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<v Speaker 1>Welcome everybody. Today we're looking at how America hunted El Chopo.

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<v Speaker 1>So what you're going to find out today is the

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<v Speaker 1>special forces were a part of it. And we'll look

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<v Speaker 1>at Joaquin Goosman Lauriel Chopo, the most powerful narco in

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<v Speaker 1>modern history, and how he got pulled out of a

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<v Speaker 1>rat hole in those Mochi's Mochis, Sinaloa in January of

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<v Speaker 1>twenty sixteen. It's a story about interagency intelligence fusion, about

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<v Speaker 1>special operation forces operating in a country where they officially

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<v Speaker 1>weren't operating, and about a model of warfare. It doesn't

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<v Speaker 1>look like warfare at all. I'm talking about advisors who

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<v Speaker 1>leave no footprint, intelligence cells running real time network mapping,

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<v Speaker 1>a targeting cycle design to find, fix, and finish at

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<v Speaker 1>high value target adapted not for a battlefield in Iraq

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<v Speaker 1>or Afghanistan, but for the streets and tunnels of northwestern Mexico.

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<v Speaker 1>Let's set the table up. Twenty fifteen, Chopo had already

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<v Speaker 1>escape from a maximum secure, already prison in Mexico through

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<v Speaker 1>a tunnel, a mile long, professionally engineered tunnel with a

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<v Speaker 1>motorcycle rail system built directly under its cell. I'm sure

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<v Speaker 1>you've seen the videos by Now, that's not a cartel move,

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<v Speaker 1>that's a state level logistics operation, and it embarrassed everyone.

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<v Speaker 1>The Mexican government, the DEA, the entire apparatset has spend

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<v Speaker 1>years hunting this guy. After that escape, the pressure from

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<v Speaker 1>Washington was significant, not loud, not public, but real. The

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<v Speaker 1>DEA and HSI have been running long term intelligence collection

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<v Speaker 1>on the Sinaloa's cartel's network for years, humans signals, sigent

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<v Speaker 1>financial tracking, and they had what targeting analysts call a

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<v Speaker 1>pattern of life, a detailed map of Choppo's habits, his

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<v Speaker 1>communication methods, his vulnerabilities. Now here's where it gets interesting

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<v Speaker 1>and where the public record gets intentionally thin. JAYSOK, the

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<v Speaker 1>organization that planned and executed the Ben Lawton raid, the

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<v Speaker 1>organization that built the most sophisticated, high value target hunting

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<v Speaker 1>architecture in human history during the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns.

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<v Speaker 1>After twenty eleven, after Bin Laden, after the draw downs,

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<v Speaker 1>Jaysawk didn't disappear. It adapted, and one of the places

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<v Speaker 1>it adapted to was the Western Hemisphere. Special operation personnel

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<v Speaker 1>operating in an advisory and intelligence support capacity in Mexico.

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<v Speaker 1>And these are confirmed reports a Delta force US SF

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<v Speaker 1>HADDE operators embedded with Mexican Special Forces units, particular SIMAR,

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<v Speaker 1>the Mexican Navy Special Warfare component, not leading raids, not

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<v Speaker 1>pulling triggers, but sitting in the room running the intelligence. Freed.

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<v Speaker 1>This is a low visibility advisory model, and it's not accidental.

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<v Speaker 1>It's deliberate architecture designed to preserve what operators called sovereignty optics,

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<v Speaker 1>the political reality that Mexico cannot publicly accept US military

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<v Speaker 1>boots on the ground conducting combat operations on American soil.

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<v Speaker 1>So you adjust the model, you put the Americans one

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<v Speaker 1>step back. Mexican forces hit the door. The US personnel

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<v Speaker 1>made sure they hit the right door. The operation of

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<v Speaker 1>those mochis went loud fast. On January eighth, twenty sixteen,

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<v Speaker 1>pre dawn, SIMAR operators moved on a safe house. There

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<v Speaker 1>was a firefight. Five cartel members were killed, one marine

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<v Speaker 1>was wounded. Chappo escaped through a tunnel, surfaced in a

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<v Speaker 1>drainage channel, carjacked the vehicle. Eventually he was detained by

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<v Speaker 1>federal police on a highway shortly after, and the media

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<v Speaker 1>this looked like a clean Mexican law enforcement success, and

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<v Speaker 1>the Mexican government needed it to look that way. But

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<v Speaker 1>the intelligence trail that led to that safe house, the

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<v Speaker 1>network mapping, the communication intercept. That work involved US interagency

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<v Speaker 1>personnel at every level. EE agents embedded in Mexico City,

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<v Speaker 1>CIA officers running liaison operations with Mexican intelligence and JAYSOK

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<v Speaker 1>personnel contributing what they built over a decade. The F

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<v Speaker 1>three eight cycle fine, fix, finish, exploit, analyze, di seminate

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<v Speaker 1>In Iraq, Finish meant the kinetic strike or a direct

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<v Speaker 1>action raid. In Mexico, Finish meant the Mexican Marine unit

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<v Speaker 1>and making an arrest. The cycle is the same, the

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<v Speaker 1>ending is different. The American fingerprints are the same. The

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<v Speaker 1>Joint Interagency Task Force Caribbean and Central America the JIATFCC,

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<v Speaker 1>is modeled directly on the counter terrorism fusion cells built

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<v Speaker 1>in Iraq and Afghanistan, intelligence sharing, real time network mapping,

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<v Speaker 1>coordinated operations across agencies and national boundaries. The al Chopper

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<v Speaker 1>operations plural because this wasn't the first time JAS was

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<v Speaker 1>involved in tracking him. Those operations were proof of concept

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<v Speaker 1>for applying counter terrorism methodology to transnational criminal organizations, and

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<v Speaker 1>that raises a series of questions that don't have answers.

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<v Speaker 1>When you apply a wartime targeting architecture to a law

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<v Speaker 1>enforcement problem, you change the nature of what you're doing.

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<v Speaker 1>The legal authorities are different, the rules of engagement are different,

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<v Speaker 1>the accountability structures are different, and the downstream consequences for

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<v Speaker 1>civil liberties, for Mexican sovereignty, for the political stability of

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<v Speaker 1>the bilateral relationship, well, those consequences are real. The operators

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<v Speaker 1>who do this work are not asking those questions. That's

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<v Speaker 1>not their job. Their job is to execute the mission.

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<v Speaker 1>Someone has to ask the questions. The capture of El

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<v Speaker 1>Chapa in twenty sixteen was genuinely significant, symbolically, tactically, legally,

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<v Speaker 1>the extradition that followed the trial in Brooklyn, to the

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<v Speaker 1>life sentence, all that mattered. But Sinaloa didn't collapse. The

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<v Speaker 1>network didn't collapse because networks built on that scale and

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<v Speaker 1>that level of institutional depth, they survived. The removal of

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<v Speaker 1>any single node member Hydra that myth. I'm sure you've

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<v Speaker 1>heard it before. In these circles. What Operation black Swan

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<v Speaker 1>really demonstrate is the capability of the interagency architecture the

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<v Speaker 1>United States built over twenty years of counter terrorism operations.

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<v Speaker 1>The demonstrator the Jysocks HBT model can be adapted for

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<v Speaker 1>non traditional environments, demonstrated a dea cii ce I am sorry.

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<v Speaker 1>Jysock and foreign partner forces can operate in Seeman's coordination,

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<v Speaker 1>but it didn't demonstrate that any of that capability translates

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<v Speaker 1>into durable strategic outcomes when the underlying conditions poverty, corruption,

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<v Speaker 1>demand for narcotics remain unchanged. The operators did their job.

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<v Speaker 1>That's it for now. If this episode hit different for you,

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<v Speaker 1>share it and leave a review. And got operational experience

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<v Speaker 1>in this space and you want to have a real conversation,

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<v Speaker 1>reach out