Speaker 1: To talk about something that you know. I'm very open
Speaker 1: with you guys about stuff where I'm conflicted. Right there
Speaker 1: are issues that I cannot say I have a firm,
Speaker 1: you know, opinion, because I feel like maybe I'm missing something.
Speaker 1: And when I saw it, I'm sure many of you
Speaker 1: saw the same thing.
Speaker 2: I saw videos of.
Speaker 1: A Venezuelan drug boat, a go fast boat, and don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, no doubt in my mind that that
Speaker 1: boat was full of drugs and drug dealers. But the
Speaker 1: United States military just blew it out.
Speaker 2: Of the sky.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, that's new, and it seems
Speaker 1: a little extra judicial, because the war on drugs has
Speaker 1: always been a law enforcement effort until now. Then I
Speaker 1: saw a post on X by a gentleman named Reeve McSwain,
Speaker 1: and I asked him to come on the show to
Speaker 1: talk about it because he has a lot more experience
Speaker 1: in this field than I do as a former prosecutor.
Speaker 2: First of all, Reeve, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Well, I got to say first before we even get
Speaker 1: into the serious part of our converse station, Reid McSwain
Speaker 1: may be one of the coolest names that we've had
Speaker 1: on the show in a really long time, Like you
Speaker 1: could be a soap opera star, or you could be
Speaker 1: the alter ego of a superhero with that name. So
Speaker 1: hats off to your parents for giving you that one.
Speaker 1: If you could give my audience a little bit of
Speaker 1: your background and why you have a better perspective on
Speaker 1: the war on drugs.
Speaker 3: Sure, I don't know if this will make me sound
Speaker 3: cooler or not that the name is Reed Swainston not
Speaker 3: mc swayin.
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, well no, still cool, still very cool.
Speaker 2: I should have just read my own writing.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, background is I was a federal prosecutor for
Speaker 3: a couple of decades in just south of you, mostly
Speaker 3: in New Mexico. I spent some time in DC. I
Speaker 3: was one of the attorneys during the Obama period when
Speaker 3: he tried to civilianize the GETMO cases. If you don't right, yep,
Speaker 3: and so they pulled attorneys from the field for those cases.
Speaker 3: I was one of them. Gave me a little extra
Speaker 3: understanding of this issue that we're going to talk about.
Speaker 3: But mostly the vast majority of my cases were what
Speaker 3: courts call complex litigation cases, all concerning cartels, mostly Mexican
Speaker 3: cartel cases, and how they affected our region in New
Speaker 3: Mexico four Corners region, and a number of my cases
Speaker 3: stretched well beyond our region as well as far east
Speaker 3: as well. You name it almost every state. Since we
Speaker 3: have the I twenty five and I forty corridors, you
Speaker 3: can imagine organizations that function here function elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Well, we've delt with We've seen here in Denver trendy.
Speaker 1: Aragua loves Denver right because it's a crossroads and it
Speaker 1: makes it easy to.
Speaker 2: Get stuff to other places.
Speaker 1: But when I mentioned, as I was bringing you on
Speaker 1: Reeve that the war on drugs, Yes, we've called it
Speaker 1: the war on drugs for decades now, but has it
Speaker 1: really been a war or has it been a law
Speaker 1: enforcement effort that needed to be a war?
Speaker 2: Let me ask that question.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you put it that way, because the
Speaker 3: characterization of a war on drugs has never been accurate
Speaker 3: until today. It is now a war on cartels, which
Speaker 3: are obviously the primary and these organizations are criminal organizations
Speaker 3: far more similar to what we know as foreign terrorist
Speaker 3: organizations than anything else, and they're in our hemisphere. I
Speaker 3: think we need to reframe how we think about cartels.
Speaker 3: For too long, we've treated them as a criminal justice
Speaker 3: issue like you pointed out, when in reality they operate
Speaker 3: as a foreign terrorist organizations in every sense that matters.
Speaker 3: I mean they direct violence, same kind of corruption, mass
Speaker 3: casualty events against our homeland. And the depth poll far
Speaker 3: exceeds anything that ISIS or Alcada has ever done to us.
Speaker 3: When you look at fence andyl death alone, and I
Speaker 3: know we have to do it collectively, not in one
Speaker 3: mass event like we're so you know, used to terrorism
Speaker 3: when we think about it, and that's just sent it
Speaker 3: all alone. I mean it doesn't even come close to
Speaker 3: including the heroin deaths which I saw down here in
Speaker 3: numbers that are just unspeakable, that ben fettering deaths and
Speaker 3: so on. And that's why, when you know I have
Speaker 3: fought this battle for decades, towards the end of my career,
Speaker 3: I came to the unfortunate but very realistic realization that
Speaker 3: we're doing it wrong. They they do everything that part
Speaker 3: that terrorist organizations do. They're motive is just different.
Speaker 1: And let me ask you specifically, because I spend way
Speaker 1: too much time I probably should admit this watching shows
Speaker 1: on drug cartels and organized crime south of the border
Speaker 1: and things of that nature. Can you give me some
Speaker 1: kind of idea of what kind of firepower man power
Speaker 1: that some of these the really highly organized cartels that
Speaker 1: are operating in Central and South America, what are we
Speaker 1: looking at in terms of what their capabilities are.
Speaker 3: Well, TDA is a very well organized criminal organization and
Speaker 3: now terrorist organization centrally functions as a as an army
Speaker 3: or venezuela, the dark army, if you will, and then
Speaker 3: you've got the Mexican cartels. I was heavily into this
Speaker 3: during the two thousand and six seven eight war between
Speaker 3: the Wires cartels and the Wire's Cartel and the Cineloa cartel,
Speaker 3: when those battles were waging aggressively in Warez, when sine
Speaker 3: Loo Is trying to take over. I targeted quite a
Speaker 3: number of the hit team commanders that were engaged in
Speaker 3: that war. And that war was heavy guns, all sorts
Speaker 3: of munitions that you can imagine. They all military like
Speaker 3: types of activities, targeted assassinations, large battalion level, from company
Speaker 3: to battalion level armies focused aggressively on taking out the opposition.
Speaker 3: So they fight each other just like they target us,
Speaker 3: not in the same way. But these are just very,
Speaker 3: very dangerous criminal organizations that behave exactly like terrorist organizations.
Speaker 1: I just watched a show on the drug war that
Speaker 1: you were just talking about between the two cartels, and
Speaker 1: they had a couple of guys there were part of
Speaker 1: that part of the organizations, and they said it got
Speaker 1: to the point where we were not only trying to
Speaker 1: take out other guys in the other cartel, but we
Speaker 1: were trying to out savage them, right Like. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just enough to kill a guy, it was, Oh, we're
Speaker 1: going to kill this guy. We're going to cut his
Speaker 1: head off, and we're going to shove his testicles in
Speaker 1: his mouth. I mean, And they were describing this level
Speaker 1: of depravity that we would associate with a terrorist organization. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I think that people in the United States when
Speaker 1: you hear cartel, we sort of had this antiquated notion like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're like the mafia was back in the twenties, but
Speaker 1: they're well beyond in sheer violence what we had back then.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't you say the.
Speaker 3: Level of depravity is identical to the violence that you
Speaker 3: see executed by a moss and ISIS and al Qaeda.
Speaker 3: I mean, specifically going back to that, one of my
Speaker 3: targets he's in custom. You know. His nickname was El
Speaker 3: Jaguar because he liked to feed people to wild animals,
Speaker 3: specifically large cats.
Speaker 2: I mean, as one does.
Speaker 3: Jose Antonio Marufo, Jose Antonio Torres Marufo, you could look
Speaker 3: him up. He was one of our main targets. He
Speaker 3: was the hit teen commander for the Cinelo a cartel
Speaker 3: and they had, you know, companies that just using my
Speaker 3: analogy and the Marines. I was a heavy machine gunner,
Speaker 3: so I drove around on a turtleshell hum v with
Speaker 3: a fifty caliber on top. They do the same thing,
Speaker 3: just with different vehicles. You know, they mount these fifty
Speaker 3: caliber machine guns to trucks and SUV's and things like that.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean I had I had so many
Speaker 3: stories of that kind of violence that could talk forever.
Speaker 3: I know it's a radio show and you can't talk forever.
Speaker 3: But one of my witnesses, one of the cases that
Speaker 3: really affected me the most was I had a witness
Speaker 3: who flipped and he thought that it would be okay
Speaker 3: to return to Mexico to you know, for a day,
Speaker 3: to meet his family, thinking he was safe enough to
Speaker 3: do so, and he was murdered within less than an
Speaker 3: hour in the Walmart parking lot down in war as
Speaker 3: you're shot hundreds of times, spending a very clear message
Speaker 3: that you don't cooperate with the Feds, whether it's in
Speaker 3: Mexico or in the United States.
Speaker 1: So this is what do we need to change? And
Speaker 1: here's my issue. And I told you this in an
Speaker 1: email that I sent you, Reeve, like I have concerns
Speaker 1: when our government makes these sort of utilateral decisions that
Speaker 1: don't seem to have a lot of sort of what's
Speaker 1: the sort I'm looking for? They don't go through the
Speaker 1: processes that are necessary. I'm one of those people that
Speaker 1: thinks we should have a declaration of war right before
Speaker 1: we actually go to war with people, something that has
Speaker 1: now become an antiquated notion. But in your view, what
Speaker 1: needs to change the policies so people like me begin
Speaker 1: to understand better what we're actually doing here.
Speaker 3: Well, you the way that that singular event, there are
Speaker 3: many many more tools in the in the toolbox for
Speaker 3: these cartels now that they're designated as terrorists. If you'd
Speaker 3: like me to do so, I can.
Speaker 2: Fire off a few, please go right ahead.
Speaker 3: You know, for example, we have a far greater access
Speaker 3: to their money laundering activities through the Patriot Act authorities.
Speaker 3: And I know that's controversial, but when used properly, it's
Speaker 3: very effective. We can literally shut down foreign banks. If
Speaker 3: they have any interest in working with us, they better
Speaker 3: turn over all assets and information that they have on
Speaker 3: our targets, even from foreign sources and banking institutions. You can.
Speaker 3: We can do a tremendous amount under seven oh two
Speaker 3: with targeting foreign communications is a really big, big, big
Speaker 3: issue that's critical for law enforcement and now the combination
Speaker 3: of law enforcement in the military, and even more important.
Speaker 3: Seven o two still requires a FISK warrant. You know
Speaker 3: what that is, right, You've got to get the Foreign
Speaker 3: into Surveillance Court to authorize it. It's different than a
Speaker 3: wire tap, which I did. I did. All I did
Speaker 3: was wiretaps. I had a couple of FISK cases, but
Speaker 3: they were terrorism cases, not cartel cases. Now I'd be
Speaker 3: able to use the FISK for cartel cases, which is huge.
Speaker 3: Instead of having to report to the court every thirty days,
Speaker 3: you get to do it every ninety days. It's just
Speaker 3: you know, it's a manpower relief, if you will. And
Speaker 3: in addition to that, now that These are terrorist organizations
Speaker 3: for truly foreign to foreign signals intelligence, meaning people talking
Speaker 3: to each other or communicating to each other, regardless of
Speaker 3: how it is. We don't need a court order at all.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, it's because of the designation. That's because of
Speaker 1: the designation of it being a terrorist organization. So how
Speaker 1: does this you're right, how does this in the grand
Speaker 1: scheme of things? What does this mean for our ability
Speaker 1: to go aggressively after terrorist organizations in foreign countries like
Speaker 1: in Mexico or in Venezuela or in you know, the
Speaker 1: various different places where they have their home base.
Speaker 3: The only thing you need to understand to understand how
Speaker 3: significant this change is is to look what we did
Speaker 3: to Isis and Alcaeda around the world. We could do
Speaker 3: precisely that in Mexico, Venezuela and elsewhere. Now any place
Speaker 3: that they operate, we can do exactly that. We could
Speaker 3: do what we did to bend Latin in Pakistan. These
Speaker 3: are terrorist organizations now. But the tools that you never
Speaker 3: really hear about that are critically important are what are
Speaker 3: I'm focusing on or what I would focus on if
Speaker 3: I were running these cases, if I were to be
Speaker 3: back at DOJ and running these cases. And that's a
Speaker 3: lot of the money side, and especially with cartels. You know,
Speaker 3: like I said, they're motivated through different lens. They don't
Speaker 3: really care as much about ideology, although there is some
Speaker 3: of that. They want to get. They want to be billionaires.
Speaker 3: The leaders want to be billionaires, and they want to run.
Speaker 3: They want power, and they want money. Right Well, now,
Speaker 3: you know, through a variety of tools that are available
Speaker 3: to both the military side, but I'd say primarily the
Speaker 3: DOJ side, we can reach right into their assets and
Speaker 3: take it off. And I think that that's part a
Speaker 3: big part of this why this designation happens, because when
Speaker 3: you start taking billions of dollars away from these organizations
Speaker 3: and you use that money to increase law enforcement tools,
Speaker 3: because that money doesn't just sit there. In other words,
Speaker 3: they have no right. Nobody has a right to what's
Speaker 3: called well ill gotten gain is what you're sure audience
Speaker 3: would understand. So if we reach in and we take
Speaker 3: billions of dollars from them, they had no complaint to
Speaker 3: come at us through any legal mechanism because they had
Speaker 3: no right to that drug proceeds or any other proceeds
Speaker 3: from unlawful activity. They just don't have any leverage at all.
Speaker 3: We have all the leverage now. I like that it
Speaker 3: is being able to reach deep into foreign countries and
Speaker 3: take it. I like that I foreign countries for help.
Speaker 1: That part I really like, By the way, I mean,
Speaker 1: I am and again, I am certainly not pro cartel,
Speaker 1: but I am very much a rule of law person.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad you're coming on to help clarify this.
Speaker 1: What is the reality about how the Mexican cartels specifically
Speaker 1: because it sounds like that was kind of your area
Speaker 1: of expertise while you were us here. How pervasive is
Speaker 1: the issue of corruption within the legal structure of Mexico.
Speaker 3: In your view, it's so unimaginably corrupt, but in an
Speaker 3: understandable way, right because you know, it's either silver or
Speaker 3: bullet kind of scenario for every judge, every my equivalent
Speaker 3: down there, federal prosecutors, they often have to make that
Speaker 3: decision do I take the cash that's being offered to me,
Speaker 3: or do I take a bullet to my head and
Speaker 3: I'm no longer able to provide for my family. That's
Speaker 3: the level of corruption in Mexico, and it is extremely pervasive.
Speaker 3: It's everywhere. I mean I sent you an article on
Speaker 3: one of the cases I prosecute. They try their best
Speaker 3: to infiltrate our law enforcement here, and occasionally they do
Speaker 3: have some sexcess as I've prosecuted. You know, law enforcement
Speaker 3: in this country who we're working for the cartels and
Speaker 3: and you know that's why they're successful. They're just really
Speaker 3: really good at their business. And when you don't have
Speaker 3: to follow SEC regulations, you don't care about it. You
Speaker 3: can do whatever you want because you're you're willing to
Speaker 3: put somebody sixteen under to take that next step.
Speaker 1: Right, somebody on my text line just asks who gets
Speaker 1: to keep the cartel money?
Speaker 3: We do, meaning the United States, and then it's divvied out.
Speaker 3: However it's divvied out oftentimes through asset forfeiture. You'll see
Speaker 3: the proceeds go back into law enforcement. But we've never
Speaker 3: seen this level of wealth before. It's the potential for
Speaker 3: us to seize assets now is so massive. I mean,
Speaker 3: I could decision to maybe pay down, you know, a
Speaker 3: little bit of our debt or something. But bottom line is,
Speaker 3: we do and people in Washington decide where it goes.
Speaker 2: So we're almost out of time. I got time for
Speaker 2: one more question. Right now. And that is this.
Speaker 1: So are they do they have their assets in banks?
Speaker 1: Because I mean, I'm from Florida. I grew up in
Speaker 1: Florida during the cocaine cowboy days and you would hear
Speaker 1: these stories about them having houses in a suburb that
Speaker 1: were just literally full of money because they couldn't get
Speaker 1: into a bank. So are the cartels in banks? How
Speaker 1: is where are their assets that we can seize?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they absolutely are in banks. They're in foreign banks
Speaker 3: and so but they're not just in banks. I mean,
Speaker 3: you can't put a billion dollars underneath your mattress, you know,
Speaker 3: right they have they have gotten really skilled at cleaning
Speaker 3: their money, or at least attempting to clean their money.
Speaker 3: They might give one hundred million dollars to the you know,
Speaker 3: the daughter to purchase real estate in whatever, Manhattan or Barcelona,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter. Through these tools, now we follow those
Speaker 3: assets and we take it. And we may take real property,
Speaker 3: or we may take the assets that remain in cash
Speaker 3: in bank accounts and even you know, real property in
Speaker 3: foreign countries that have value. You know, we can go
Speaker 3: after those things. There's almost no limit now to what
Speaker 3: we can go after. And that's that's where I saw
Speaker 3: the greatest potential for this designation is on the money side,
Speaker 3: because this is where they're really really going to be hurt.
Speaker 2: Amen to that.
Speaker 1: From your lips to God's ears, Reeve Swainston, I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you making time for me today, giving me that
Speaker 1: perspective because, as I said, you know, it's like I
Speaker 1: see stuff like that, and though I'm not opposed to
Speaker 1: blowing up drug dealers just on principle, I am always
Speaker 1: nervous when governments decide to kill people without sort of
Speaker 1: laying out the process on how they got there. So
Speaker 1: this conversation has been really illuminating on how they got there.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your time today, Reeve, and I Reeve Swainston
Speaker 1: is still an amazing name. Like you're practically a soapapa
Speaker 1: star without even leaving your house.
Speaker 3: That's funny. Thanks so much.
Speaker 2: Happy to be here, hey man, Have a great day.