, I call it The Upside Down, you know, uh, because everything's, you know, basically upside down down there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ECEd Calderon
And, uh, yeah, these guys, uh, got, uh ... Funny thing is that the Mexican government was involved in their release and then they, you know, sent 'em back and, you know, hero's welcome. What were they doing all the way (laughs) over there in, in that part of the world? Uh, I don't know, you know, diversifying, you know (laughs) business.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Diversifying.
- ECEd Calderon
(inhales deeply)
- JRJoe Rogan
So no one has a real plan. Here it goes, "Malaysia pardons three Mexicans on death row." Oh, they were on death row?
- ECEd Calderon
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Damn.
- ECEd Calderon
You wanna talk about a kick-ass corrido, like a folk song-song about you?
- JRJoe Rogan
Man.
- ECEd Calderon
Those guys are probably gonna get an amazing folk song, you know? Um ...
- 56:27 – 1:12:05
Narco culture: corridos, Santa Muerte, and the ‘upside down’ moral order
- JRJoe Rogan
So there's a lot of romanticism connected to the cartel?
- ECEd Calderon
Oh, yeah. I mean, it's, uh, it's romanticism, it's religion. There's definitely-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- ECEd Calderon
... some, some occultism, uh, involved in a lot of the, uh, higher-ups in these cartels, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
I can remember when I found out about the narco music, the, these ... What are those songs called?
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, corridos.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ECEd Calderon
The, the, the folk songs. Um, there's a lot of them, you know? There's, uh ... And they're ... A- all of them have a secret language in them sometimes, uh, or, or they're all a history of something that happened. And you pay somebody to, to, to, to, to s- to, to, to make one for you, or somebody makes it for you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- ECEd Calderon
And then if you do a, a good corrido song for somebody, uh, then the rivals will send somebody to kill you, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- ECEd Calderon
So, like, even, even the musicians are on either side of the cartel, kind of groupings as well, which is pretty weird, I know, but it's ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- ECEd Calderon
Weird.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, if you're, if you're f- for the wrong cartel, like, if you make a song, you kinda have to, like, go into hiding.
- ECEd Calderon
Or, or, or-
- JRJoe Rogan
Make a good song?
- ECEd Calderon
... or not, or not play any, in any places where the, the rival cartels, you know, territories are.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, Jesus Christ.
- ECEd Calderon
(coughs) Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Will they come to your territory to come get you if you're like-
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. There's a, there's been a few, been a few high-level, uh, singers, Mexican folk singers that got their, you know, killed-
- JRJoe Rogan
Inhales deeply ]
- ECEd Calderon
... uh, for messing with, uh, girlfriends of cartel members or for singing the wrong song in the wrong place.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, so that's in the culture. And, and, and the religious, uh, occultism that the cartels have as well, you know, it's a pretty interesting thing. Um, things like Santa Muerte, the, the, the, the death cult that is kind of i- in different parts of Mexico. It's like a ... Think of a very dark, uh, Freemasonry type thing, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- ECEd Calderon
Certain, certain levels, you have people that are part of the c- uh, part of that cult, from the cops, to the military, to the cartels. It's kind of ... Uh, to, uh, prostitutes, to drug dealers. Uh, it's interesting how y- how tha- that kind of also has an influence on, on, on the way some people go into very risky businesses, like being cops or, or, or cartel guys, and how they wear or they empower themselves by some of these occult iconographies, you know? Like a reaper.
- 1:12:05 – 1:18:36
Migrant caravans in Tijuana: local backlash, disruption, and media narratives
- ECEd Calderon
Yeah. A- a- and, and more so than things kind of, uh... Things are getting even more complicated now with, uh, mi- migrant caravans going through, through Mexico now. And now you have all these di- displaced, uh, people from South America now adding onto the problem-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- ECEd Calderon
... of an already existing-
- JRJoe Rogan
How big is the caravan? We hear about it on the news, like, from Fox News talks about it, like, f- scare tactics.
- ECEd Calderon
Okay. So, um, I was... I don't know, and people can fact check me on this, but I was probably one of the first ones to publicly say that they were going to go, the first caravan is gonna go straight to Tijuana. Everybody was, "No, they're not gonna go straight to Tijuana." They're, that's just too far off. They should just go to Texas. And they went straight to Tijuana and, you know, there, they were about 3000 strong when they got there and maybe a bit more. And, you know, uh, a bunch of memes came up because of it. Uh, as they were going through all of Mexico, most of the people were pretty welcoming because they weren't gonna stay, you know? They were like, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ECEd Calderon
... here's a water... Like, when somebody's doing a jog, a run-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ECEd Calderon
... marathon, they would hand them a bottle, water bottle and, you know, good riddance. They finally got to TJ and TJ is very conservative.... like, politically, it's a very conservative place. And they met with a wall of protestors wearing "Make Tijuana Great Again" hats.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- ECEd Calderon
Yes. Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- ECEd Calderon
Yes. Yes. And I may or may not have produced a few of those myself in Tijuana.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, and all of a sudden you see the mayor of Tijuana with a "Make Tijuana Great Again" hat on his head.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- ECEd Calderon
And the reason why they were so adverse to these guys coming in, is that, uh, they were, a lot of them, gang members, you know, 14th Street gang members. The reason why they didn't go the other route is because they would have to have crossed Los Zetas territory, which is a cartel that has problems with the 14th gang. So they were curtailing that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- ECEd Calderon
They were complaining about the food they were getting at the shelters.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
This is a third world country feeding third world migrants, and we were feeding them, uh, tortillas and beans. And there's a famous lady that was like, "I'm not gonna eat these. This is pig." You know, it was pig meat. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Look at this. Make Tijuana great again.
- ECEd Calderon
So-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ECEd Calderon
... it's trolling on another level.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- ECEd Calderon
Uh, so, um, these guys came in, but people started calling me- the, the people from Tijuana racist, the brown people from Tijuana racist against other brown people.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- ECEd Calderon
And you would see some of the, the, uh, you know, some of the news agencies from the US come down and volunteer groups, hippies, you know, with, uh, sending all their donations to these people in some of these migrant caravan camps. They would grab the donations, turn around and sell it on the backside. Uh, (laughs) you know, all of these things, they would sell on the backside. So we, we would... They, they were... We had just absorbed about, uh, 2,000 or 3,000 Haitian immigrants after the earthquake in Tijuana. No problems at all. Uh, they're integrated into the culture. All of a sudden now, we have Haitians in the culture, you know. No, no problem at all. But these guys came in and they were really kind of disruptive in that way, right? So, you know.
Episode duration: 1:43:21
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