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Speaker 5: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 5: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 5: written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 5: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 5: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 5: journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 6: Good Evening. This is the story of two American teens
Speaker 6: recruited as killers for a Mexican cartel, and they're pursued
Speaker 6: by a Mexican American detective. At first glance, Gabriel Cardona
Speaker 6: is the poster boy American teenager, great athlete, bright, handsome,
Speaker 6: and charismatic, But the streets of his border town of Laredo,
Speaker 6: Texas are poor and dangerous, and it isn't long before
Speaker 6: Gabriel abandons his promising future for the allure of the Zettas,
Speaker 6: a drug cartel with roots in the Mexican military. His
Speaker 6: younger friend Bart, as well as others from Gabriel's childhood,
Speaker 6: join him in working for the Zettas, boosting cars and
Speaker 6: smuggling drugs, eventually catching the eye of the cartel's leadership. Meanwhile,
Speaker 6: Mexican born detective Robert Garcia has worked hard all his
Speaker 6: life and is now struggling to raise his family in
Speaker 6: America as violence spills over the border. Detective Garcia's pursuit
Speaker 6: of the Boys and their cartel leaders puts him face
Speaker 6: to faith face with the urgent consequences of a war
Speaker 6: he sees as unwinnable. In Wolf Boys, Dan Slater shares
Speaker 6: their story, taking us from the Sierra Madre mountain tops
Speaker 6: to the dark alleys of the Rado, Texas on a
Speaker 6: harrowing journey into the heart of the Mexican drug trade,
Speaker 6: and Gabriel's evolution from good major teenager into a feared assassin.
Speaker 6: Wolf Boys depicts more than just Gabriel bart and the
Speaker 6: officers who took them down. It shows the way in
Speaker 6: which the border itself is changing, disappearing, imposing new, terrifying,
Speaker 6: and yet largely unseen threats to American security. Ultimately, though
Speaker 6: Wolf Boys is the intimate story of the Lobos themselves,
Speaker 6: boys turn into ponds for cartels. Their stories show how poverty,
Speaker 6: ideas about identity and government ignorance have warped the definition
Speaker 6: of the American dream. The book that we're featuring this
Speaker 6: evening is wolf Boys, two American teenagers and Mexico's most
Speaker 6: Dangerous Drug cart tell with my special guest, journalist and
Speaker 6: author Slater. There was a mix up with the timing
Speaker 6: of this interview this evening, so hopefully we'll wait for
Speaker 6: Dan Slater to connect. I spoke to him just about
Speaker 6: forty five minutes ago. Here we have Dan Slater. Good evening, Dan,
Speaker 6: welcome to the program. Thank you very much for greeting
Speaker 6: this interview.
Speaker 3: Good evening, Dan, it's good to be on your show.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 6: Thank you very much. Incredible story. What brought you to
Speaker 6: this book and this project, this investigation that you undertook.
Speaker 6: What brought you to this wolf Boys? What is your
Speaker 6: background that brought you to this? Why did you want
Speaker 6: to write this story?
Speaker 3: Well? I think there are a couple threads, a couple
Speaker 3: paths that led me to the project. One was, as
Speaker 3: you suggests, you know, just background I had been. I'd
Speaker 3: gone to law school, I'd worked very briefly as a
Speaker 3: lawyer before going into journalism, and I'd landed at the
Speaker 3: Wall Street Journal, where I covered sort of the legal
Speaker 3: affairs beat. And then I was laid off in two
Speaker 3: thousand and nine, and I hadn't spent too long in journalism,
Speaker 3: but I was already kind of tired of sort of
Speaker 3: traditional journalism and newspaper work, and I wanted to start
Speaker 3: working on books. And I wanted to work on the
Speaker 3: kinds of books that I had admired as a reader
Speaker 3: and as a kid, and those were largely narrative nonfiction.
Speaker 3: Those were the kinds of books I really liked, like
Speaker 3: Friday Night Lights behind the Beautiful Forevers, and I wanted
Speaker 3: to do something like that. I didn't know if I
Speaker 3: ever would or when i'd have the opportunity. But then
Speaker 3: around that same time that I got laid off, I
Speaker 3: saw this story in the New York Times was about
Speaker 3: these two boys are actually kind of a group of
Speaker 3: boys from Laredo, Texas, which is right on the border.
Speaker 3: And these boys, when they, you know, were teenagers, one
Speaker 3: was as young as thirteen when he started. They'd become
Speaker 3: assassins for this big Mexican drug cartel, and they had
Speaker 3: worked for the cartel, doing hits on both sides of
Speaker 3: the border, both in Mexico and in Laredo. And it
Speaker 3: was one of those stories that you read and you
Speaker 3: don't forget it, and it stuck with me for a
Speaker 3: long time. And a few years after I saw this story,
Speaker 3: I saw that their boss, the man who ran the
Speaker 3: cartel that they worked for, had been apprehended in Mexico.
Speaker 3: And so when I saw that story, I thought back
Speaker 3: to these boys I'd read about, and I wondered if
Speaker 3: the arrest of their boss, of the arrest of, you know,
Speaker 3: the cartel head, would would have any effect favorably on
Speaker 3: their willingness to open up to me. So I reached
Speaker 3: out to them in prison there now in the Texas
Speaker 3: State prison system, and we opened up relationships. I opened
Speaker 3: up relationships with them. We started to communicate back and forth.
Speaker 3: I visited them, we exchanged a lot of letters, and
Speaker 3: I started going to Laredo, Texas, And that's how Wolf
Speaker 3: Boys kind of got started. It was me kind of
Speaker 3: throwing out my hands with journalism, wanting to do something
Speaker 3: that was more narrative, more novelistic, and then sort of
Speaker 3: the good fortune of having this opportunity come along, and
Speaker 3: feeling like it was an important story to tell.
Speaker 6: Certainly now Laredo, Texas is central in this story. So
Speaker 6: tell us about Laredo, Texas for those people outside of
Speaker 6: Texas and somewhere else in America, especially for our international audience,
Speaker 6: tell us about Laredo, Texas and its importance to this story.
Speaker 3: Laredo is a fascinating city. It's in South Texas. It's
Speaker 3: right on the border between Texas and Mexico, and if
Speaker 3: you look at a map, Texas is sort of at
Speaker 3: the eastern end of the two thousand mile border between
Speaker 3: the States and Mexico, so it kind of aligns with
Speaker 3: the Gulf of Mexico. And Laredo is a city that's
Speaker 3: sort of central on the Texas Mexico border, and it
Speaker 3: happens to be where I thirty five begins. I thirty
Speaker 3: five is a major freeway that begins in Laredo and
Speaker 3: shoots up into the US and goes all the way
Speaker 3: up to Duluth, Minnesota, all the way up to Canada
Speaker 3: almost And so that fact of its geography is turned
Speaker 3: Laredo into a commercial center. Especially after NAFTA took a
Speaker 3: effect in the early and mid nineties, Laredo really became
Speaker 3: in some ways a boom town for the companies that
Speaker 3: had invested in it. It was a thruway. It was
Speaker 3: where all the Mexican goods shipped up into the US
Speaker 3: arrived through. But there was this weird kind of paradox
Speaker 3: that developed with Laredo. Even while all the companies that
Speaker 3: had invest in the town, these fortune five hundred companies
Speaker 3: were getting rich off of NAFTA and all the commerce
Speaker 3: that went through Laredo itself, and the people of Laredo remained,
Speaker 3: for the most part, very poor. And Laredo is still
Speaker 3: even today, it's one of the poorest cities in the US.
Speaker 3: So that was one of the questions I had when
Speaker 3: I started looking at the story of these Laredo boys
Speaker 3: who had gone to work for Mexican drug cartel, is
Speaker 3: where did they come from? I mean, what kinds of
Speaker 3: ghettos and neighborhoods in Laredo had produced them? And when
Speaker 3: I started looking into that, I found out that these
Speaker 3: neighborhoods were producing a lot of kids, a lot of
Speaker 3: young boys who had the same sort of aspiration. They
Speaker 3: didn't think about going to college, they didn't think about
Speaker 3: that sort of future. What they had on their mind
Speaker 3: was wanting to go to work for the Zetas, which
Speaker 3: is the drug cartel that's right across the border.
Speaker 6: Now you talk about this is a two stories that
Speaker 6: you parallel talk about in the book that you cover,
Speaker 6: Robert Garcia the detective and Gabriel Cardona primarily. So let's
Speaker 6: talk about Robert Garcia. Went you opened the book with
Speaker 6: Robert Garcia is twenty nine years old in the autumn
Speaker 6: of nineteen ninety seven. And this is Robert Garcia Senior.
Speaker 6: Immigrated from Pedris Nagras, Negraz, Mexico, probably mangle that name
Speaker 6: to Eagle Pass, Texas. So tell us a little bit
Speaker 6: about Robert Garcia and before we talk about Robert Garcia
Speaker 6: Junior and his life.
Speaker 3: Robert Garcia Senior and Robert Garcia Junior play a major
Speaker 3: role in this book, mainly Robert Garcia Junior, who's the son.
Speaker 3: He's the son of the immigrants and he was a
Speaker 3: He is a fastening character and he's really the counterpoint
Speaker 3: to Gabriel and the wolf Boys, to these boys who
Speaker 3: became operative who even though they were American born and
Speaker 3: raised in America, they became the Mexican cartel crooks. And
Speaker 3: then this guy, Robert Garcia, who immigrated across to Eagle Past,
Speaker 3: Texas with his family when he was nine. He was,
Speaker 3: in a sense from even less than the wolf Boys
Speaker 3: were from in Laredo. I mean, he was the son
Speaker 3: of these migrant farmers who came across and they worked
Speaker 3: in the fields and in the cantalope fields picking fruits
Speaker 3: and vegetables. In the summertime, they would go up north
Speaker 3: to states like Montana, Oregon and such to work the
Speaker 3: fields there, the sugar beat season, et cetera. That was
Speaker 3: the kind of world that he was raised in, and
Speaker 3: he eventually decided to forego the college thing he had gotten,
Speaker 3: you know, a scholarship. He decided not to go to college,
Speaker 3: and Robert instead enlisted in the army, where he met
Speaker 3: his wife. And then when he came back to the
Speaker 3: States in the early nineties, he and his wife settled
Speaker 3: in Laredo and he decided to become a cop. So
Speaker 3: he went to the police Academy in Laredo and he
Speaker 3: became a street cop. And in the nineties, being a
Speaker 3: patrol cop in Laredo basically meant making a lot of
Speaker 3: small drug arrests. Obviously, a lot of drugs moved through
Speaker 3: that city because of the bridges there, and when you're
Speaker 3: a street cup in the radar. You make us a
Speaker 3: lot of kind of small arrests, and he really got
Speaker 3: into that as a younger cop. He felt like making
Speaker 3: those drug arrests meant meant something because you weren't just
Speaker 3: taking somebody with drugs off the street. You were taking
Speaker 3: somebody who might commit other crimes in order to get
Speaker 3: the drugs, et cetera. So he really believed in the
Speaker 3: drug war and he did his job very well. He
Speaker 3: was awarded Officer of the Year in his late twenties,
Speaker 3: and he was loaned out to the Federal Drug Enforcement
Speaker 3: Administration for a six year stint, and that was the
Speaker 3: first time that Robert got a real global view, or
Speaker 3: at least a you know, a national view on the
Speaker 3: drug war. He started doing more sort of nationwide investigations,
Speaker 3: doing undercover work where he'd go to New York, where
Speaker 3: he'd go up to Detroit, where to go to San Diego.
Speaker 3: And he started seen that of all the drugs that
Speaker 3: came through Laredo, all the law enforcement there and there's
Speaker 3: a lot of law enforcement really don't get any of it.
Speaker 3: They can make a lot of small bus on the streets,
Speaker 3: they can bust the occasional truck full of marijuana or
Speaker 3: cocaine that comes across, But of the overall drug traffic
Speaker 3: that comes through that city, maybe in a good year,
Speaker 3: law enforcement is getting maybe one percent, maybe two percent.
Speaker 3: And so I think that was sort of a disillusioning
Speaker 3: moment for Robert when he found that out. And so
Speaker 3: when he went back to Laredo PD after having served
Speaker 3: his time in Dea, he decided to leave these drug
Speaker 3: investigations behind and he became a homicide detective because he
Speaker 3: felt like the drug traffic itself, it was sort of
Speaker 3: feudle to put a lot of resources and try to
Speaker 3: stop that, but the violence, he felt like maybe law
Speaker 3: enforcement could have an impact on that, so he became
Speaker 3: a homice side detective. This was in the early UH
Speaker 3: to mid two thousands, around two thousand and three, four
Speaker 3: five and that, And that was right around the time
Speaker 3: that the cartel wars in Mexico became very, very bad
Speaker 3: and they started to spill over into into the States
Speaker 3: and specifically into Laredo and Texas. And and that was
Speaker 3: around the time when the Zetas, the Mexican drug cartel
Speaker 3: that was right across the border, they began to recruit
Speaker 3: these American boys, uh to do their bidding for them
Speaker 3: on the you know, the US side. And so Robert
Speaker 3: was faced with a situation where there were a lot
Speaker 3: of unsolved homicides happening all around the city of Laredo.
Speaker 3: And he started to look into some of these uh
Speaker 3: murders and and found you know, common threads, and that's
Speaker 3: it was. It was those investigations around two thousand and five,
Speaker 3: a spate of murders that had happened that had led
Speaker 3: him to Gabriel and uh, these other boys in Laredo
Speaker 3: that that he worked with.
Speaker 6: Now, let's talk about missus Gabriella Cardona. She's got four sons,
Speaker 6: aged four, six, ten, and eleven. And her second child
Speaker 6: is Gabrielle and he's a good students. He starts reading early.
Speaker 6: His older brother is Louise. And then you write in
Speaker 6: their six square block neighborhood, Las Techa, they called it.
Speaker 6: This was two hundred and fifty years old. So tell
Speaker 6: us a little bit about you talk about the chaos
Speaker 6: at night and the helicopters and the cars squealing. What
Speaker 6: did Gabriella and his three brothers grow up in. What
Speaker 6: was the environment in Laredo, What kind of neighborhood did
Speaker 6: they grow up in.
Speaker 3: So, the neighborhood that Gabrielle and his brothers and his
Speaker 3: friends grew up in, as you say, it's called Las Teca,
Speaker 3: and it is the oldest neighborhood in Laredo. It's actually
Speaker 3: the neighborhood that Laredo originated with. It was the first
Speaker 3: neighborhood there around the seventeen fifties, before Laredo was even
Speaker 3: established as a city, Less Techa existed, and it's this
Speaker 3: little neighborhood that is very quaint. It's almost kind of quiet,
Speaker 3: even though it's right on the border there, right on
Speaker 3: the grassy knoll overlooking the Rio Grande, and you can
Speaker 3: literally throw a stone to the beginning to buy thirty
Speaker 3: five because the bridges are right next door. And so
Speaker 3: less Teka for pretty much its entire two hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty year existence has really been a smuggling I don't
Speaker 3: think village is the right word, because it's as you say,
Speaker 3: it's about six by six blocks, it's not even that big.
Speaker 3: But it's been a smuggling neighborhood. And so that was
Speaker 3: the environment that gabriel and his brothers and his friends
Speaker 3: were born into a neighborhood where most of I don't
Speaker 3: know if I can say most many, perhaps most of
Speaker 3: the men who live there and the boys who live there,
Speaker 3: become involved in some aspect of the drug trade. They
Speaker 3: and they do that from a fairly young age. And
Speaker 3: it's not just the drug trade, it's other black market
Speaker 3: kinds of economies that that that exists there. It's immigrants smuggling,
Speaker 3: it's smuggling vehicles and guns south from the US into
Speaker 3: Mexico and supplying the Mexican drug cartels with the things,
Speaker 3: with the things they need. So he was really born
Speaker 3: into this environment and he and he had a hand
Speaker 3: in most of these black market trades by the age
Speaker 3: of about sixteen. He'd already dropped out of high school
Speaker 3: by then. And so less Teco was really a big
Speaker 3: kind of a character, I think in Wolf Boys, and
Speaker 3: it's it's similar to a lot of other neighborhoods in
Speaker 3: the city of Laredo, and it's similar to other neighborhoods
Speaker 3: and other border cities like El Paso, neighborhoods that are
Speaker 3: largely Mexican American, if not entirely Mexican American. And you know,
Speaker 3: basically the kids confronting situations where there doesn't appear to
Speaker 3: be a lot of opportunity, and so the juvenile crime
Speaker 3: rate is very, very high, and a lot of kids
Speaker 3: in these neighborhoods become involved in the street gang life
Speaker 3: from pretty young age, and then it becomes almost like
Speaker 3: a corporate ladder where you're trying to kind of work
Speaker 3: your way up the hierarchy in the underworld. And so
Speaker 3: for someone like Gabriel to become an employee of the Zetas,
Speaker 3: the big organization across the border in Mexico, at the
Speaker 3: age of seventeen or eighteen, and be reporting directly to
Speaker 3: the big bosses, that was a very big deal in
Speaker 3: his world, and he became very respected, and I think
Speaker 3: it was very intoxicating for him, as it would be
Speaker 3: for a lot of young men to of have that responsibility,
Speaker 3: have that respect, and be making as much money as
Speaker 3: he was and be able to kind of give money
Speaker 3: too friends and family who you know, who had nothing.
Speaker 6: Now you talk about his development as a criminal as well,
Speaker 6: because he ends up working eventually showing his metal and
Speaker 6: being recognized and ends up working for a person named
Speaker 6: Mime Flores, And so tell us about this as you
Speaker 6: do describing the book, this faithful event where Gabriel meets
Speaker 6: up with Miguel Trevino and his take on what has
Speaker 6: been happening so far. He's enlightened, to say the least.
Speaker 6: So tell us about this incident where he meets somebody
Speaker 6: he really respects up that corporate ladder. Yes.
Speaker 3: So, one of the questions, one of the many questions
Speaker 3: that I had that kind of launched me into the
Speaker 3: Wolf Boys project was the question of how does a
Speaker 3: you know, how does an American boy from a city
Speaker 3: like Laredo, how do you how do you join a
Speaker 3: Mexican drug cartel? I mean, what is what's the introduction
Speaker 3: like which the recruitment process is it? Is it? Is
Speaker 3: it that you're in school one day and everything was okay,
Speaker 3: and you're on the football team, and then you have
Speaker 3: a bad week and the next thing you know, you're
Speaker 3: talking to someone across the border who runs a drug cartel?
Speaker 3: Or is it more of a gradual slide? And of course,
Speaker 3: you know, you'd think it was more of a it'd
Speaker 3: be more of a gradual slide. And with him, it
Speaker 3: certainly was. Gabriel and all of a lot of his
Speaker 3: friends they left school at a very early age. They
Speaker 3: were working in the underworld at very early age, and
Speaker 3: with him he had been stealing vehicles. He was very
Speaker 3: good at stealing vehicles in the States and bringing them
Speaker 3: across to Mexico and selling them there in the underworld.
Speaker 3: And the reason he was good at it is because
Speaker 3: he took a lot of sedatives and tranquilizers that sort
Speaker 3: of blunted his inhibitions. So he was very good instealing cars.
Speaker 3: And one night he and his friend had stolen a
Speaker 3: I think it was a jeep Cherokee. It could have
Speaker 3: been like any other you know dozen, you know, dozens
Speaker 3: of evenings, and they took this jeep across and his
Speaker 3: friend had a contact at the police station in Mexico
Speaker 3: who he thought would buy it. Always the question when
Speaker 3: they stole a car was who on the other side
Speaker 3: were they going to sell to. They had several different contacts,
Speaker 3: and so his friend said, oh, I know a cop
Speaker 3: at the Mexican police station in Waivo Laredo, the city
Speaker 3: across the border in Mexico, And so they went there
Speaker 3: and they were told that the cop wasn't in that
Speaker 3: evening or wasn't working, So they turned the car around
Speaker 3: and they decided to go back into Texas. And what
Speaker 3: happened on the way back is they were apprehended. They
Speaker 3: were stopped, and they were pulled over, and what followed
Speaker 3: was an evening that really I think transformed Gabriel's future.
Speaker 3: The people who apprehended them before they get back to
Speaker 3: Texas were people who worked for the Zetas. They had
Speaker 3: heard that these boys had tried to sell a car
Speaker 3: to a certain Mexican cop, and that cop was known
Speaker 3: to work for the opposition. So they took Gabriel and
Speaker 3: his friend back to a barn on a ranch, and
Speaker 3: that was the night that they met Miguel Travino. Miguel
Speaker 3: was at that point a mid level boss for the Zetas,
Speaker 3: an extremely brutal man, has a reputation for extreme violence,
Speaker 3: and they met him at a barn. Miguel didn't trust them,
Speaker 3: he thought they worked the other side. And actually, right
Speaker 3: when Miguel was about to throw a grenade into the
Speaker 3: barn and just killed them, Gabriel shouted out the name
Speaker 3: of this guy, Mime Flores, who was another contact that
Speaker 3: he had in Mexico, another you know, man that he
Speaker 3: would sell guns, that he stole to vehicles that he
Speaker 3: stole to, and so Meme turned out to be a
Speaker 3: acquaintance and associated with Miguel's and that really changed Miguel's opinion,
Speaker 3: and so he didn't kill them. Instead, you know, he
Speaker 3: called up memmey Flores. Meme came over to the site
Speaker 3: they were at, and that was the night that Gabriel
Speaker 3: was kind of taken into the cartel and in a
Speaker 3: matter of weeks he found himself at a training camp
Speaker 3: in southern Mexico.
Speaker 6: Tell us about this incredible, almost unbelievable training camp. You
Speaker 6: talk about the seventy recruits that are initially there and
Speaker 6: how it whittles down to twenty, and what these twenty
Speaker 6: of the seventy are asked to do and what are
Speaker 6: recognized as having the ability to do. So, tell us
Speaker 6: a little bit more about this training camp, who's training
Speaker 6: these people and what are they learning.
Speaker 3: Well, the training camp is staffed by a lot of
Speaker 3: different people. They hire mercenaries from all over the world
Speaker 3: that were rumored to be an Israeli mercenary there at
Speaker 3: one point. They try to bring in people who have
Speaker 3: military experience. The Zetas are an organization that originated with
Speaker 3: Mexican military. That's their background, and one of the reasons
Speaker 3: that they were effective for a long time is because
Speaker 3: they brought that kind of military, take no prisoners ethos
Speaker 3: into the cartel wars. So at the training camps, the
Speaker 3: purpose of a lot of these exercises that these boys
Speaker 3: and young men go through in the six weeks or
Speaker 3: the three months of the camp is basically sort of
Speaker 3: a filtering process of the people who run the camp.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out who has it in their
Speaker 3: blood to kill and who doesn't. So really the camp
Speaker 3: is about teaching people how to kill and how to
Speaker 3: kill efficiently. I won't say too much more because I
Speaker 3: don't want to I don't want to narrate the entire book,
Speaker 3: but but you can imagine I think, you know, some
Speaker 3: of the things that would happen in that in that environment,
Speaker 3: and it's it was definitely the hardest part of the
Speaker 3: book for me to write. It was the hardest part
Speaker 3: of the book for me to to learn about and
Speaker 3: to research. But I felt like a book that tried
Speaker 3: to nail the experience of what it was like for
Speaker 3: young boy to go to work for drug cartel really needed,
Speaker 3: you know, needed to have that material in it.
Speaker 6: Absolutely. You talk about hands on training, they actually have
Speaker 6: contras there and you can tell us what their definition
Speaker 6: of contirass is and conscious are seen as the enemy.
Speaker 6: They have actual live contras there for their exercises. Again,
Speaker 6: you could just without maybe the description of it. But
Speaker 6: it is hands on experience, isn't it.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: It's live.
Speaker 3: It's live fire, I guess is probably the most accurate
Speaker 3: way to put it. It's you know, it's it's uh,
Speaker 3: it was it's highly disturbing stuff, but yeah, it is,
Speaker 3: it is live. They want to.
Speaker 6: See that.
Speaker 3: They want to see do you do you have it
Speaker 3: in you, you know, to take a human life? And
Speaker 3: and the camp is the camp is where they they
Speaker 3: find that out.
Speaker 6: So, needless to say, Gabrielle passes the mustard that his
Speaker 6: friend Wentz's. That is a character in this book as well.
Speaker 6: He is also working for the company at a different,
Speaker 6: different occupation. But gabriel has been recognized through this Memme
Speaker 6: Flores and through and through also Miguel Trevino as having
Speaker 6: what it takes having the balls. Now, a couple of
Speaker 6: things are going on, and you talk about that somewhat
Speaker 6: peaceful existence in this drug smuggling in the cartels is changing,
Speaker 6: and you introduce people like al Chapo, which people are
Speaker 6: familiar with. But also when you talk about you talk
Speaker 6: about things changing in this drug war as well, tell
Speaker 6: us what the Zea the Zettas are doing in terms
Speaker 6: of to counter what other people are doing in other
Speaker 6: drug cartels.
Speaker 3: Well, a lot of what the cartel wants are about.
Speaker 3: Maybe this is obviously some people is trying to kill
Speaker 3: off your enemies. And so the reason for someone like
Speaker 3: Miguel Trevino, who ran the Zetas or who eventually would
Speaker 3: become the head of the zetas part of what he
Speaker 3: wanted to do in this sort of two thousand and
Speaker 3: five two thousand and six Ero, when these boys were
Speaker 3: recruited and they worked, was to have them do the
Speaker 3: cartels bidding the States, which really meant going after the
Speaker 3: cartel's enemies in the States. So the goal for him
Speaker 3: was to kill people who threatened his business or who
Speaker 3: threatened his power. You know, sometimes it was a rival smuggler,
Speaker 3: but sometimes it was somebody who who he felt had
Speaker 3: inappropriately slept with one of his ex you know, girlfriends
Speaker 3: or something in order to save face. He feel feels
Speaker 3: like he needed to kill that person, and so, sadly
Speaker 3: and tragically, a lot of or at least some of
Speaker 3: the jobs that Gabriel and the other wolf Boys were
Speaker 3: sent on where jobs where they were were sent to
Speaker 3: kill someone for that sort of a transgression, just some stupid,
Speaker 3: you know, manly jealousy thing.
Speaker 6: Now you talk about though the wolf Boys have a credo,
Speaker 6: they have a motto and that's the wolf Boys never
Speaker 6: say no. We also have at the same time as
Speaker 6: all of this is going on, the fight for Anuvo Dorito,
Speaker 6: you talk about the plaza. Can you explain the talk
Speaker 6: of the plaza. I don't think everyone would be as
Speaker 6: familiar with what they mean by that. Gabriel is being
Speaker 6: recruited with others, and Gabriel is asked by Trevino at
Speaker 6: some point to get other American boys to join him
Speaker 6: to work at the plat. So tell us about this assignment.
Speaker 3: Well, the plaza. The plaza just describes sort of the
Speaker 3: the economic structure of a town or a hub through
Speaker 3: the cartel's eyes. From the perspective of a drug cartel,
Speaker 3: every town, every kind of waypoint that drugs and other
Speaker 3: illegal commerce travels through as a plaza, and the person
Speaker 3: who makes the money is the person who controls the plaza.
Speaker 3: So each town, each city has its own plaza. It's
Speaker 3: a site to different people in the cartel, and there's
Speaker 3: a pretty intricate, sort of hierarchical structure within each plaza.
Speaker 3: There are different roles to be filled, and so these
Speaker 3: boys and young men who go to the cartel screening camp,
Speaker 3: they get assigned a job in the plaza. And sometimes
Speaker 3: you're an assassin and sometimes your lookout, or you're someone
Speaker 3: interfaces with local police and takes care of corruption, or
Speaker 3: you're an accountant. There are a lot of accountants within
Speaker 3: within the organization. So that's that's what APPLAUSA is.
Speaker 6: Now. We also talk about back to Robert Garcia returning
Speaker 6: to Laredo Police Department after the six stressful years with
Speaker 6: the DEA. And you talk about that he had as
Speaker 6: his youngest son had just started high school and and
Speaker 6: Eric was a senior, and also that Laredo was much
Speaker 6: different in those fear in those few years that he
Speaker 6: had worked for the DEA, and murders and drug crimes
Speaker 6: were way up, and so so tell us about his work.
Speaker 6: Roberts work as a homicide detective and also what law
Speaker 6: enforcement at that time knew about Miguel. Miguel Trevino.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, when when Miguel first started kind of working,
Speaker 3: he wasn't known really by LaRita law enforcement. He gained
Speaker 3: a profile and eventually Robert learns that he's going after Miguel.
Speaker 3: Miguel is the person who's running all of this, so
Speaker 3: in a way becomes a face off between them.
Speaker 6: What is the when you talk about Gabriel rising in
Speaker 6: in uh in status with this with the company, does
Speaker 6: he have being a kid that grew up in America?
Speaker 6: Part of this book, this incredible book, is how somebody
Speaker 6: from America under any conditions could end up being an assassin.
Speaker 6: So does he have any reservations? Is there any incidents
Speaker 6: along the way? What is this ascension up the ladder
Speaker 6: of this company? What does it come with? Is there
Speaker 6: again you spoke to him later, but at that time,
Speaker 6: does he have any reservations? What are his feelings other
Speaker 6: than he's proud to be employed and in his world,
Speaker 6: this is a big, big step for him. Tell us
Speaker 6: a little bit about some of the things that he's
Speaker 6: experiencing are at that time being in an assassin?
Speaker 3: Well, he's experienced his sense of purpose that he's associated
Speaker 3: with an organization where he feels he might have a
Speaker 3: future for a kid who comes from very little opportunity
Speaker 3: that stands for a lot. And he's also making a
Speaker 3: lot of money and he's giving that money, like I said,
Speaker 3: to his family and his friends, his mother and the girlfriend.
Speaker 3: And you know, he's also he's also doing a lot
Speaker 3: of murders in Mexico, where the cops over there actually
Speaker 3: helping him. So I think there was some delusion there
Speaker 3: because he would come back over here to the States,
Speaker 3: and at seventeen eighteen, you don't think always so rationally,
Speaker 3: he thought that he would be able to work with
Speaker 3: the same impunity here that he did in Mexico. And
Speaker 3: because of Robert Garcia and because of the American law enforcement,
Speaker 3: he found out that that was not the case.
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Speaker 6: to cook. When we last spoke, Dan, we were talking
Speaker 6: about the convergence the past that seem to be on
Speaker 6: separate tracks, as you mentioned in the book. But now
Speaker 6: both of these people, these characters are heading right towards
Speaker 6: each other. So talk about Robert Garcia and Miguel Trevino
Speaker 6: and how it comes to be that Robert Garcia is
Speaker 6: on the trail of Gabriel Cardona.
Speaker 3: Ah, Well, Gabriel is doing murders and Robert starts to
Speaker 3: investigate these murders and he comes up face to face
Speaker 3: with these wolf boys and he's trying to figure out
Speaker 3: who they're working for.
Speaker 6: Now, how does how does he get to the point
Speaker 6: where he gets in intelligence and into on who is
Speaker 6: involved with this and the other wolf wolf boys tell
Speaker 6: us that progression of events.
Speaker 3: Well, there's an investigation Dan and he you know, he learns,
Speaker 3: you know, one thing after another, and eventually he he
Speaker 3: reaches these kids. But this is the whole story, This
Speaker 3: is the plot of the book. You know, there's an investigation,
Speaker 3: there's a there's a homicide investigation that takes place, and
Speaker 3: he investigates these murders that are being ordered by this
Speaker 3: drug cartel and eventually finds out who's at the top.
Speaker 6: Now you take us to the what we didn't talk
Speaker 6: about was the very opening of the book and the introduction,
Speaker 6: and you talk about one day they're at a rental
Speaker 6: house on orange blossom loop. They're eating fast food, shop
Speaker 6: at Walmart, talking on their wire tap phones and this
Speaker 6: is not too far from this border. He's got a
Speaker 6: closet full of Hugo Boss and Ralph Lauren Versace and
Speaker 6: Kenneth Cole. He's driving a Jetta, a Mercedes SUV and
Speaker 6: he's got a customized bend. Coming around him were his
Speaker 6: friend's Richard, his lieutenant, his uncle, Rawl, his mother's brother,
Speaker 6: Christina his girlfriend and Gabriel's nineteen years old at that time.
Speaker 6: Tell us what happens in terms of this arrest and
Speaker 6: what happens as a result moving forward.
Speaker 3: Well, they eventually lareda law enforcement eventually lures the boys
Speaker 3: to a safe house to monitor them and to try
Speaker 3: to get enough evidence against them to invite not just
Speaker 3: these boys, but men hire up in the cartel.
Speaker 6: And what does Robert Garcia find out in terms of
Speaker 6: with this investigation with the Cardona Gabriel Cardona, what does
Speaker 6: he find out? I mean, he's born in Mexico. He
Speaker 6: used to think that the war was winnable. He knows
Speaker 6: that it's not, and he knows why it is not.
Speaker 6: What does he find maybe it would be surprising to
Speaker 6: him working in drugs now working in homicide. What does
Speaker 6: he see, what does he experience with this person from
Speaker 6: the US that has turned into an assassin.
Speaker 3: Well, what he learns is is how a boy becomes
Speaker 3: an assassin and and what and why the kids thought
Speaker 3: that they could commit murders in the States with with impunity.
Speaker 3: He realizes the extent of violence, the extent of corruption
Speaker 3: in Mexico, and he also realizes the futility of the
Speaker 3: drug war just because drugs are are not stoppable, but
Speaker 3: because here a boyle like Gabriel becomes one of the
Speaker 3: signature cases of Robert's career. And I think it was
Speaker 3: disheartening for him, you know, eventually to realize that that
Speaker 3: the investigation of these boys would be such a landmark.
Speaker 3: I think that was all letdown.
Speaker 6: Now tell us again, when do you reached out to
Speaker 6: Gabriel and when you contacted him and visit him? When
Speaker 6: did this begin? And tell us just about that correspondence
Speaker 6: and his response.
Speaker 3: Well, Gabriel and I communicated for about three years through letters,
Speaker 3: and you and I were sending letters back and forth
Speaker 3: for a long time. We sent a lot of letters,
Speaker 3: and that's how I learned about his life.
Speaker 6: What was the How long did it take him? You
Speaker 6: talk about in the book that he was parting, was
Speaker 6: a big part of the company itself, and was encouraged
Speaker 6: and certainly Gabriel indulged as well. You talk about doing roofees,
Speaker 6: and he was always being He liked its effect, it's
Speaker 6: calming effect. Was there a time when all the energy
Speaker 6: and all the activity, and once sitting in a prison cell,
Speaker 6: some of the same things that he thought were rational
Speaker 6: and reasonable he now thought were not. And you tell
Speaker 6: us a little bit about the differences he thought in
Speaker 6: things once everything had stopped and he was behind bars.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's taken a while to grow up.
Speaker 3: I think he is growing in prison. He's been there
Speaker 3: since he was nineteen and a half and he'll probably
Speaker 3: be there for the rest of his life. He's serving
Speaker 3: two life sentences. And I think he sees now with
Speaker 3: about a decade hindsight, that you know, the crimes were atrocious,
Speaker 3: that there was really no point to it all. But
Speaker 3: I think he's torn between that revelation and and the
Speaker 3: fact that he staked everything, he staked his identity on
Speaker 3: this role that he carved out of being kind of
Speaker 3: the young powerful guy the violent guy, the guy who
Speaker 3: other people were were afraid of. And I think now
Speaker 3: he sees that he mistake, you know, he sort of
Speaker 3: mistook a fear for respect, and I think he sees
Speaker 3: strangely that in some way he was secure kid, and
Speaker 3: it was really inspirity on some level that that drove
Speaker 3: him to become what he became. And you know, I
Speaker 3: think I think his thinking will will evolve over the
Speaker 3: over the many more years that he's in prisen. But
Speaker 3: that's that's where he stands now, He's about thirty years old.
Speaker 6: What's the level of remorse? How far can he go
Speaker 6: from where he came to be remorseless? How how much remorse,
Speaker 6: if any, is there in the way he speaks to
Speaker 6: you about the crimes he was involved in.
Speaker 3: I think again, I think he does have days when
Speaker 3: he feels remorse, and I think he does have days
Speaker 3: when he accepts the person he became and sort of
Speaker 3: embraces the stoicism of the kind of stone cold murderer.
Speaker 3: And so I do think he goes back and forth.
Speaker 3: I don't think that it's one thing. I don't think
Speaker 3: it's one feeling or one perspective. I think that he
Speaker 3: really is torn between between what what he knows to
Speaker 3: be true, which is that what he the way he
Speaker 3: lived his life was atrocious. Atrocious is a word he
Speaker 3: actually used with me. And then this other idea that
Speaker 3: I came from where I came from, and my environment
Speaker 3: exerted certain influences on me, and and I became what
Speaker 3: I became. So I do I do think that he
Speaker 3: goes back and forth between between those feelings.
Speaker 6: What was feelings regarding his family, if any at.
Speaker 3: All, Well, I think he got a lot of purpose
Speaker 3: out of supporting his family. I think that'd being able
Speaker 3: to give money to something like his mother, to give
Speaker 3: her more money in a week than she might make
Speaker 3: in six months, was a huge deal, and I do
Speaker 3: think that drove him a lot. And I think it
Speaker 3: was hard for I've spent a lot of time with
Speaker 3: his family too. I think it was hard for his
Speaker 3: family to confront that that idea that he did what
Speaker 3: he did probably for them. But then again, you know,
Speaker 3: most people in his family are in some aspect of
Speaker 3: the underworld businesses, and they all do that for each other.
Speaker 3: They all break the law for each other in the
Speaker 3: name of culture, their environment, supporting one another and people
Speaker 3: in their family, and people in that neighborhood go in
Speaker 3: and out of the prison system like a revolving door.
Speaker 3: So's it's a whole different world. But that's what's the
Speaker 3: purpose of writing Wolf Boys was to was to was
Speaker 3: to investigate that.
Speaker 6: What is his experience been in prison as a gang member?
Speaker 6: What has that been like?
Speaker 3: Well, he's an administrative segregation, so he it's basically solitary
Speaker 3: con finement. He's kept away from general population. He is
Speaker 3: associated with a prison gang called Hermano's Pistolarios, and he
Speaker 3: gets along. I think he again, I think he's torn
Speaker 3: between dissociating from them. There's a program in the prison
Speaker 3: system that gives prisoners certain special privileges if they if
Speaker 3: they dissociate from their gang, and I think he's he's
Speaker 3: thought of doing that before, but he also knows that
Speaker 3: being associated with them gives them certain protections, guarantees or
Speaker 3: hopefully guarantees. And so at the moment he's living alone,
Speaker 3: he's living alone in a cell and he doesn't have
Speaker 3: a lot of contact with other inmates.
Speaker 6: What what did this case, this investigation do for Robert Garcia,
Speaker 6: What was its effect on him and his life? Well,
Speaker 6: it was a.
Speaker 3: Very dramatic case. It was probably the most dramatic case
Speaker 3: he'd ever worked on. What are the more interesting cases
Speaker 3: he'd ever worked on, But it was also one of dozens,
Speaker 3: if not hundreds of drug investigations and cartel investigations that
Speaker 3: he's been over the years. Robert Is Robert's now nearly fifty.
Speaker 3: He's back on patrol. He's now a patrol sergeant who
Speaker 3: runs sort of a quadrant or exception of Laredo. And
Speaker 3: you know, the case brought him some attention. He goes
Speaker 3: up north and he teaches classes to law enforcement about
Speaker 3: cartel violence on the border. It's given him someone of
Speaker 3: a profile. He's appeared in media. His life story has
Speaker 3: been told in my book. But as far as transforming
Speaker 3: his life, I don't know. I mean, maybe Donald Trump
Speaker 3: will will appoint him, the borders are and then all
Speaker 3: of this will come to fruition. At the moment, he's,
Speaker 3: you know, still still just a cop.
Speaker 6: He started off with thinking the war on drugs was
Speaker 6: a great thing. What was a was a noble thing,
Speaker 6: and then he thought it was an unwinnable thing. Maybe
Speaker 6: he doesn't have all the answers, but does he have
Speaker 6: any thoughts about the drug war and what could be
Speaker 6: done differently.
Speaker 3: Well, I think Robert knows that it's about addressing demand
Speaker 3: on this side, which is something that's kind of widely
Speaker 3: known and understood. And I think he also knows that
Speaker 3: it's about putting in place policies not just drug policies
Speaker 3: or prison reform, but policies that help families stay together
Speaker 3: and they provide more more opportunity to people. Ultimately, all
Speaker 3: this stuff begins with families, families falling apart, not being
Speaker 3: able to support each other, it begins with absent fathers.
Speaker 3: That's really the common thread. So Laredo is one of
Speaker 3: the great marginalized cities in America. It's one of many
Speaker 3: many marginalized cities. A lot of people in Laredo who
Speaker 3: voted for Donald Trump because they're sick of the career politicians.
Speaker 3: They're frankly sick of NAFTA, they're sick of jobs going
Speaker 3: to Mexico, even a lot of even though a lot
Speaker 3: of citizens there came from Mexico, it is a city
Speaker 3: that's ninety eight percent Hispanic American. So it's a city
Speaker 3: of contradictions, and Robert is certainly a product of that. City.
Speaker 3: But I think one thing that he has learned over
Speaker 3: the course of his now been almost thirty years in
Speaker 3: Laredo police that it's about it's about policies that help
Speaker 3: families stay together.
Speaker 6: You talked about throughout this book, and this is for
Speaker 6: those who will kick you up on this and read
Speaker 6: this book, is that you talk about the history and
Speaker 6: what Mexico has done in terms of drug trafficking, to
Speaker 6: talk about the opium, talk about the cocaine, you talk
Speaker 6: about the marijuana, and you talk about the changing of
Speaker 6: guard between cartels, the Gulf Cartel, the SnO Orleans. So
Speaker 6: tell us not that we know, we know that things
Speaker 6: haven't changed, they haven't gotten better, but what is the
Speaker 6: state of who controls Laredo and drug trafficking in Mexico?
Speaker 3: Now, Well, Dan, it's always just, you know, shifting. I
Speaker 3: don't know, I don't know if it's even worthwhile to
Speaker 3: talk about who controls a certain part. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: a constantly shifting landscape of drug organizations. Golf Cartel, the Zetas.
Speaker 4: This.
Speaker 3: Sine Loans, and probably half a dozen to a dozen
Speaker 3: other drug organizations. All organizations are constantly cropping up and
Speaker 3: trying to challenge larger organizations, so the landscape is constantly
Speaker 3: shifting there.
Speaker 6: You talk about how also that this is a discussion
Speaker 6: on how the border is changing, and you talk about
Speaker 6: how we just Donald Trump is the new president, and
Speaker 6: of course immigration, cross border traffic, illegals become illegal, immigration
Speaker 6: become big issues, obviously very big issues. Is there any
Speaker 6: talk of any concrete changes that might address this whatsoever?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 6: No, simply not. What did this entire I know, this
Speaker 6: any true crime book, but especially a book with the
Speaker 6: kind of details that we avoided talking about with the
Speaker 6: training camp itself and you having to go and do
Speaker 6: that kind of research and find out that kind of information.
Speaker 6: What was it the effect of doing this, this book
Speaker 6: and the investigation that you had to what it kind
Speaker 6: of effect did it have on you?
Speaker 3: It just opened my eyes big time. I mean it
Speaker 3: was it was horrifying at times. It was also thrilling
Speaker 3: as a reporter. It was kind of what you dream
Speaker 3: of to have a city like Laredo, an environment that
Speaker 3: you can go to that is basically gone, totally uncovered.
Speaker 3: There had never been a serious nonfiction book written about
Speaker 3: the city or set in the city, and it was
Speaker 3: it was it's an environment and a culture that really
Speaker 3: has its own rules. So going there back and forth
Speaker 3: that city for three years while I was working with
Speaker 3: wolf Boys, as you know a journalist, was just an
Speaker 3: absolutely periled experience. It was also it was kind of everything.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was very scary at times. Gabriel and
Speaker 3: I didn't always long. It could be very stressful, you know. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: I'm not there developing relationships with other young men who
Speaker 3: lived similar lives to him, who are in prison for
Speaker 3: murder and all sorts of things. You know, young young
Speaker 3: men who have proven themselves capable of doing pretty much anything.
Speaker 3: And I've seen it all, and so it was unnerving
Speaker 3: for me. I mean, here, I am sort of a
Speaker 3: I'm basically, you know, I'm a white guy. I come
Speaker 3: from a lot of I'm a white Jewish guy from
Speaker 3: the Midwest. I come from a fair amount of opportunity.
Speaker 3: Both my parents are doctors. I got to go to college,
Speaker 3: I got to go to law school. I've had a
Speaker 3: lot of opportunity in life, and I've lived largely up
Speaker 3: and up in the North, and so it was it was,
Speaker 3: to say the least, it was. It was an eye
Speaker 3: opener to go to this city that is still in
Speaker 3: my own country, but is so different than anything, uh,
Speaker 3: not only that I've ever seen, but anything I've ever imagined.
Speaker 3: And to see that there are these American kids who
Speaker 3: you know, unlike me, are are are on the downside
Speaker 3: of advantage, but even then some and they're they're becoming
Speaker 3: paid assassins for a big, multi global drug organization. That
Speaker 3: was that was shocking for me. It never, it never
Speaker 3: was not shocking. It was shocking every day to think
Speaker 3: about that. So I could I could go on and
Speaker 3: on and on about the culture shock, but yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: I've I've lived in other parts of the world. I've
Speaker 3: lived in England, I've lived in Spain, I've had the
Speaker 3: good fortune to travel to a lot of places. Laredo
Speaker 3: feels as foreign as any place I've ever been.
Speaker 6: And again, just to answer my own question, could you
Speaker 6: see how it could be possible for this person, I mean,
Speaker 6: despite the circumstances, to be able to do this. Could
Speaker 6: you wrap your head around this and say, yes, I
Speaker 6: can't understand how he could go from American teenager into
Speaker 6: a paid assassin or no.
Speaker 3: Yeah, After learning about Laredo and after spending time with
Speaker 3: the principle of Gabriel's high school, the principles of other
Speaker 3: high schools, the dean of the local university, spending a
Speaker 3: lot of time and a lot of cops, going on
Speaker 3: ride alongs, spending time with families, spending time with the
Speaker 3: women who would date these young men who found this
Speaker 3: whole world alluring. Yeah. Absolutely, I could see, I could
Speaker 3: be I could see how how seductive lifestyle would be.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well that's surprising. Well, I want to thank you
Speaker 6: very much for coming on and talking about wolf Boys,
Speaker 6: two American teenagers in Mexico's most dangerous drug cartel. For
Speaker 6: those people that might want to follow us up or
Speaker 6: see other work, or do you have a Facebook page
Speaker 6: or website, tell us how people might be able to
Speaker 6: contact you or look at other work.
Speaker 3: Is at by Dan Slater is the Twitter handle, and
Speaker 3: I'm also on Facebook, and you can get in touch
Speaker 3: with me on email. It's Danielbslater at gmail dot com. Again,
Speaker 3: it's d A n I E L B s l
Speaker 3: A t E r at gmail dot com. And so
Speaker 3: i'd encourage readers to reach out to me. I love
Speaker 3: to hear from readers. Tirol people thought of the book.
Speaker 3: Wolf Boys has been out for about five months, and
Speaker 3: uh just found out last week that one of the
Speaker 3: Laredo High school since actually mentioned in the book, United South,
Speaker 3: has decided to put wolf Boys into its curriculum, so
Speaker 3: hopefully other high It's a book that's been taken very
Speaker 3: seriously by Laredo, which is like the greatest thing for
Speaker 3: me because when I was working on the I was
Speaker 3: often told by people that no one in Laredo read
Speaker 3: there was not even a bookstore there, and that no
Speaker 3: one will read the book. That has proven not to
Speaker 3: be the case. So it's also going to be a movie.
Speaker 3: Sonys optioned the film rights to wolf Boys, and Antoine
Speaker 3: Fuqua is attached to direct. He directed a movie called
Speaker 3: Training Day back in two thousand and one. He's done
Speaker 3: a lot of other movies since. So that's where things stand.
Speaker 3: But thanks a lot for talking to me, Dan, I
Speaker 3: appreciate it.
Speaker 6: Well. Congratulations on the movie, and congratulations on wolf Boys.
Speaker 6: It's a fascinating book. We just touched on a little
Speaker 6: bit of the incredible action that you have in the
Speaker 6: book that you've captured from all the incredible work that
Speaker 6: you've done to get this information and have access to
Speaker 6: Gabriel and all the players in this book, so I
Speaker 6: want to thank you very much for that and UH
Speaker 6: hoped again to talk to you again soon. Thank you
Speaker 6: very much for this awesome Dan, thanks a lot, Thank you,
Speaker 6: good night,