Here’s an interesting interview with a former cartel member. Toward the end he gives his travel advice. Ed Calderon is the interviewer, if you’ve never heard of him check him out. He has good insight into the crime in and from Mexico.
http://edsmanifesto.com/index....view-with-el-musico/

EL COTORRO” INTERVIEW WITH “EL MÚSICO”
APRIL 25, 2018 ED

From AK’s and 45’s to a bottle opener and a lighter.
This “El Cotorro” Interview is with a now retired gangster from down south. He was involved in the drug trade back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. He grew up in some bad places and graduated from armed robbery to drug running when he was just 17. A few bullets left him without much mobility. Can’t say much more about him. I’m going to include some questions from you guys in the interview. We will call him “El Músico.” Details have been changed and or omitted for obvious reasons. This wasn’t easy so please, take what you can from it. Questions were sent in by followers of my Instagram account.


El Músico
-What would you say were the top reasons why you got into drug trafficking? Did you ever think about what life would have been like had you gone down a different road?
I didn’t have a choice, really. By the time I was 15 I was living on the street. My father was a drunk and hit me every chance he got. He hated me because he saw my mother in me, I guess. She left my father when I was very little, and she never came back. I think he hated me because I reminded him of her or something like that.
I wanted money and no jobs that would pay any good money were available. My University was taking peoples’ things by force and burglary. One day, one of my friends came to our hang out spot in a new truck with an AK stuffed in between the seat and center console. I knew exactly what I wanted to do right then and there. Never really thought about being a doctor or anything like that. I never even met a doctor when I was a kid, so I had no real notion of what to aspire to become. I watched TV and saw people living out there in the world, what to me was a completely unreachable fantasy. It’s funny, out of everything I saw on TV, the image of a mother and father loving their kids was like science fiction. I could believe in space robots and aliens, but not that.
I wish I had not done many things, but I can’t do anything about that now. “Los Ubieras me matan” ( The What-If’s would kill me)
-What was your daily mindset like? What did you see lacking in people who didn’t survive his life choices?
Prendió, estás prendió siempre (You are on, you are always on). I’d only trust people that I grew up with and went to work with me or people I had been in bad situations with. You kill and steal best with people you trust. Loyalty was very important. Even if I had known you all my life, if you talked to the cops or informed on us to a rival group, I’d kill you in front of your mother without losing any sleep or regrets. We would go out and work high on cocaine or meth, so we were always on.
People that survived were the ones that weren’t too greedy. If you are in a group and steal for yourself and don’t share, you will be found out. People think they are smarter than you. You will always be found out. Cut your hands off or die. It was simple.

-What do the cops miss when looking for drugs or guns or anything of that mater?
We moved things with woman and children in the cars. They wouldn’t be searched as much. Or we would plant things in cars and report them ourselves, making it through inspection points as the arrests were made.
People never want to search between the legs and ass. So that is where things would go.
To be honest, we didn’t do much to go around the cops, just the military. Cops we bribed or threatened. We would show up in a car and start reciting their home address and kid’s names, and they would just get out of the way or else we would drive through and kill them.

-Toughest situation you had to get out of?
I made the mistake of having a kid and she grew up to be very beautiful. A guy I worked for liked her a lot, so I had to make him go away. I had to leave everything after that. Start over far away with nothing.
-Top three things that contribute to survivability, and on the flip side top three things that got people caught or killed?
Things that make you survive longest in this is not being greedy or stupid enough to think you are smarter than everyone else. Don’t have a family. Don’t spend money on anything you can’t sell in a day and leave. Save for retirement and tell no one about it.
-When sourcing a place to hide, what did you do?
Hide where it is normal for people to hide, go where the shame is. Red light district and places where the sex trade is the main activity. People there are hiding, always hiding. So, you can hide with them and no one will be the wiser. Also, hide where the whole block is in on it, and have people you pay with a cell phone on hand to alert you. This can cost you as little as a globito (a dose of meth).
Sleep with your shoes and clothes on, next to the back window and be ready to run. Always.

Best place to hide ?
EDC?
Cigarettes
Lighter
Cash
AK
Colt 45 or Beretta
Punta (Spanish for point, probably referring to a shank or icepick)
Bottel opener to peal nails off or stab eyes out. Still carry it today.
Radio (Police scan and or for their own comms)
Multiple cellphones
Mi flakita (Probably referring to a Santa Muerte religious icon)
Nada que me comprometa (Nothing that would compromise me)
Todos esto lo podía tirar sin llorar después por su pérdida. (All of this I could throw away with out crying about losing it)
-What are the first three things you do in the morning…what are the last three things you do before you sleep?
I would pry and thank God and my dama negra for another day, check the windows to see what was around me, and call my boss for instructions.
I’d pry before I go to bed and read. I have learned to love books, so I like to read a lot at night, check doors and windows, and tuck my gun in my boot. I didn’t sleep much.
-What was your go to weapon of choice, and what was the strangest thing you were attacked with?
I liked the AK and the .45. It works for what it’s for, and they are everywhere. Easy to get bullets for them, too. I was shot at with an arrow once. I never saw who did it; it was at night in the Sierra. We shoot everywhere but never found anyone
-What actions by law enforcement (from both sides of the border) caused the biggest problems for him and his organization?
No problems at all with law enforcement. It’s all a scam to. They get money, we pay here and there. Problem is with other cartel groups wanting to come in on our territories.
-Any use of social media platforms for operational communications?
It wasn’t in my time but I see it used now more and more. People that have daughters with active Facebook accounts just jump on them and use them to hunt for kids with money to abduct.
–If you weren’t “medically retired”, would you still be running drugs today or would you have retired long ago?
I’d be in it or dead.
-How much does LUCK play into your successes or failures?
God gave me the time I was supposed to have. And the rest of it was paid for to La Santa Muerte. She got her part in me being alive. I am paying for it all now before I have to pay the rest in the after life.

-The money? Or the power?
Power. I could have no money, but if I have a gun to your head, I have the power and all your money. Power is in not giving a fuck about the government and doing things for yourself. I know what true freedom is, I have felt it. Have you gringos? Really? You are not free. How can you be? The Cowboys where the last free Americans, Al Capone was free. All of you are not free.
-How and when did you realize that you could no longer trust someone that you knew very well?
They stop looking in your eyes, and they change with you. I don’t know how to explain; they become distant. That is when we dig. Then we call you over for some beers, and you don’t go back home. You can’t hide being a rat.
-What advice would you give ordinary people to survive your kind of crew?
Don’t come to Mexico, and don’t think we are not already in the US. We are everywhere.
PART 2 COMING SOON