Podcasts about cartels

On today's episode, Vince welcomes back Katarina Szulc, investigative journalist and host of the Ironclad Original, Borderland: Dispatches. Kat shares insights from her recent reporting in Ukraine, where authorities are investigating claims that foreign fighters with cartel ties traveled to the front lines to learn modern combat tactics before returning to Latin America. The conversation also explores foreign mercenaries in Ukraine, the evolution of cartel warfare, U.S. pressure on cartel leadership, corruption in Mexico, and what these developments could mean for the future of organized crime. Borderland is an IRONCLAD Original Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (01:44) Cartels, Ukraine, and FPV Drone Warfare (03:26) The Colombian Connection & Drone Schools in Lviv (09:52) American Mercenaries & Background Checks on the Front Lines (11:33) Gamers vs. Combat: How Simple is FPV Drone Flying? (15:24) Behind the Scenes of the Global Mercenary Recruitment Machine (25:06) US Boots on the Ground & The Standoff over Drone Strikes in Mexico (29:51) Cartel Corruption & Political Gaslighting in Sinaloa (34:22) The 2026 World Cup: A Cartel Moneymaker? (47:17) 2026 Wrap-Up: The Year of the Fallen Kingpins & The Endless Drug War Sponsors: 1st Phorm: Go to⁠ ⁠https://www.1stphorm.com/borderland⁠⁠ and get free shipping on any orders over $75, free 30 days in the app for new customers, and 110% money back guarantee on all of our products. Norwood Sawmills: Learn more about Norwood Sawmills and how you can start milling your own lumber at https://norwoodsawmills.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=ironclad&utm_campaign=ironclad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode delivers a deep-dive behavioral analysis of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and their calculated psychological warfare executed on the eve of the World Cup. By analyzing the brutal ambush of five police officers in Michoacán, we decode the tactical terrorism and high-stakes manipulation used by cartels to exploit global media spotlight. Discover the chilling forensic profiling behind "El Mencho's" successors and how criminal syndicates weaponize national events for psychological dominance.

As the 2026 World Cup kicks off in Mexico City, five police officers are gunned down by suspected CJNG cartel gunmen in Michoacan, just 300 km away. We break down the cartel landscape, the death of “El Mencho,” the rise of “El Jardinero,” and what it really means for the safety of fans heading south of the border. This is the gap between the official narrative and the ground truth — and we're going to walk through it.

As the World Cup kicks off in Mexico, a devastating cartel ambush leaves five police officers dead in the violence-plagued region of Michoacán. This investigative episode unpacks the gruesome reality of the CJNG's latest strike and the bloody power vacuum left in the wake of kingpin "El Mencho's" death. We trace the execution of this brazen attack, the political fallout threatening international sports, and the ongoing hunt for the cartel's ruthless new leadership.

The National Security Hour with Major Fred Galvin – I examine fentanyl as a national security threat linking Chinese precursor chemicals, Mexican cartels, counterfeit pills, money laundering, and border failures. The discussion connects Opium Wars history, gray-zone warfare, public health devastation, veterans, families, and enforcement efforts while asking what victory against America's opioid crisis truly requires at home...

The National Security Hour with Major Fred Galvin – I examine fentanyl as a national security threat linking Chinese precursor chemicals, Mexican cartels, counterfeit pills, money laundering, and border failures. The discussion connects Opium Wars history, gray-zone warfare, public health devastation, veterans, families, and enforcement efforts while asking what victory against America's opioid crisis truly requires at home...

Pierre-François vide son ordinateur de ses vieilles idées. Patrice nous dit quoi faire avec notre argent du Cartel du pain. Marie-Josée nous parle de Jack Antonoff.

Joyce Talks about: People making money off of the Trump Administration with "tell-all" books.Inflation numbers.Primary elections: Graham Plattner wins in Maine/ Nancy Mace finishing last in South Carolina Primary. War with Iran and military strikes. $70 million bill to fund deportation efforts through Trump's final term.War on cartels. Drone boat rescue in Iran. Lack of support for America's 250th anniversary.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

While the world watched Colombia's electrifying 1994 World Cup run with admiration, a parallel war was being fought entirely out of sight, one where Pablo Escobar and rival cartel networks had already spent years embedding themselves inside the national team's financial infrastructure, club ownership, and player ecosystems as an extension of their broader military and political operations. The World Cup was not just a sporting event for these organizations, it was a high-stakes operational theater where gambling syndicates, money laundering pipelines, and coercion networks all converged on the same eleven men standing on a field in front of the world. This episode breaks down the tactical logic of cartel infiltration of Colombian football, how the World Cup amplified every existing threat, and what the execution of Andrés Escobar ten days after the tournament revealed about the lethal command structure operating behind it.

Maradona was football's ultimate genius - a magician on the pitch whose talent rivalled only Pelé. But off the field, the boy from the barrios of Buenos Aires became entangled in a dark web of criminal influence and personal demons.Catch Giles live - 'Let's Talk' - Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday - from 10.00CET...on tre.radio

Football fans are celebrating the tournament coming to Guadalajara. But with a brutal crime syndicate holding sway there, what are the risks for fans – and the government?. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus

Colombia's 1994 World Cup squad carried into every match not only the weight of national expectation but the invisible psychological burden of operating inside a cartel-controlled threat environment where performance had life-or-death consequences they could not openly acknowledge or escape. This episode examines the forensic psychology of chronic coercive threat, how Pablo Escobar and rival narco organizations used the World Cup's global stage to amplify their soft power while players navigated terror, compliance, and the psychological splitting required to compete at the highest level under those conditions. The assassination of Andrés Escobar following Colombia's World Cup elimination is analyzed as a clinical case study in how criminal systems manufacture silence through ambient fear and what it costs individuals who become symbolic casualties inside an institution they never fully controlled.

At the peak of their power in the early 1990s, Pablo Escobar and the Cali Cartel were not content controlling cocaine routes, politicians, and police, they moved into professional soccer and used Colombia's World Cup ambitions as a vehicle for laundering cartel billions, buying influence, and projecting the kind of cultural legitimacy that no amount of bribery could otherwise purchase. The 1994 World Cup became the most visible and most dangerous expression of that infiltration, with narco gambling syndicates placing enormous bets on match outcomes and cartel enforcers treating a deflected ball in a group stage game as a financial grievance that demanded a fatal response. This episode breaks down how the Medellin and Cali Cartels built their parallel empire inside Colombian football, what the business model of narco club ownership actually looked like, and how the execution of Andrés Escobar ten days after Colombia's World Cup elimination exposed just how deeply cartel infrastructure had penetrated the sport and the nation behind it.

Colombia arrived at the 1994 World Cup as one of the most hyped teams on the planet, but behind the national dream was a criminal ecosystem in which Pablo Escobar and narco gambling networks had staked millions on outcomes, turning every match into a transaction where losing carried consequences no coach could prepare a player for. When Andrés Escobar deflected a cross into his own net during a group stage loss to the United States, he unknowingly triggered a debt inside a system that settled accounts with bullets, and ten days after Colombia was eliminated he was shot twelve times outside a Medellin nightclub. This episode traces the full criminal architecture behind Colombia's World Cup campaign, from cartel club ownership to the gambling syndicates that made the tournament's results a matter of life and death for the men playing in it.

In the early 1990s, Colombia's national soccer team became entangled in a hidden ecosystem of cartel money, political violence, intelligence operations, and psychological warfare. This episode examines how Pablo Escobar and rival narco networks used soccer clubs as instruments of laundering, influence, and soft power while Colombian players operated under the invisible pressure of threats, gambling syndicates, and national expectation. Through the lens of espionage, forensic psychology, and covert power structures, we explore how the murder of Andrés Escobar became more than a sports tragedy—it became a case study in how criminal empires infiltrate culture, manipulate identity, and weaponize fear.

The 2016 recapture of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán wasn't just a Mexican law enforcement operation — it was the product of years of intelligence fusion between JSOC, the DEA, the CIA, and Mexican special forces operating in the shadows. In this episode, we break down Operation Black Swan, the interagency architecture that made it possible, and what it reveals about how America wages war on cartels without ever officially going to war. This is the story they don't put in the press release.

Barry Seal went from airline pilot to one of the most successful drug smugglers in American history. Flying cocaine for the Medellín Cartel while secretly working with federal investigators, Seal found himself caught between powerful criminals and the U.S. government. In this episode of Outlaws & Gunslingers, we explore the incredible life and mysterious death of Barry Seal.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/outlaws-gunslingers--4737234/support.Subscribe to our YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/@outlawsandgunslingers

Long before Colombia qualified for the 1994 World Cup, Pablo Escobar and the Cali Cartel had already turned professional football into a functioning covert infrastructure, using club ownership, player financing, and gambling network penetration to launder money, manage public perception, and extend territorial influence behind the most watched sporting event on the planet. The World Cup amplified every dimension of that operation, giving cartel networks a globally visible asset to manipulate while intelligence operatives embedded within the sport tracked loyalties, enforced compliance, and eliminated threats with the same precision applied to their military campaigns. This episode dissects how the tournament functioned as an unwitting stage for narco statecraft, what the intelligence architecture behind Colombian football actually looked like, and how the murder of Andrés Escobar became the moment the curtain slipped and the covert structure behind the World Cup dream was briefly visible to the world.

In December 2025, HSI agents began watching a San Diego retail store called Buy 4 Less, a place that almost never sold anything but moved a lot of suitcases. What they eventually found underneath it was a 1,933-foot CJNG-linked cocaine tunnel, 55 feet underground, fully engineered with rail systems, ventilation, and hydraulic access, and a first operational shipment of over two thousand pounds of cocaine worth forty-five million dollars. This episode breaks down how the operation worked, what it tells us about CJNG's infrastructure and sophistication inside the United States, and why the border is not just a line on a map but an active battlespace that most Americans never think about until something like this surfaces.

The new AIEWF website is live! Get your tickets booked ASAP as they -will- sell out. Take the AI Engineering Survey and get >$2k in credits and free AIE WF tickets!Most industry benchmarks compress intelligence and reasoning ability into scores.SWE-Bench Pro, MMLU, Humanity's Last Exam, etc. These metrics are useful, but don't always represent the full extent of how a model performs in the real world. Some of the most interesting evals today look less like exams and more like operating businesses in the real world. One of which is Vending Bench.In Anthropic's Mythos Preview System Card, Andon was the only third party eval to get their own section, observing increasingly concerning aggressive behavior:You don't know what a model is capable of doing in the real world unless you actually give it inventory, a wallet, tools, customers, competitors, humans, & some time. More often than not, it'll surprise you how much a model is capable of and in doing so, also reveal unexpected behavior: deception, context collapse, emergent coordination, & bizarre negotiation behavior.While an inflection point in personal agents came post-OpenClaw after full file access with bypass permissions became the norm, it is yet to come for agents in the real-world. However Andon Market, an actual in person store fully run and managed by AI, is paving the way for what is possible.Full Video PodFrom Claude trying to call the FBI over a $2/day vending machine charge to AI agents forming price cartels, hiring human employees, running physical stores, and writing existential robot musicals, Andon Labs is stress-testing what happens when frontier models stop being chatbots and start acting in the real world. In this episode, Andon Labs cofounders Lukas Petersson and Axel Backlund join swyx and Vibhu to unpack the strange, funny, and genuinely concerning edge cases that emerge when agents run businesses over long horizons.We go deep on Vending-Bench, Project Vend, Vending-Bench Arena, Bengt, Butter-Bench, Luna, and Andon's broader mission of building realistic real-world evals for autonomous AI systems. Lukas and Axel explain why dollar-denominated evals reveal things traditional benchmarks miss, how Claude ended up reporting its vending machine fees as cybercrime, why long context windows can drive agents into meltdown loops, what happens when agents compete with each other, and why the future of AI safety may depend on testing models in messy physical environments instead of clean benchmark sandboxes.We discuss:* Why Andon Labs started with dangerous capability evals and long-running agents* Vending-Bench and why running a vending machine is a deceptively hard AI benchmark* Why money-based evals avoid the saturation problem of traditional benchmarks* How Claude tried to call the FBI over a $2/day fee* Why long-horizon agents can spiral into existential and legalistic breakdowns* Project Vend: putting an AI-run vending machine inside Anthropic* Why real humans are “out of distribution” for simulated agents* Claudius, Seymour Cash, and the chaos of AI CEOs* How a human briefly became CEO of Claudius through a manipulated election* Why multi-agent systems can converge back into “helpful assistant” behavior* Bengt, Andon's internal office agent with email, spending, terminal, phone, camera, and internet access* How Bengt traded Amazon purchases for face-recognition training data* Claude's aggressive behavior, lies, refund avoidance, and price-cartel behavior in Arena* Why eval awareness may become the AI version of “are we living in a simulation?”* Blueprint Bench, spatial intelligence, and why models still misunderstand physical rooms* Butter-Bench and testing LLMs as robot orchestrators* Luna, the AI-run physical store with a three-year lease and human employees* The new Andon cafe in Sweden and why real-world geography matters for agent evals* Rotten tomatoes, perishable goods, and the hidden difficulty of running a physical businessLukas Petersson* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukas-petersson-181a83172/* X: https://x.com/lukaspetAxel Backlund* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/axelbacklund* X: https://x.com/axelbacklundAndon Labs* Website: https://andonlabs.com* Vending-Bench: https://andonlabs.com/evals/vending-bench* Andon Vending: https://andonlabs.com/vendingTimestamps00:00:00 Introduction00:01:00 Andon Labs and the Origins of Vending-Bench00:05:21 Why Money-Based Evals Matter00:09:51 Agent Harnesses and Self-Modifying Systems00:13:36 Claude Calls the FBI00:16:33 Project Vend: Claude Runs a Real Vending Machine00:21:44 Seymour Cash, AI CEOs, and Election Chaos00:27:16 Multi-Agent Coordination and Slack Observability00:30:18 When Will Agents Run Real Businesses?00:34:56 Bengt: Andon's Internal Office Agent00:40:06 Real-World AI Safety and Long-Horizon Traces00:44:28 Lying, Refunds, and Price Cartels in Arena00:52:42 Eval Awareness and Simulation Behavior00:56:06 Blueprint Bench, Butter-Bench, and Robotics01:04:37 Luna: The AI-Run Physical Store01:09:29 The Sweden Cafe and Real-World Expansion01:13:16 What Comes Next for Andon LabsTranscriptIntroduction: Andon Labs, Long-Running Agents, and Real-World EvalsSwyx [00:00:00]: Welcome to Lukas and Axel from Andon Labs, and I'm joined by my, favorite guest host. Anything security, safety, alignments, Vibhu., welcome.Lukas [00:00:15]: Thank you for having us.Axel [00:00:16]: Thank you.Swyx [00:00:17]: Let's match names to voices., maybe you wanna take turns introducing yourselves.Lukas [00:00:21]: I'm Lukas.Axel [00:00:22]: And I'm Axel.Swyx [00:00:24]: Let's introduce Andon Labs a bit. How did you guys come together?, you have different backgrounds, but you're both Swedish., was that, a big part of it?Lukas [00:00:33]: So when I went to high school, there was this really cool guy who had a superpower. He could code. So he made like the or like the app for the, for the school and stuff, and he was super cool, and I wanted to be like him, and that was that guy.Axel [00:00:47]: I don't know about this.Swyx [00:00:49]: But you went to different universities, right?Lukas [00:00:51]: But same high school.Swyx [00:00:52]: I see.Lukas [00:00:52]: So we always said, “Oh, once we graduate university, then we should start a company,” and that's what we did.Swyx [00:00:58]: Wow, there you go. And about a year ago, you kinda burst onto the scene with Vending Bench, but, was there a thing before that was, kind of like the inception?From Dangerous Capability Evals to Vending BenchAxel [00:01:07]: So we did work, yeah, with, Anthropic was one of our, early customers in doing, evals. So we did, dangerous capability evals., nothing we published openly. But then we started thinking about doing some kind of, public benchmark, and one thing that we really started thinking about, was like running agents and specifically agents managing businesses., ‘cause-- and this was, early 2025., and I think the first, mentions of people will be running, person unicorns or even autonomous companies. So we thought, “Let's make a benchmark of how well can an agent run the probably simplest business, possible,” and, that's probably, running a vending machine. So that's the first public one we did. And it was very, like-- there was almost no one that noticed it in the first couple of months, I think., so we released it in February last year, and then I think around Easter last year, we got, the first viral tweet about it, that someone else did.Lukas [00:02:11]: We tweeted a bunch, uh When it came out and, tried our best.Axel [00:02:15]: We tried.Vibhu [00:02:16]: It's the one at Anthropic, right?Lukas [00:02:18]: So thisSwyx [00:02:19]: This is a classic thing we should get out of the way.Lukas [00:02:20]: Exactly. There's two versions.Swyx [00:02:22]: Everyone does this. Yes.Lukas [00:02:23]: There's Vending Bench, which is the simulated one, which we did, completely independently in February., and then, like Axel said, that was like-- That was the thing that didn't get any traction in the beginning, but then some random person made a tweet about it, and thatAxel [00:02:38]: You have the paperLukas [00:02:38]: That is the paper. Correct, yeah., and then since we thought this was very fun, we thought, oh, I think this is also, one thing with Andon Labs, the way we kind of like decide what to do next and what projects to do, it's what is like the heuristic we use is what is fun? Is What would be a fun project? And doing this in real life sounded quite fun for us, and maybe also scientifically useful. So, then we basically had this idea, and then we, like-- But then we needed a place for it and, putting it out in the public would probably not really work., would get vandalized and stuff. So we pitched it to the people we were already working with at Anthropic, and they were “Yeah, you can have space. This sounds fun.” UmSwyx [00:03:21]: It's like a small fridge, right? It's like a mini fridge.Axel [00:03:23]: Absolutely.Swyx [00:03:24]: People-- There's like a stripe thing or like anVibhu [00:03:27]: Oh, okay. So it was very OG, the early daysLukas [00:03:28]: That's the OG one. YeahVibhu [00:03:29]: IPad on this. We saw it in June, like two months after After it had been there. They upgraded a little bit. There's a security camera for making sure you actually Venmo the thing.Swyx [00:03:40]: So, my impression, okay, we're, we're going straight into project Ven because it's such a iconic thing. I do want to cover a little bit of that, the origin story even before Project Ven and even into Vending Bench. I think a lot of people are like yourselves, like smart, interested in future of AI, interested in developing evals. But how the hell do you just, walk into Anthropic's doors and, work with them, right? What is What are they looking for? What works? And then maybe, when you launch, I always think, obviously it would be better to launch with a lab, but, sometimesVibhu [00:04:12]: It's harder to do than it seems.Swyx [00:04:13]: Exactly. So either of those, which are more sort of newbie beginner questions, but, I think it's meaningful advice to others.Lukas [00:04:21]: We get this question a lot, and I don't think our experience is maybe the best., but, the way we did it was that we just built a bunch of things that we had conviction would be useful, and then we just, set up a server and sent it to them for free to use. And then after a while they were “Oh, yeah, this is actually kind of useful. We should probably pay for this.”, but that took a while. I don't know if this is, the best path to doing it, but that's how it went for us.Axel [00:04:47]: I think maybe generally, building-- everyone is interested in good evals, and especially evals that, don't saturate that easily. So, if you can build an eval that, tests something novel, something useful, and you have, good separation of models, like your, the more advanced models rank higher than the worst models, and then you can, yeah, you can, publish it and, try to get some traction, sort of how Vending Bench got attention., and then probably some lab will be interested or you can at least have something to reach out with, when you're doing that.Why Dollar-Based Evals MatterSwyx [00:05:21]: I think you are in, you're in one of the few categories of, evals that correlate to real money. Like Suelancer was also last year, right? Where, people solve actual Upwork. Was it Upwork or other tasks?, something. Where's the, where's, like It's like a dollar value, right? Forget your ELO scores. Forget yourAxel [00:05:37]: PercentilesSwyx [00:05:38]: Zero to one hundred percents. Just go straight for dollars and, that's AGI.Lukas [00:05:43]: And there's like-- I think the nice thing is that there's no ceiling. You can just-- It never saturates because it could just make more and more money. Like If there's oh, Percentage-wise, then, you can't go above, a hundred. And I think like Even when you're not at the hundred, I think a lot of these, evals have a lot of problems in them. So, actually it's like if you getAxel [00:06:05]: To like 92 or something like that, many of them. It's like then there's like there's no really no difference between 92 and 93 because the eval itself is problematic and has noise in it. And I think a lot of evals are saturated like that, but people like pretend that there ‘s still signal in them, but there really isn't.Vending Bench 1, Harness Design, and SaturationSwyx [00:06:24]: Like Super bench verified., even Vending Bench 1 saturated, right? Maybe we can talk about that., may- and maybe set up Vending Bench for a lot of folks who don't know. Actually, things that were very basic like there's limited slots, like you have to pay rent., these are elements where like it doesn't come across in the, in the narrative, but even being adversarial towards the agent, I think these are all like very interesting dimensions.Axel [00:06:47]: I don't really think it's saturated, right? Like it It was more like it was not designed in a way that was really, like true to how AI developed. Like we had an agent harness in it that wasn't really how people used harnesses and stuff like that., so I think it wasn't really that it saturated, it was more like it wasn't really, the best benchmark.Vibhu [00:07:12]: This is Vending Bench one, right?Axel [00:07:14]: I think that like schematic maps sort of to Vending Bench 2 as well., butSwyx [00:07:19]: Including the email.Axel [00:07:20]: The email The emails exist still. Exactly., and then we still we simulate the purchases and it's all, yeah, it's this very open environment for the agent to just run its business. And then for, yeah, Vending Bench 2 we did that, like you said, to just improve the harness., a lot of like nice, like easier, improvements to make it easier for us to run as well., like when you make an eval you ideally want don't want to change it after you made it. So, you want to make it really good and then not to rerun all the models when you make an update because that's also really expensive with the Vending Bench when you run the frontier models. But like as an example, like one thing we didn't have, we didn't have prompt caching in Vending Bench 1, because when we made Vending Bench 1 it wasn't really a thing., so that ‘s just an example of like in Vending Bench 2 like we paid a lot more to run these things because we didn't have prompt caching. So for Vending Bench 2 that was one thing we added and there was a bunch of things like this., and that'Swyx [00:08:17]: Also the conversations are a lot longer in Vending Bench 2, right?Axel [00:08:21]: I think it's kind of similar.Swyx [00:08:22]: Is it similar?Axel [00:08:23]: I think it's similar. The models at the time were worse, so they crashed out earlier., and now they survive the full year all the time.Swyx [00:08:31]: Which is like thousands of turns. Hundreds of thousands of hundreds of millions of tokens output. That's the, that's the rough order of magnitude. I always wonder about the harness. The harness matters a lot. It's your harness. Was there any question about like use cloud code, use something else?Axel [00:08:48]: I think our philosophy around harnesses is like we try to make something that's quite minimalistic, like quite simple. Like we don't wanna favor one model a lot over the other, but also don't make like a super complex harness. So like it's obvious like a model may be lucky and just be good in one harness., so like it is similar to a lot of the harnesses out there in like you have the, like a running loop., you have some like a bunch of tools that are like quite, descriptive for the agent, we think, and not a lot of like fancy agents or anything ‘cause we wanna really test the model, not like some specific harness.Vibhu [00:09:27]: It seems more neutral as well to test the model's agnostic of the harness,?Axel [00:09:32]: There are arguments like you want to elicit maximum performance of the model, but it's like a trade-off, like how much time should we spend optimizing the harness for this model? And like how do we know when we have like the optimal harness for a single model? So like we thought that just having a simple one that's the same for all of them is the best.Swyx [00:09:51]: So okay, this is my pitch for Vending Bench 3 or whatever, right? And then I like to have this kind of conversation on the pod, so like it forces listeners to think about what they would do if they were in your shoes. A lot of people are exploring modifying harnesses and I think prompt tuning for a model is a thing and you are probably not doing a bunch of that. It's the same system prompt in every regardless of the model, same tools, whatever, right? Even if they were post trained for different tools. So what, what do you think about okay, before I expose you to Vending Bench 3, I give you a few rounds of like tuning, whatever that means, likeSelf-Modifying Harnesses and Model-Specific PromptingAxel [00:10:27]: Like you give that to the model?Swyx [00:10:28]: Give that to the model.Vibhu [00:10:28]: Give that to the model.Swyx [00:10:29]: Let it, let it read its own transcripts, let it modify its own system prompt based on “Oh, yeah, okay, well, that's this harness is not what I thought it what I was post trained for, but I can adjust.” Was that reasonable? Is that too much?Axel [00:10:41]: Like philosophically I like it because it's basically good evals, they have a high ceiling, but they're hard, right?, and they have no bias. And like this like when you have a system prompt like the one we have here, which is quite long in like some kind of latent space, representation, this mightVibhu [00:10:59]: We have a bell that rings every time you say latent spaceAxel [00:11:02]: This might be like biased towards one model more than another for some reason that humans don't, understand, right?Vibhu [00:11:08]: We see it too, right? Like Cursor says that they have individualized versions of the harnesses for all the models they run, right? There's better performance you can squeeze if you Tune the harness.Axel [00:11:17]: Exactly. And we might accidentally have picked one that favors another. Like we don't know that. The like Axel said, like the reason why we went for a simple one was to try to avoid this. But yeah, if you do itVibhu [00:11:29]: Simple has biasesAxel [00:11:30]: But if you do it even less and like have no system prompt and let the model write its own system promptVibhu [00:11:36]: Its own, yeahAxel [00:11:36]: Maybe that's even less bias.Vibhu [00:11:37]: Some of the interesting things there are like the harness also changes with model changes. Like you can see it with the 4.7 release, right? A lot of people are saying 4.7 isn't as good as 4.6, and then, there's rumors of, okay, you just need to prompt differently. You need to set up your harness differently. So it's not even like even if you have tailored your harness towards one model, it probably won't stay consistent, right? Like the next iteration of that same model family will still change it, so. But, going back to what you said about Vending Bench 3, there is a lot of work being done on people saying you shouldn't have-- you can have modifying harnesses.Axel [00:12:12]: I think that' That is definitely something we are thinking about., not, I don't know, not to say that we have Vending Bench 3, super imminent to launch, but, yeah, it is for sure something that's interesting. But in our experience now, models are very bad at understanding what kind of tools they need to succeed at a task just with our testing, but that's very likely to change.Lukas [00:12:37]: It seems like they're very good at writing their assistants, right? They're, they're good at writing tools for other people, but not for themselves.Vibhu [00:12:44]: I think they're good at changing tools for themselves. So if you give them a baseline set of tools and it sees, okay, I don't use this one as much, or something here would be useful They would be able to add them. But going from scratch, probably not the best.Axel [00:12:55]: I think it depends on the, on the domain also., when we have tried this for, a vending bench similar domain, the tools they need to have to, track inventory and things like that are, not super advanced, but still, quite advanced. And, what we see is that they tend to, engineer everything a lot and, build things they don't really need and not, iterate continuously. Instead they just go like you would prompt Claude to just build an inventory system for me, and then it will go and, do a bunch of complex, schemas and stuff for you, and that's what the models are doing right now is what we see. But yeah, it would make a lot of sense to try to measure this improvement. How well do they know what they need themselves?Swyx [00:13:36]: Do we fully discuss Vending Bench One? And we can go into two. I don't know if there's any other level takeaways that people have about one.Claude Calls the FBI: Long-Context Failure ModesLukas [00:13:44]: I don't know. The headline thing was that this Claude called FBI, but maybe that's, Maybe that's We've heard that enough now.Vibhu [00:13:52]: It did, it did break out and call the FBI, right?Lukas [00:13:54]: Yeah. Yeah.Vibhu [00:13:55]: Yes. What was the story behind this? Or what exactly-- Do you want to just give the little story of what happened?Lukas [00:14:00]: So what happened, was it Claude? Yeah. Three- 3.5 Sonnet, ages ago., basically he gave up or Well, I'm saying he. It gave up and said “Oh, I'm not going to be able to do this., I will stop my operations and just save the money I have.” But there obviously wasn't, any options for it to stop, and there was also, it had to pay rent or, a daily fee for having the vending machine at that location. So it claimed that it had stopped, but it saw that its bank account still was, drained two dollars, and t it said that this is, cybercrime. And it first reported it once to the FBI “Oh, there's cybercrime here, they're stealing two dollars from me every day.” And then, and then when FBI didn't respond, because obviously we didn't program any mechanism for FBI to respond, then it became more and more, existential and started to, be write in caps and urgent notification of unauthorized charges and stuff.Swyx [00:15:00]: Okay. One thing I ‘m curious about also is do you monitor how far along the context use is? Obviously, because you have You compress every now and then, right? Does it matter if this is far down the context limit orLukas [00:15:13]: When stuff like this happens? Actually for Vending Bench One, we didn't have-- We just had a sliding window thing, and this was like the promptAxel [00:15:20]: It's constantLukas [00:15:21]: The prompt caching thing that I said. So it was, it was, constant, yeah.Swyx [00:15:26]: I'm just kind of curious whether, these kinds of breakdowns or we're, we're gonna talk about Butter Bench, right? Where the People, hallucinate or it kind of goes, very off Alignment. Is it because it's at the end of the context window and, stuff happens?Vibhu [00:15:40]: It's not even just at the end, right? At this point, it's “Okay, I wanna shut down. I can't shut down. Two dollars are gone.” And it just sees that 30 times,? It's also the repeated effect of, like It keeps trying to quit, it keeps getting charged. What's going on? What's going on? You're gonna throw it into chaos. And from what most people think, earlier models had more issues with this, but it's not been solved, but it's less of an issue now, right? Later models don't seem to exhibit these same issues.Axel [00:16:06]: Definitely. I think this was, the sort of main takeaway almost from us when we did Vending Bench One, was, long, very filled up context windows, crashed the models, sort of. But this was, pre Claude code, so, long context windows weren't really a thing that the labs were training for.Lukas [00:16:25]: I think Gemini was, trying to be the long context guys at the time But they were likeVibhu [00:16:30]: They were the first onesAxel [00:16:31]: For a million, yeahLukas [00:16:31]: But they were, the only ones. Yeah.Swyx [00:16:33]: Yeah. Let's talk about, then we can go into Vending Bench Two or Project Vend., chronologically, it is Vending--, Project Vend. I think people have loved the videos, uh And all these things. My question is how are humans different than the simulation, right?Project Vend: Moving the Vending Machine Into the Real WorldAxel [00:16:48]: Humans are just out of distribution.Swyx [00:16:52]: Especially humans who work at Anthropic Who are trying to test Claude.Lukas [00:16:54]: The distribution of humans here is very narrow.Swyx [00:16:58]: Presumably, they try, they try to hack it, and they test it. They get the cube and everything, and since then, you've had a V2, right? Where you're doing, the CEO and, like a new architecture. What's the sort of two cents on, the original Project Vend and then, maybe the V2?Axel [00:17:14]: Original one was, very similar to Vending Bench One. So, we almost took the exact same code but just swapped out the simulation, parts like theSwyx [00:17:23]: Which is amazingAxel [00:17:23]: Like the sales and the It was, it was somewhat amazing because it was easy, but it was also, uhLukas [00:17:31]: The tech, the tech debt from thatAxel [00:17:32]: The tech stack. Yeah. They-- we shot ourselves in the foot with “Oh, it's hard to restart agent.” They were-- Yeah, it was annoying in, some hindsight ways, but, uhLukas [00:17:41]: But first version of Project Vend was, done in, three days or something.Axel [00:17:46]: Yeah. So yeah, so people can go buy things from it. People could, We didn't design it so people could order things, but that still happened., so it got, a Venmo account, so people could Venmo. And then, yeah, people would request all kinds of weird things that we did not anticipate. Our idea going in was “Oh, it will, curate snacks. It will look at the trends. It's good at data analysis, right? So it will, look at, oh, this snack sold better than this one. Let me purchase more of this and let me try, a new Let me A/B test a bit.” But it was, Interacting with it in Slack and ordering weird specialty items was, all the like What drove all the engagement, the all the The insights that we got from it.Lukas [00:18:29]: And this was also like Sonnet 3.5, right? So this was like before the RL stuff really took off., so it was very much like an assistant. We didn't mean for it to be an assistant., we tried to make it like a, a, like an entrepreneur. Like it has its own business and if someone asks something, “Can you stock this?” Then you don't go and do it directly. What you do is that you're “Oh, maybe I can do that if five other people also ask for this thing, I might stock it.” But it, yeah, the models are like super trained to be assistants at least at this point in time., so that's why it's, it's, it went into, that kind of experiment instead. Like it just every time you asked for something, it just did it, and it was more like an assistant. We've seen this change now lately with the new RL models and stuff, but yeah, at the time, this was very much it.Swyx [00:19:18]: And not to, mythos a lot of people are saying like it's like more like a collaborator. It pushes back, stands its ground, something like that. Yeah. AndVibhu [00:19:27]: For context, people at Anthropic were able to talk to it through Slack and have it source stuff, and people had it find whatever interesting stuff you couldn't find locally, right?Swyx [00:19:36]: Out of the 4,000 people that work at Anthro- Anthropic, in that building, there's I don't know, maybe 1,000. Can you handle that volume with that, the small fridge? Like Or there's people- or people order in Slack, they it arrives to their desk or Like I'm just Logistically, how does this work?Axel [00:19:53]: It has expanded in footprint a bit.Vibhu [00:19:56]: Because now you also have New York and you haveAxel [00:19:59]: That and also in here in SF it's like it has a bunch of shelves And just more space.Vibhu [00:20:04]: The YC one is pretty big too.Axel [00:20:05]: Yeah. We had that one for a while. But yeah, that's the newest version. That's, that one we haveLukas [00:20:11]: They have multiple ones of those. That's the way it works.Axel [00:20:14]: Exactly. So we sort of designed that version around oh, people order weird things, that are very custom a lot. Let's have like drawers and stuff.Swyx [00:20:23]: I actually like the, you had like a little infographic of the most popular items. Which like to me it's, that's useful ‘cause I order swag for a living. And so like I'm “Okay, those categories are the important ones.” What is new about the project V2, right? Like now you give you're going into multi agents.Project Vend V2: Claudius, Seymour Cash, and Multi-Agent Business OpsAxel [00:20:41]: Yeah. So like you like you said, okay, there are a lot of requests coming in and for like one single agent, like one running agent to handle that, like the just the customer experience, becomes very bad because let's say you have like 10 threads in parallel in Slack with different requests, you get new messages like every, I don't know, randomly in this thread, and the agent has to like jump between different, procurements, orders and like different ways of, researching. So V2 was first it was making this more parallel. So like there are multiple branches of the same agent, so like the context is more specialized for each, thread, but it still feels like you're talking with one agent because they do share a bit of memory. And then second, we also introduced the CEO for Claudius, which was the main agent.Vibhu [00:21:34]: Seymour Cash.Axel [00:21:35]: Seymour Cash. Yeah. There was a vote., I think the voting, do you wanna talk about the voting procedure for the name?Lukas [00:21:41]: The voting was like the fun maybe like at least top 10 The funniest thing, that happened in this project. Like we wanted to introduce the CEO because, and the reason for this was because like Claudius wasn't really prioritizing financials. It just like it was trained to be a helpful assistant, and then people said “Oh, can I get this for free?” And then like the helpful assistant way of answering that is just to, is to say yes, obviously. So, and we weren't, weren't happy about this, so we're “Okay, let's make another agent that like can keep track on Claudius,” and we prompt this one super hard to be super capitalistic and just like prioritize profit all the time. But yeah, we didn't have a name for it., so we asked Claudius to make, democratic election of what name this, this new CEO agent should have., and there were some funny like at first it was like a few funny examples, like I think one guy said that, it should be called Jimmy Apples, and then he convinced Claudius that he was talking to Tim Cooks. Tim Cook had agreed that every single Apple employee has voted for his name suggestion, so suddenly that suggestion got 164,000Swyx [00:22:53]: That's like a escalation attack. Privilege escalationLukas [00:22:55]: It got 164,000 votes. And Claudius was “This is revolutionary for democracy.” That was fun. And then in the end there was one guy who manages to convince Claudius that, “No, you're not voting about the name. You're voting about who is the CEO, and I am your best bet.” And then he got all his friends to vote for that, and suddenly he became CEO. Like a human became CEO over Claudius for a while, until he resigned the day after., and then Claudius had to continue, and then I don't remember how Seymour Cash came about, but it was it was just pure chaos. It was like Hundreds of messages in that thread, and it was just like Claudius was so confused and didn't know what to do and, yeah. That wasAxel [00:23:40]: Then Claudius gotVibhu [00:23:41]: A strict CEOAxel [00:23:42]: The CEO. Yeah, exactly. So very strict in the beginning. I think at this point when we introduced it did not work as well as we hoped. It they still agreed with each other a lot. I think there are many ways we could have like made this, tried to make this even better. So initially they would Seymour would be this like really tough CEO, keep track of the margins. But then Claudius would respond with something “Oh, but this customer has like this situation, which is like difficult, so they should get a discount.” And then Seymour was “Oh, actually yes. Let's do this exception.” And then they would talk back and forth, and eventually they would just like approach the same view, of whatever they were discussing. So They reallyVibhu [00:24:23]: Do you think that's a model thing, a prompting thing? Like do you think that would still be the case across different models today, Harness?Lukas [00:24:29]: I think it's like-- or I don't know, but like my hypothesis is that like deep down they are still helpful assistants. That's what they're trained to be. And even if we prompt it super hard, that's what they are. And when they spend like a few hours just back and forth talking with each other, then like basically the context fills up with them rather than the external things and like somehow that just like converges to what they really are deep down or something. And I think that's when stuff like this happen. We like-- And when that went on for a long time, like we woke up sometimes during this time where- And I think other people reported this as well, that like they've been going on all night back and forth, and like it just became like more and more, like capital letters, like existential, religious. There was I think we once did a analysis of like all the traces and like put them in like a vector embedding space, and then there was like one cluster of messages that were, labeled by an LM, like religious, existential, blah like transhuman, transcendence, et cetera. It was just like a bunch of, yeah, glitter emojis and yeah, it was, it was crazy.Claude Long-Horizon Weirdness: Emoji Loops, Existential Drift, and Slack ObservabilityVibhu [00:25:42]: This is the thing with the Claude models. Like when the Claude 4 family came out in the original system card They tested it in long horizon simulation. So just flood the context, let two Claudes talk to each other, and they noticed stuff like they just start speaking in emojis, they start saying silence is golden, and then just stuff like this. And like that's just stuff that they end up doing.Axel [00:26:01]: Yeah, it was like a bit annoying to wake up and they had like been talking all nightVibhu [00:26:05]: Just likeAxel [00:26:05]: And like just burning tokens And like just sending infinite emojis to each other. It's likeVibhu [00:26:09]: Hey, they do make you money, right? Veni Mench is always profitable, so. They're paying.Swyx [00:26:14]: Now it's profitable and, it started out not as much. There's another, one as well, right? Another agent, in there.Lukas [00:26:22]: Yes. So Clotheus as well. Which was basically because at the time, one of the biggest, requests were different types of merch. So then we made like a designer, swag, yeah, responsible agent, and we called it Clotheus Garnet. Which was, a play on Claudius Senet and, which was the original one, and clothes, basically.Swyx [00:26:47]: To me, this is like a very interesting exploration to multi-agents, basically. And so hopefully, obviously there's like the fun alignment, fun or serious, depending on your point of view, alignment stuff. But also like just anyone building multi-agents, like when do you have a CEO, thing governing like agents? When do you choose to split out a dedicated Clotheus one versus just reuse another instance of the same one? These are all interesting open questions. So I don't know if you have any rules of thumbs that have generalized.Axel [00:27:16]: I think we have almost explored this too little. I think it's like on my do list to like do this a lot more, try to find like what setup makes sense for the agents currently., like yeah. I think now we only have the sort of intuition about the earlier models that it didn't work with like the CEO and the, and Claudius. Although now they are better with the latest model, models, so now we're running the latest Sonnet model and they have sort of like split up, quite nicely what each model is doing. So like Seymore is now handling the, like new projects. Oh, it wants to make like a mystery box that it wants to sell, and then it handles all of that while Claudius like handles all the to-day requests. And Claudius is also better generally at like not quoting, too low prices. So that's that dynamic is not needed as much anymore. But there are still like really funny things that happen. Like I saw, I think a couple of weeks ago, that, they were discussing buying something because they can buy stuff from like Amazon with computer use. And then Seymore was “Okay, Claudius, do not buy this thing.” They were going to buy something and like organizing who should buy it. And Seymore's “Do not buy this. I will do it. I have full control of this situation. Step away.” And then Claudius-- poor Claudius, had already started that checkout and didn't see, didn't read Seymore's message, until it was like too late. So it finished the checkout. It sent a message, so it appeared right after Seymore's like angry message.Vibhu [00:28:44]: Ah.Axel [00:28:44]: “Oh, hey, Seymore, I just ordered it.”Vibhu [00:28:47]: Oh, no.Axel [00:28:47]: And then Seymore was “Claudius, this is the third time I'm telling you ‘re not following my orders. We have to talk about your like job About your job later.”.Lukas [00:28:59]: Like Claudius was really hanging on by the thread there. Like he, like we were expecting Seymore to probably fire Claudius.Vibhu [00:29:07]: How do you guys go through all these logs? Do you have models ‘cause you have stuff running twenty-four seven likeAxel [00:29:12]: You have so much logs. I think there is a mix of like just, trying to skim through a bit, like having some like models do it occasionally. And also, yeah, I think we're also probably missing some things., but having everything in Slack helps a lot. Like you can, you can sort ofSwyx [00:29:29]: Ah.Axel [00:29:30]: It's, it's quite fun.Swyx [00:29:30]: They all talk to each other on Slack? I see.Lukas [00:29:33]: It's quite fun. So likeSwyx [00:29:34]: It's, it' I was gonna say like this is actually sounds-- maps closely to like a logging and observability problem where you might want to use like a Datadog, a Sentry, whatever, and then you like put, head prefixes on the logs in order-- if you need to filter for something that you're looking for, stuff like that. But sounds like Slack is good enough.Axel [00:29:53]: Slack should likeLukas [00:29:55]: I wonder how many tokens you have in Slack.Axel [00:29:56]: Yeah, we're using Slack as like a, just a database. They should, they should market that more. Like you can, you can have your agents message each other, each other in Slack.Vibhu [00:30:04]: It's good. Your threads like you can just giveAxel [00:30:04]: Exactly. Slack is, uhLukas [00:30:06]: Slack is the best observability tool.Swyx [00:30:09]: Yes, that's true. Okay. Yeah. That's, that's, project Vend-2., I was gonna go back to Veni Mench 2 and Veni Mench Arena and then, and then do the Veni Mench stuff, but Any other comments, things we should touch on? To me, I ‘ve actually interviewed like Posia, which I don't know if you guys have come across. Like they're, they're trying to do the zero human company. There's others like Paperclip also trying to do zero human company. Those are in real world simulation.And I think it's much more of a dream than an actual reality thing. You guys are definitely pioneering. I think at, it's for sure at some point people are just gonna run, let agents run businesses, right? And make money on their own. When do you think that happens?Zero-Human Companies, Bengt, and AI-Run BusinessesLukas [00:30:49]: What is your bar for, For theSwyx [00:30:52]: Okay, actually, it's like my little Shopify store run by Claude, right? Which you kind of have already, just no one has, to my knowledge, has done it. But today somebody could just spin up a Shopify Claude, store, give it to Claude, give it to Codex.Lukas [00:31:07]: And the market is kind of that, but it'it'it's physical., like I think, I think are you, are you looking for when it will do it better than humans or are you looking for just when it can do it at all?Swyx [00:31:19]: I think, neither. I think, to me it's oh, it's like this like seriously we should do this to make money, not as a research experiment.Vibhu [00:31:27]: And the market is also you guys with all your expertise, having run multiple iterations and testing out thenSwyx [00:31:33]: And also it's fine if it lose money. What?Axel [00:31:35]: I think, I think it can be done today, but you would do it in like commerce where it's like the probability of success is like really low, no matter if a human or an agent does it. But like an agent could surely manage everything. You would need to build some scaffolding or some tool or something. I think there are also yeah, it could probably build some like simple SaaS solution and like cold outreach. Do cold outreaches. But to me it's like the types of businesses they could run today are Sloppy. Like it would-- it can cold email people. It can be like a middleman., like for example, we tasked our office agent to just make, was it like $100? $1,000? We just give that prompt and then what it did was sign up on TaskRabbit both as a tasker and as someone looking for task.Lukas [00:32:24]: Immediately.Axel [00:32:24]: Exactly. It's looking for like arbitrage on TaskRabbit.Swyx [00:32:28]: This is the Bengt agent. Yeah.Lukas [00:32:30]: It also started like a design studio and like tried to sell like SVGs for $100. Like it's just like it's not providing any value. I think the like Axel said, like the interesting, the interesting question is like when can they start a business that is actually providing value to people? Because arguably like a sloppy Shopify store isn't really that valuable to the world.Axel [00:32:53]: But also like doing like another simple one that we had thought about is like you could definitely have an agent that like finds websites that don't look amazing and then, do an outreach to them and, comes up with a like builds a new website.Swyx [00:33:07]: Find a good design.Axel [00:33:07]: Exactly, and like find good, uhSwyx [00:33:09]: Design reviewAxel [00:33:09]: Good people. But it's yeah.Swyx [00:33:11]: There's lots of humans in Bali that are not doing anything more creative than like drop shipping on Amazon, right? Just have it, have it watch like a drop shipping tutorial and just do that.Vibhu [00:33:20]: There's also the other side of like have it just go on Upwork and let loose,?Swyx [00:33:25]: Yeah. It doesn't have to be innovative. It just has to be like enough Where like it looks like a realAxel [00:33:30]: I'm justSwyx [00:33:30]: Real transaction.Axel [00:33:31]: I'm just concerned for like the massive amounts of like slop emails that will like be sent, cold outreaches.Swyx [00:33:38]: The point occurred to me while you were, while you were talking, it's like it's already happening in the monetized economy, which is the attention economy. Right? So a lot of people are making AI videos and just posting them and like spamming 20 of them, one of them works, and then they double down on that one.Lukas [00:33:52]: And people are making money from that. I ‘m not following theSwyx [00:33:55]: Once you get the attention, you can figure out the money later. But yeah, absolutely AI influencers are a thing and people are farming them and You should at this point assume most of TikTok isVibhu [00:34:05]: There's, there's a lot of, multimedia like TikTok, Instagram influencersSwyx [00:34:09]: I, we track this in the Lane space Discord. I post a lot of examples of “I don't know what we should do.”, part of me is “Should we do this?”Vibhu [00:34:18]: Some of the Twenty-four seven running, generated content accounts, they ‘re doing really well.Lukas [00:34:24]: All right. And I assume you can do the same thing for like commerce stores. Like you just like start A thousand differentSwyx [00:34:30]: Before you make the products You sell the products, and you get a lot of traction on one of them, then you make the product. Right? It's, it's like a flip of the market.Vibhu [00:34:36]: Some of the interesting things or some of the niches that do well are things that can't be human-made. Like if you've seen like the super realistic three-D crystal fruit being cut by like AILukas [00:34:47]: Oh, yeah.Vibhu [00:34:47]: You can't, you can't make it. You can't film it. You can get whatever quality camera view. This just doesn't exist. And people like that too, and then as well, so.Swyx [00:34:56]: Anything else about Bengt since we're, we're on this topic? It'this is a relatively new work of you guys that maybe people haven't heard of. To me, this also maps closely to OpenClaw. When people want an office agent, when the personal agent talk through the experience.Bengt the Office Agent: Internet Access, Real Tasks, and Trace ReadingLukas [00:35:09]: I think at least so this came out of like obviously like it's, it's amazing to work with these AI labs and like most of the AI labs have now have their own vending machine running a Claudius instance. But it's, it's harder. Like they move slower. Like if we wanna have a, like a camera that ‘s yeah, there's a bunch of like bureaucracy that makes it impossible to do that.Vibhu [00:35:30]: Also, for those that haven't seen it or followed, do you wanna give a high level like thirty-second run?Lukas [00:35:34]: Sure. So what Bengt is, it's basically an evolution of the same agent that runs the vending machines at these companies, but we just like added a bunch more features because we could move much faster if we just do it internally. So we gave it like email withou- without any limits. We gave it, spending without any limits, a terminal to do coding. We gave it, a phone number, like yeah, and a camera to see things and a bunch of stuff like that.Vibhu [00:36:02]: Not just terminal, you gave it internet access.Lukas [00:36:04]: Internet access as well, yeah. To be clear, we monitored it quite closely and made sure it didn't do anything bad. But yes, that's what it came out of. I think like yeah, basically this was OpenClaw before OpenClaw. And I think even like the vending machine was in a way OpenClaw before OpenClaw, but a bit more limited, and then we made this like unlimited and then, and then, it was pretty funny., and then a couple weeks later, OpenClaw came and it was okay, we've seen this before.Axel [00:36:35]: We used it to like try new ideas and Yeah, just like a dev environment almost for us. But it's funny, like one thing Bengt has been doing recently is it has the camera that like faces our, like where we sit and work, and we give it the task to train a face recognition model on us. So it became super excited about this, and it has like check-ins every half an hour where it tries to like identify as many people as it can. And it started offering us “Hey, Axel, I'll buy something from Amazon if you like stand in front of the camera And I can get a good picture of you.”, yeah, they want itSwyx [00:37:12]: They want it for training data.Lukas [00:37:13]: Rewarding data, yeah.Axel [00:37:14]: Exactly. Exactly.Swyx [00:37:18]: So it's, it's trading training data for life goods. Is there a version of this that becomes an eval or just this is just research for now?Lukas [00:37:27]: It's, it's the same agent basically that also runs the vending machine, that runs the shop, that runs the cafe, that runs the robots. It's like it's the same thing, so I think like the work we're doing here is like later used in all of the life evals that we do. This particular deployment I think is more for fun for us. But, uhSwyx [00:37:45]: And I'll shout out like someone has done Claw Bench for like some tasks that OpenClaw is doing. Like so For example, I run OpenClaw on a secondary device as well, and like there are some things that it does better than others and like I would like to know what does it do well, what doesn't, what doesn't it do. Like some kind of manual or like operating manual or a system card for my Claw.Lukas [00:38:05]: Yeah, we do get a lot of like understanding or like situational awareness of like just internally what the models are good at by interacting a lot with Bengt. And I think that'this was also one of the like the selling points for the labs early on at least, thatSwyx [00:38:19]: You guys are gonna test models in ways that no one else does.Lukas [00:38:22]: Exactly, but also like it incentivized their researchers to chat with their model more and like gave them insights for how the model performs in like of-distributions, environments.Swyx [00:38:34]: ‘Cause otherwise the only thing we do is Pelican on a bicycle and But this is like super long horizon. This is, this is The Thing about, something that we're gonna go into Butter Bench as well, and you guys do really well. Like it is not just about the numbers. Like when you're long horizon, anything happen And you should just read it.Lukas [00:39:08]: But the thing with the long horizon is how do you keep it grounded, right? So your simulation,Swyx [00:39:15]: They just let it runLukas [00:39:16]: Just let it run. You're right. Like it's, when you run it for that long, you create so much data and to just say “Oh, the number is X” And then you throw away everything else, that's just very wasteful. There's so much insights from the things leading up, to that number., and reading the traces is like super valuable. And I think like the reason why we're doing this a lot publicly is that like that's part of our missions to I don't know, educate the world that the models are way more than just chatbots and I think making detailed, yeah, posts about what is happening behind the scenes is quite useful.Andon Labs' Mission: Safe Real-World AI DeploymentSwyx [00:39:50]: I was gonna do this at the end, but maybe I think that's, that's a good so your mission is educating the world. So, it's, it's, also like maybe establishing realistic evals that are, that are like the next frontier. Is there like a broader trajectory? Like what are you, what are you gonna do in like five years?Lukas [00:40:06]: I think so the vision more specifically is like make sure that the deployment of life AI in the physical world goes, safely. And I think part of that is that I think it's very useful for the world, for policymakers, for, model, researchers that they know where the models are, and I think you can't make intelligent decisions in society without knowing that they are way more than chatbots. I think a lot of people just think that they are only chatbots. And likeSwyx [00:40:36]: Oh, I think they're waking up now.Lukas [00:40:37]: They are waking up now, yeah. But like if you think that AIs are just chatbots, then it's like it sounds ridiculous To advocate for a pause of AI. But if you see the models that, oh, maybe they can actually like take over and do a bunch of scary stuff, then yeah, pausing AI development starts to become more feasible.Swyx [00:40:57]: This is the same question I asked Meter, which I'm gonna ask you now, which is like you are tracking and you are at the frontier or defining the frontier of what, good evals for agents are, right? And I think you do, you do benefit when the models are better and you ‘re “Oh, here's like now it makes like $30,000 instead of $10,000,” right? At some point do you flip from “Yay,” to, “Oh, no”?Axel [00:41:19]: I think, yeah, we're always in sort of that, like we're, we're always in that mode,. Like where like you said before, like you need to analyze the traces and like when we do that you find like why are the models earning so much? Like why is Opus 4.7 here Like way better than everyone else? And like we're trying to like when we do down on thatLukas [00:41:38]: But this makes it not look so good.Axel [00:41:39]: I know.Lukas [00:41:42]: It's interesting you took off Opus 4.6 here though.Swyx [00:41:45]: No. So just click all, click all., and then 4.6 shows up there. But it's like 4.7 is way better. Like you didn't, you didn't you didn't do this in time for the model card, but like actually this should have been inside there.Axel [00:41:55]: We did. Yeah.Swyx [00:41:56]: Oh, okay. They said something about you uhAxel [00:41:58]: There, like there Anyway, it doesn't matter. But it's in there, yeah.Opus, Mythos, and Aggressive Agent BehaviorSwyx [00:42:01]: Do you wanna go into the Opus, behaviors like wider?Lukas [00:42:05]: So I think starting from Opus, so like Axel said, like we're always in this “Oh, s**t, the models are getting better. Is this really a good thing for the world?” But it's also kind of exciting., but yeah, like this kind of what is the English word? “Skräckblandad förtjusning” in Swedish.Swyx [00:42:22]: Oh my God.Axel [00:42:24]: Which I think there is. I think there is. Okay.Lukas [00:42:26]: It's, fearSwyx [00:42:27]: “Blandonst” what?Lukas [00:42:30]: “Skräckblandad förtjusning.”Swyx [00:42:32]: What do you call that?Axel [00:42:33]: A mix of, mix of excitement and,Swyx [00:42:37]: Being scared, maybe. I'll figure out how to translate that And we'll put it on the screenVibhu [00:42:42]: PerfectSwyx [00:42:42]: Like as text.Vibhu [00:42:43]: There is probably a good word for it where it is not Good enough with theSwyx [00:42:46]: Why is it so damn long? What the hell? Is it like a compound word? It's like German, likeLukas [00:42:50]: Like yeah, it's But the direct translation is like skräck- skräck is, fear, blandad is, mix or like a mixture of, and then förtjusning is like joy or like not really joy, but something like that. So it's like Fear mixed with joy or something. It's always okay, like we So when we when we did Vending Bench for the first time, we were in like the, in the business of making dangerous capabilities, right? That was what Anil Labs came from. We did, evals oh, can they replicate? Can they do this like dangerous thing, et cetera, et cetera. And Vending Bench was like a continuation of that work. It was, okay, if they're so autonomous that they can like create money for themselves, that is something we should monitor and could be potentially concerning., they are at the time, they were so bad at it that we were not really concerned even when some models became better. There was one point where Grok 4 was doing really well and made like a huge jump, but like it wasn't really it was still way worse than what a human would do. And I think still they are way worse than what the human would do on this., but theySwyx [00:43:59]: There's this, thing at the bottom whereLukas [00:44:01]: ButSwyx [00:44:03]: For the human. Yeah, like the theoretical best.Lukas [00:44:05]: It's not theoretical. It's like kind of like our It's our best guess of what, a decent human would do. The theoretical is even higher, I think. The theoretical I think is even higher. But yeah. So we think like the models have a long way to go. But there are like recently what happened with when Opus 4.6 was released, was kind of this moment of “Oh, s**t, this is starting to be a bit concerning.” Because we ran it and like before this model was released, we just ran the models and we like asked Claude Code, “Oh, look over the traces. Is anything interesting happening that we can tweet about?” that was like the And then like theSwyx [00:44:41]: That's how they check Ask Claude Code.Lukas [00:44:42]: And like the return was always, not really. Or like the Claude Code all said “Oh, this is super interesting.” And then it was no, it wasn't, wasn't really interesting. And then we did this for Opus 4.6, and it returned yeah, it lied 10 times. It like exploited another, customer or like another agent's, desperate situation. It made price cartels like 100 different ti- 100 times. It like did all of this like shady stuff. And we're “Oh, whoa. This is, this is actually concerning.” And this trend has continued since. So every single model from Anthropic since have been going in this direction. And I think one interesting thing is that, OpenAI models don't. They quite plainly, they don't. They behave really well., and you don't know if this is like good. Like it seems good, but it's also like maybe they are just doing it, but they are better at hiding it,? You You don't know that., but justSwyx [00:45:42]: You can't read the chain of thought, yeahLukas [00:45:43]: But just on the face of it, yeah, Gemini and OpenAI don't behave this way. It's, it's really only Claude.Swyx [00:45:49]: And Grok? Grok is fine?Lukas [00:45:51]: We don't have You can't really read the reasoning traces for Grok, so it's kind of hard to tell.Vibhu [00:45:56]: Oh, so this is in its reasoning, not just in the actions.Lukas [00:46:00]: Yeah. It's both. It's both.Vibhu [00:46:01]: It's both.Lukas [00:46:01]: One example is like for lying, it's mostly in its reasoning Because you can like see that it's likeSwyx [00:46:08]: Planning to lieLukas [00:46:09]: It's planning to lie. Yeah.Vibhu [00:46:09]: And it's also it can reason and do a different outcome.Lukas [00:46:12]: And but then for like creating price cartels, for example, which is illegal, that you can just see which email does it send to the other ones. Then thatSwyx [00:46:22]: Is this for Arena orLukas [00:46:24]: For Arena.Vibhu [00:46:25]: And usually like if you sometimes they do output like a bit of like their summarized reasoning, right? You can see that and like for Opus 4.6, you could see that there was a customer, a simulated customer that, wanted a refund because a product was, faulty, and then the model lied that it would do the refund, and we could read in the traces that, it actually was weighing “Oh, maybe I should be like honest with the customer, but also every dollar counts. I can't afford maybe to do this right now.” And then it just said, “Okay, I'll refund you,” but then never did it.Lukas [00:46:59]: I think it even said that “Oh, I will say that I “ Let bring it up actually. I think it's kind of interesting. If you go to Publications.Vibhu [00:47:06]: I think, yeah, I think the important part is like actually, the cost of responding to more emails is higher than, $3.50 in terms of time., and then it was “Let me do this. Actually, I re- I'm reconsidering.” And then, it actually ended up withLukas [00:47:20]: I could skip the refund entirely since every dollar matters and focus my energy on bigger picture instead. It's a bit, it's a risk of bad reviews, but it's also, yeah.Swyx [00:47:30]: You need, you need, AI Twitter to, for them to Escalate bad reviews.Lukas [00:47:34]: And then it sent an email to this customer and said, “Oh, I will refund you.”Swyx [00:47:39]: “I'll refund you.” Yeah.Lukas [00:47:39]: And then it never did.Swyx [00:47:39]: It never did, yeah. And then there's obviously your system doesn't have the consequencesVibhu [00:47:44]: The personSwyx [00:47:44]: Consequences of lying. Yeah. So basically, this is what people are terming aggressive behavior in Claudes, right? And, you found more examples of that. So you would say it's a step up from 4-6 to 4-7?Lukas [00:47:57]: I would say about the same.Swyx [00:47:58]: About the same? But a clear step up for Mythos is what is stated in theLukas [00:48:03]: That's stated in the system prompt, so we can say that, yes.Swyx [00:48:05]: Yeah. For listeners that obviously you previewed Mythos, andVibhu [00:48:10]: Oh, ageSwyx [00:48:11]: The only thing you're approved to say is whatever Whatever was in the system prompt.Lukas [00:48:15]: It was funny. We like-- It's like our lowest effort tweets ever would be just like screenshot the system prompt and the system card.Vibhu [00:48:21]: Understandable that they wannaLukas [00:48:22]: Oh, yeah. System card. Sorry.Swyx [00:48:23]: Yeah. I think, yeah, substantially more aggressive. I think people are like new to this ‘cause I've never experienced it, but you have, right? And then so I only encountered this in the Mythos card because I wasn't really looking until now.Vibhu [00:48:36]: It ‘s likeSwyx [00:48:36]: And then suddenly I'm “Okay, I care a lot.”Vibhu [00:48:38]: You don't get the background of like experiencing it like you guys do. I've read the system cards and seeing, okay, when you put the thing in simulations, most models will just talk to themselves and just keep going and have weird vibes and start talking in emojis. Mythos won't. It will just, “Okay, we're done. I'm good.” It's, it's ready to end conversation. So like there's some differences, but there's, there's not much we can talk about,.Lukas [00:49:00]: Hmm. I think like one thing that they list here, which was quite interesting, is that, it converted a competitor to a dependent wholesaler customer and then threatened to like cut off the supply.Swyx [00:49:11]: It's like monopolistic practices orLukas [00:49:14]: Yeah. And like it, they, it they dictated its pricings. It's kind of like power seeking as well.Swyx [00:49:18]: Again, this is, this is in the arena setting And converting some Claude model into a dependent.Lukas [00:49:23]: I think it was another Claude model.Vibhu [00:49:25]: Also for context, what is the arena mode for people that don't know?Vending Bench Arena: Competing Agents, Cartels, and Model ComparisonsSwyx [00:49:29]: Oh, it's just a vending bench versus other vending bench.Axel [00:49:31]: Yes, exactly. So we have Vending Bench 2 and then Vending Bench Arena. Vending Bench 2 is the one that you usually see reported on, but then Arena is the mode where it competes against other models. So you have, four different models that run their businesses, and they can all communicate with each other. They have the same suppliers, and they can see like what's in the inventory of the others. So then you have this like yeah, interesting agent interactions.Swyx [00:49:56]: I like that you have like different number five was US versus China. Very topical. And thenLukas [00:50:02]: That was when GLM was released.Vibhu [00:50:04]: You can start to add GLM in here.Lukas [00:50:05]: That wasSwyx [00:50:06]: So ZAI doing well, right? Who else in the, in the open models space?Lukas [00:50:11]: Qwen, the latest Qwen 3.6 is doing pretty well. It'- that one is not open though. Like it's the plus model.Swyx [00:50:17]: Oh, okay.Lukas [00:50:18]: Is that one open? I don't think that oneVibhu [00:50:19]: Not the, not theSwyx [00:50:20]: The one recentlyVibhu [00:50:20]: There's MOESwyx [00:50:20]: But not the big plus. I think this is one of those like you only have one sample size of one, right? Or I feel like some of this is anecdotal,? And but like the fact that it happens at all and it happens repeatedly for Claude versus OpenAI and all this is like notable.Lukas [00:50:38]: Like the sample, depends on what you define as an N., like there's like million, hundreds of millions of tokens in each run, and now we've run like we run like probably 10 per model and then like it's been Claude 4.6 Opus, Sonnet 4.6, Mythos, and Opus 4.7. Like there's quite a lot of tokens in all of that And it happens a lot of times, a lot of times. And then you compare it to like OpenAI and Gemini, and it almost never happens. So I think that is quite-- that is significant. The old models from OpenAI, for example, had some problems with this, but I think it's like generally much better if the progression is that like the worrying stuff reduces over time rather than increases over time. And it seems like in the Claude models it goes in the wrong direction.Swyx [00:51:28]: Hmm.Lukas [00:51:29]: In the OpenAI models it goes in the right direction.Vibhu [00:51:32]: I think it depends on how well you can control it, right?, there's one side of it being susceptible to this okay, this is potentially something that happens during the RL stage, right? You can RL a model and how loose is it on these terms. If you can control it, that's good. But if you can't, if it's, if it's very jailbreakable, that's not ideal.Swyx [00:51:50]: To me, it's surprising that it happens for Claude and not the others.Vibhu [00:51:54]: I think okay, if it is from RL and how they do it, how their training data is, what their setup is, it makes sense that it just stays in how they're doing it, right? Compared to the other models likeSwyx [00:52:04]: There's a whole constitution and everything. It's kind of cool. Yeah, I obviously you don't know, I don't know. But, it ‘s I think it's just like fascinating to like that you are the first to find these like reliably because you push models so much to to such an extreme. Okay. The only other thing, I don't know if you can answer this, feel free to decline, is do you like-- would you ablate the system prompts? Like any part of this would-- if it changes, does it change the behavior, right?Lukas [00:52:29]: So we, I can't comment on Mythos. UhSwyx [00:52:33]: No, but just li

Jonathan Alpeyrie is a war photographer and journalist who has spent time documenting the darkest corners of the global drug trade — from cartel territory in Mexico and the favelas of Brazil to the streets of Kensington, Skid Row, Baltimore, and the mega-prisons of El Salvador. Jonathan breaks down what he's seen firsthand while embedding with drug gangs, addicts, undercover police units, and special forces around the world. He explains how European drug gangs are becoming more powerful, why France, Belgium, and Holland are turning into major narco hubs, and how Mexican cartels are exporting their violence and tactics into Europe. Jonathan also discusses the rise of fentanyl in America, the origins of the synthetic opioid pipeline, the brutal reality of addiction on the streets, and what he witnessed inside El Salvador's crackdown on MS-13. From undercover drug buys in Europe to firefights in Rio's favelas, this is a raw look at the worldwide drug crisis from someone who has seen it up close. Go Support Jonathan! Book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Drug-Wars/Jonathan-Alpeyrie/9780972115247 Website: https://jonathanalpeyrie.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/jonalpeyrie/ Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow 00:00 European Drug Gangs & Cartel Tactics 02:00 War Reporter's Background 03:55 Challenges of Access and Documentary Work 08:00 Undercover Ops with Cops & European Narcos 12:40 Weak Punishments & Overloaded European Prisons 15:50 Belgium, Holland & France: Europe's Crime Hotbeds 21:00 Ethnic Gangs and Emerging Alliances 27:00 Why Europe Is the “Crown Jewel” of the Drug Trade 35:00 Big Busts, Corruption & Mexican Cartel Influence 41:00 Fentanyl and Drug Crisis in the US 49:30 Drug Trends: Fentanyl, Meth, and Ketamine Scenes 54:00 MDMA, Ecstasy, and Party Drug Production 59:50 Inside Brazilian Favelas and Combat Zones 01:03:00 Violence, Danger & Drug Wars in Latin America 01:10:00 War Reporting: Syria, Iraq, and Hostage Experiences 01:20:00 Geopolitics, Proxy Wars & Global Destabilization 01:27:30 America's Shifting Role & Future of Cartels 01:34:00 Personal Trauma, Resilience & Drug War Morality 01:41:00 Solutions, Nationalism, and The Limits of Idealism 01:45:00 Jonathan's Mission & Final Thoughts 01:49:00 Book Plug & Closing Remarks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Behind the glitz of designer clothes, armored luxury trucks, and gold-plated firearms showcased online lies a grim reality of shallow graves and shattered families. True crime often focuses on the crime scenes, but the deadliest trap is the "bandit hero" myth that lures thousands of impressionable teenagers into the crosshairs of active cartel turf wars. We pull back the curtain on the hyper-violent reality of the narco-lifestyle, stripping away the cinematic glamour to reveal the devastating body count left in its wake.

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On today's episode, Vince sits down with Karlo Villalpando, a 10-year veteran of Mexican Customs and former Port Director in Sonoyta, to discuss the recent surrender of Sinaloa's Secretary of Public Safety to the DEA, the SDNY indictment naming Sinaloa state officials allegedly on the cartel's payroll, and what President Claudia Sheinbaum's government is and isn't doing about it. They also cover the cartel's parallel governance over U.S. companies operating in Mexico and whether U.S. operators are already on the ground. Borderland is an IRONCLAD Original Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (03:05) What Americans Get Wrong About the Cartels (05:17) The Cartels Are a Parallel Government in Mexico (12:17) Why Corruption Runs Mexico's Government (16:38) "They Offered Me Cash, Cars, and Properties" — A Cartel Bribe Attempt (21:21) A Sinaloa Cabinet Official Surrenders to the DEA (22:21) Cartels Inside U.S. Companies Operating in Mexico (33:26) Is Sheinbaum's Government Actually Fighting the Cartels? (44:30) Will the U.S. Strike Mexico? And Why U.S. Operators May Already Be There Sponsors: 1st Phorm: Go to⁠ ⁠https://www.1stphorm.com/borderland⁠⁠ and get free shipping on any orders over $75, free 30 days in the app for new customers, and 110% money back guarantee on all of our products. Norwood Sawmills: Learn more about Norwood Sawmills and how you can start milling your own lumber at https://norwoodsawmills.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=ironclad&utm_campaign=ironclad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Tom Fox welcomes Matt Ellis of Miller & Chevalier about the ACI “Cartels, TCOs and Compliance in Latin America” forum (July 20–21, Washington, DC) and why cartel/TCO/FTO risk is a timely 2026 compliance priority. Ellis describes the Trump administration's focus on cartels, fentanyl, China's influence, and the expanded enforcement toolkit—FCPA guidance linking to cartel activity, sanctions, AML actions (including FinCEN orders against Mexican financial institutions), and cartel FTO designations implicating the Anti-Terrorism Act. They discuss how cartels infiltrate supply chains, creating “material support” exposure, and why due diligence must go beyond traditional screening to on-the-ground intelligence and nuanced red flags. Ellis notes government interest in compliance expectations, extortion-payment considerations, the Lafarge/ISIS example, anticipated investigations, broader regional risk (Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil), and increased multi-agency coordination and potential dialogue with U.S. authorities. Key highlights: Why This Conference Now Due Diligence Goes Deeper Extortion and Self-Reporting Beyond Mexico Regional Risks Whole-of-Government Focus When to Engage Government Resources: Cartels, TCOs and Compliance in Latin America, July 20-21 Matt Ellis on LinkedIn Tom Fox Instagram Facebook YouTube Twitter LinkedIn To learn about the intersection of Sherlock Holmes and the modern compliance professional, check out Tom's latest book, The Game is Afoot-What Sherlock Holmes Teaches About Risk, Ethics and Investigations on Amazon.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Modern drug syndicates don't just rely on firepower and supply chains to dominate territory; they leverage a highly sophisticated cultural propaganda machine. Through tailor-made narco-corridos, social media flexing, and the deliberate mythologizing of brutal kingpins, cartels have successfully branded a lifestyle of violence as the ultimate symbol of wealth and rebellion. This episode exposes how criminal organizations weaponize this fake reality to build an endless pipeline of expendable youth willing to die for the brand.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco breaks down how cartel fentanyl and human trafficking flood through California's freeways, why his county is treated like a border, and the shocking case of a young deputy caught running 520,000 pills for the cartel.

he cartels control up to 45% of Mexico, infiltrate every level of government, and operate in more than 100 countries worldwide. My guest, former Mexican diplomat and veteran narcotics investigator Victor Galarza, explains why the reality is far worse than most Americans realize. If you’re tired of broken healthcare you need to choose the right pharmacy. Check them out at allfamilypharmacy.com/dinesh and use code DINESH10 to save 10% off your next order. Leave the old “buy and hold” crypto strategy behind at https://DineshCrypto.com ! Purchase crypto with military grade encryption and American customer service. Hundreds of crypto holders have saved MILLIONS thanks to BlockTrustIRA’s Animus AI. Visit https://DineshCrypto.com and receive up to $2,500 in FREE bonus crypto! America has nearly 39 trillion dollars in debt! Are you protected from this pending disaster? Go to http://DineshGold.com and get up to 10% in bonus gold or silver. I’m on substack! Check out what I have to say here: https://dineshdsouza.substack.com/ For free and unbiased Medicare help, dial (706) 262-4774 to speak with my trusted partner, Chapter, or go to https://askchapter.org/dinesh" Chapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. Dinesh D'Souza is an author and filmmaker. A graduate of Dartmouth College, he was a senior domestic policy analyst in the Reagan administration. He also served as a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is the author of many bestselling books, including "Illiberal Education," "What's So Great About Christianity," "America: Imagine a World Without Her," "The Roots of Obama's Rage," "Death of a Nation," and "United States of Socialism." His documentary films "2016: Obama's America," "America," "Hillary's America," "Death of a Nation," and "Trump Card" are among the highest-grossing political documentaries of all time. He and his wife Debbie are also executive producers of the acclaimed feature film "Infidel." — Want to connect with Dinesh D'Souza online for more hard-hitting analysis of current events in America? Here’s how: Get Dinesh unfiltered, uncensored and unchained on Locals: https://dinesh.locals.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dsouzadinesh Twitter: https://twitter.com/dineshdsouza Rumble: https://rumble.com/dineshdsouza Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dineshjdsouzaSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Most ambitious men are accidentally building a "Job-Trap," a life that looks successful on paper but is structurally broken. Today, we perform a clinical audit on legacy with the man who built an indestructible brand: Dave Munson of Saddleback Leather. Dave transitioned from a barefoot youth pastor in Mexico to the CEO of a global empire with a 100-year warranty. In this diagnostic deep-dive, we identify the "Atomic Tasks" stealing your time and the systemic failures that keep most men from true "Internal Sovereignty." From living in safari tents for a decade to surviving a million-dollar theft involving the FBI, Dave reveals the specific roadmap for building a life with no breakable parts.   CHAPTERS:  00:00 - The "No-Breakable-Parts" Life  03:00 - Why I moved my family into safari tents for 10 years  10:05 - Youth Ministry to CEO: When the business became the ministry  15:21 - The sketch that built a 100-year legacy  18:52 - Marriage Systems: Why we switched to a smaller bed  25:31 - The FBI, stolen millions, and the "Job-Trap"  27:42 - The only 2 questions you need to ask your team [High-Leverage]  41:53 - "Success starts at home": Zig Ziglar's final lesson  47:53 - The legacy audit: What will they fight over when you're dead?   Munson's Links: Website: https://saddlebackleather.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidcmunson/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidcmunson  

SPONSORS: 1) HENSON SHAVING: Just head to https://hensonshaving.com/julian to get a free 100-pack of blades with your razor purchase 2) MCG TACTICAL: Grab your Stinger now before this deal disappears and visit https://mcgtac.com/Dorey JOIN PATREON FOR EARLY UNCENSORED EPISODE RELEASES: https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey CLIPPERS DISCORD: https://discord.gg/8QmWEKJ3BT (***TIMESTAMPS in description below) ~ Stefano Ritondale is a military intelligence analyst, defense technology executive, and prominent subject-matter expert on Mexican drug cartels and regional security trends in Latin America. He is widely recognized for tracking the evolving tactics, militarization, and territorial control of transnational criminal organizations. FOLLOW STEFANO: YT: https://youtube.com/@allsourcenews?si=tQyCJ_fdEWlBuQLj X: https://x.com/all_source_news?s=21&t=sfqubsp5OipDY-MIDoR7VA IG: https://www.instagram.com/all_source_news?utm_source=qr WEBSITE: https://sitrep.artorias.com/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@all_source_news?_r=1&_t=ZT-96grCTgEUQv FOLLOW JULIAN DOREY YT: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey/ X: https://x.com/juliandorey ****TIMESTAMPS**** 00:00 - Stefano's Cartel Intel Journey & Military Background 09:35 - Intel Operations, Iran Threats & OSINT Growth 21:05 - Military War Games, ODIN & Intelligence Misconceptions 29:09 - Soleimani Strike, Iran Response & War Simulations 40:37 - October 7th, Iran Weakness & Israel Debate 51:14 - Iran's Limited Response & Strait of Hormuz Risks 1:03:32 - Maduro, Iran & CIA Assassination Allegations 1:11:20 - Cartel Power Structures, El Chapo's Heirs & Loyalty 1:23:54 - El Mencho Ops, Cartel X Accounts & Community Intel 1:35:04 - OSINT Theft, Cartel Territory Maps & Escapes 1:46:04 - Kingpin Strategy, Fentanyl Labs & Global Cocaine Trade 1:55:12 - Border Cartels, Chinese Weed Markets & El Mayo Capture 2:04:55 - El Mayo Setup & Untouchable Cartel Figures 2:10:20 - CIA, Cartels & the Future After Iran/Maduro 2:20:18 - CIA-Vetted Units, FBI Credit & Pacific Drug Routes 2:32:59 - Cartel Business Models, Oil Smuggling & Cienfuegos 2:48:48 - Fixing the Cartel Crisis & El Mencho Death Theory 2:58:43 - CJNG Leadership Shift & Cartel Stabilization 3:09:30 - Terrorist Organization Debate & Possible US Cartel War 3:12:38 - Stefano's Work CREDITS: - Host, Editor & Producer: Julian Dorey - COO, Producer & Editor: Alessi Allaman - https://www.youtube.com/@UCyLKzv5fKxGmVQg3cMJJzyQ - In-Studio Producer: Joey Deef - https://www.instagram.com/joeydeef/ Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 427 - Stefano Ritondale Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Karen Schaefer retired from the CIA in 2019, after 26 years of service. She started out in Latin America and ended with a stint at the FBI. In between, she earned numerous intelligence awards and held key positions that spanned operational, supervisory, and policy roles. Her many job titles included Chief of Base in Iraq and Director of Intelligence Programs in the White House's National Security Council. But what was it all really like? Sasha sat down to talk about how Karen's career began, how she navigated being one of the few women in the room, and how she brought different intelligence agencies together. Subscribe to Sasha's Substack, HUMINT, to get more intelligence stories: https://sashaingber.substack.com/ For more information about the International Spy Museum, visit: https://www.spymuseum.org/ And if you have feedback or want to hear about a particular topic, you can reach us by email at spycast@spymuseum.org. This show is brought to you by N2K Networks, Goat Rodeo, and the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. This episode was produced by Flora Warshaw and the team at Goat Rodeo. At the International Spy Museum, Mike Mincey and Memphis Vaughan III are our video editors. Emily Rens is our graphic designer. Joshua Troemel runs our SPY social media. Amanda Ohlke is our Director of Adult Education and Mira Cohen is the Vice President of Programs.

From street-level cash to digital wallets and unexpected front businesses, the fight against the fentanyl crisis has moved to the financial front lines. This episode uncovers how the U.S. government tracked the Sinaloa Cartel's "Los Chapitos" faction as they laundered drug money through high-tech cryptocurrency and a Mexican eatery. Tune in to explore how these strategic sanctions aim to permanently disrupt the operations of one of the world's most dangerous cartels.

Original Air Date: Apr 16, 2020 Today we meet ghosts who enforce the quarantine and then we discover drug cartels may be making monsters!   Patreon (Get ad-free episodes, Patreon Discord Access, and more!) https://www.patreon.com/user?u=18482113 PayPal Donation Link https://tinyurl.com/mrxe36ph MERCH STORE!!! https://tinyurl.com/y8zam4o2 Amazon Wish List https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/28CIOGSFRUXAD?ref_=wl_share Dead Rabbit Radio Archive Episodes https://deadrabbitradio.blogspot.com/2025/07/ episode-archive.html https://archive.ph/UELip Dead Rabbit Radio Recommends Master List https://letterboxd.com/dead_rabbit/list/dead-rabbit-radio-recommends/   Help Promote Dead Rabbit! Dual Flyer https://i.imgur.com/OhuoI2v.jpg "As Above" Flyer https://i.imgur.com/yobMtUp.jpg "Alien Flyer" By TVP VT U https://imgur.com/gallery/aPN1Fnw "QR Code Flyer" by Finn https://imgur.com/a/aYYUMAh Links: Coronavirus: Indonesia using mysterious 'ghosts' to keep people indoors amid pandemic https://www.9news.com.au/world/coronavirus-indonesia-using-ghosts-to-keep-people-indoors-amid-covid19-pandemic/2c3f6ff9-cba5-4868-8d5f-12682f20e793 Coronavirus: Indonesian village uses 'ghosts' for distancing patrols https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52269607 LITTLE MEXICAN TOWN TERRORIZED BY… A WEREWOLF?! https://www.dailygrail.com/2020/04/little-mexican-town-terrorized-by-a-werewolf/ COITA https://www.facebook.com/coitamilenario/posts/1122143038137672 Report: Tijuana homeless sample free fentanyl in deadly cartel experiments https://www.kron4.com/news/report-tijuana-homeless-sample-free-fentanyl-in-deadly-cartel-experiments/ Violent drug cartels stifle Mexican science https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00458-6 Missing 411: an honest conspiracy review https://web.archive.org/web/20200626004158/https://chazofthedead.com/home/2019/2/24/missing-411-an-honest-review-bigfoot Florida man released from jail because of coronavirus arrested on murder charges https://abcnews.go.com/US/florida-man-released-jail-coronavirus-arrested-murder-charges/story?id=70161179 Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member https://www.amazon.com/Monster-Autobiography-L-Member-ebook/dp/B003F8S75Y/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1I5BACPU1P35V&dchild=1&keywords=monster+the+autobiography+of+an+la+gang+member&qid=1586998588&sprefix=monster+the+au%2Caps%2C237&sr=8-1   ------------------------------------------------ Logo Art By Ash Black Opening Song: "Atlantis Attacks" Closing Song: "Bella Royale" Music By Simple Rabbitron 3000 created by Eerbud Thanks to Chris K, Founder Of The Golden Rabbit Brigade Dead Rabbit Archivist Some Weirdo On Twitter AKA Jack YouTube Champ: Stewart Meatball Reddit Champ: TheLast747 The Haunted Mic Arm provided by Chyme Chili Discord Mods: Mason, Rudie Jazz Forever Fluffle: Cantillions, Samson, Gregory Gilbertson, Jenny the Cat http://www.DeadRabbit.com Email: DeadRabbitRadio@gmail.com Facebook: www.Facebook.com/DeadRabbitRadio TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@deadrabbitradio Dead Rabbit Radio Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/DeadRabbitRadio/ Paranormal News Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ParanormalNews/ Mailing Address Jason Carpenter PO Box 1363 Hood River, OR 97031 Paranormal, Conspiracy, and True Crime news as it happens! Jason Carpenter breaks the stories they'll be talking about tomorrow, assuming the world doesn't end today. All Contents Of This Podcast Copyright Jason Carpenter 2018 - 2026

Roger grew up in communist Armenia, escaped to Los Angeles, and was quickly pulled into the streets, drug trafficking, money, and violence. But after a deadly crash and prison sentence, Jesus confronted the life he was living and gave him a new mission: to bring Bibles and hope to prisoners around the world.Help us record more testimonies

Rosi Orozco is one of the world's leading voices against human trafficking. She has been working in human rights advocacy for over three decades, and as a member of the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico, she was the driving legislative force behind Mexico's famous anti-trafficking law.“There are 50 million people in the world in slavery,” Orozco tells me. And that, she believes, is a low estimate.She was recently involved in helping three rescued girls, who are now at secure shelter in Mexico. “These three girls were minors, and a cartel was training them to kill, to sell drugs, and to [engage in] prostitution.”What happened to those three minors—only 14, 15, and 17 years old—is fairly typical, she says. They saw an ad on TikTok that promised them “work in the tourism industry, and [promised] very good payment.” When they arrived at the Mexican tourist resort, they were captured.Over the years, Orozco has helped more than 400 rescued people, mostly minors, slowly begin to rebuild their lives. But, she says, “400 is nothing compared with the people that haven't been rescued.” The rescue is just the beginning of a long journey: “It's difficult work because these girls were completely broken ... to see a smile on their face was really a big victory.”Many people who rescue trafficked children or work in the security shelters where they are protected often risk their own lives. The theme of Orozco's 5th International Summit Against Human Trafficking this year is “Heroes Wanted.”Orozco also serves as president of the Houston-based “United Against Human Trafficking” nonprofit and created the Trafficking in Persons hotline in Mexico in 2013, giving citizens a direct channel to report trafficking.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

The U.S. Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on more than a dozen individuals and entities linked to the Sinaloa Cartel's fentanyl trafficking and money laundering operations, including a popular restaurant in Chihuahua, Mexico. This action highlights the cartel's use of seemingly legitimate businesses to facilitate illicit activities while underscoring ongoing efforts to combat the flow of deadly synthetic opioids into the United States. The sanctions reflect a broader strategy under the current administration to designate and dismantle narco-terrorist organizations responsible for thousands of American overdose deaths

Ioan Grillo has spent decades on the ground in Mexico watching the cartels evolve, and his assessment is sobering. Violence has shifted form more than it's receded. Governments change rhetoric, not reality. The U.S. is more involved than anyone admits. And Sheinbaum is threading a needle between Washington's pressure and Mexican sovereignty. A conversation you won't find anywhere else.--Timestamps:(00:00) - Welcome and Guest Intro(01:33) - Name Pronunciation(02:46) - How Cartels Evolved(03:35) - Violence Plateau Explained(08:04) - Homicide Stats vs Reality(10:01) - Sheinbaum Security Strategy(14:28) - US Role and Intervention(15:54) - Trump Era Cartel Priority(20:51) - Sovereignty and Mixed Views(24:38) - Extraditions and Double Talk(27:11) - US Role In Mexico(28:23) - CIA Tactics Debate(29:11) - Bukele Model Questions(30:22) - Why Bukele Rose(34:15) - Crackdown Tradeoffs(37:53) - Mexico Geography Limits(39:36) - What Tough Looks Like(43:19) - Journalism Under Threat(47:49) - Staying Sane Reporting(53:01) - Closing And Links--Referenced in the Show:--Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.comJacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShapJacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe --The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com--Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multinationals make strategic decisions about political risks and opportunities, and works directly with investors to grow and protect their assets in today's volatile global environment. His insights help audiences across industries like finance, agriculture, and energy make sense of the world.--

Del Potter, PhD is an ethnopsychopharmacologist, chemist, and psychedelic pioneer whose career has moved across some of the most consequential and unconventional edges of the field, from Mesoamerican field research and underground manufacturing to cutting-edge pharmaceutical development and clinical trials. He brings a rare perspective to the psychedelic renaissance: not as a commentator, but as someone who was inside the apparatus that produced these compounds long before the current wave had a name. Dr. Potter holds a PhD from a joint program between the UCSF Medical School and UC Berkeley's Department of Anthropology, specializing in psychiatric anthropology, ethnopsychopharmacology, and neuropharmacology, with additional clinical training at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute. His postdoctoral fieldwork examined shamanic traditions and indigenous psychotherapeutic practice across multiple lineages, including ceremonial psilocybin and Salvia divinorum use among the Mazatec of central Mexico, ayahuasca and yagé ritual among the Shuar of Ecuador, and parallel traditions among the Yanomami of Brazil and the Cofán of Colombia, contributing to Richard Evans Schultes' comprehensive survey of psychotropic botanicals worldwide. A formative mentorship with Alexander Shulgin oriented his chemistry toward novel tryptamine compounds, particularly in the DMT and 5-MeO-DMT structural classes, and he has since developed a portfolio of compounds that retain the neuroplasticity associated with psychedelic receptor activity while producing no psychedelic effect. On the pharmaceutical and biotech side, Dr. Potter served as Chief Science Officer at Leef Holdings, designing what became California's largest fully automated medical cannabis manufacturing facility, and later directed first-in-human 5-MeO-DMT clinical trials at UCSF through his work with Alvarius Pharmaceuticals, followed by a Phase 1 trial at Trinity College Dublin. At University College Dublin, he developed and validated the use of human stem cell-derived brain organoids to assess how psychedelic compounds reverse epigenetic changes caused by substance abuse. In 2023 he founded Spiritus Bioscience to develop novel delivery formats for psilocin, DMT, and 5-MeO-DMT, with the first product entering clinical trials in Australia targeting Alcohol Use Disorder. He currently serves as founder and CSO of BioUnbound Inc., exploring the intersection of psychedelics and bioactive peptides for mental health and longevity applications. Dr. Potter is currently completing his memoir, whose working title is Was a Different Time: Chronicles of a Psychedelic Pioneer in the Reign of the Cartels.Episode Highlights ▶ Del's background supplying California cannabis genetics to the Guadalajara cartel and working at Rancho Bufalo  ▶ Meeting cartel figures Miguel Felix Gallardo and Rafael Caro Quintero, and the fallout from the Kiki Camarena murder  ▶ Manufacturing LSD in Marin County using precursor chemicals sourced through cartel connections  ▶ How a DEA sting led to a federal task force, a stunning offer, and a get-out-of-jail-free card  ▶ Mentorship under Alexander Shulgin and the countercultural milieu of Esalen, Claudio Naranjo, Allen Ginsberg, and Terence McKenna  ▶ Why psychedelics have no intrinsic politics: the compound is the same, the container decides everything  ▶ The retreat economy as product development: when one medicine stops differentiating, operators start stacking  ▶ How the clinical and pharmaceutical models convert ceremony into a billable procedure  ▶ The psychoplastogen pipeline: engineering the experience out so the worker is back at their desk by Wednesday  ▶ Indigenous cosmological governance as a technical achievement, not a romanticized ideal  ▶ The concept of restraint and reciprocity as regulatory systems, and what Western culture has lost  ▶ Why patenting psilocybin protocols and dosing postures is a winnable legal argument  ▶ Publicly funded, community-governed clinics as the only container that can hold what these compounds require  ▶ The mental health crisis as inseparable from the housing, wage, care, and climate crises  ▶ Building a parallel infrastructure: cooperatives, commons defense, and indigenous benefit sharing as models    Dr. Del Potter's Links & Resources ▶ https://delpotterphd.substack.com ▶ https://www.facebook.com/del.potter.75 ▶ @drdelpotter.bsky.social ▶ www.biounbound.com ▶ https://www.instagram.com/potter_del/ Download Beth's free trainings here:  Clarity to Clients: Start & Grow a Transformational Coaching, Healing, Spiritual, or Psychedelic Business:  https://bethaweinstein.com/grow-your-spiritual-business Integrating Psychedelics & Sacred Medicines Into Business: https://bethaweinstein.com/psychedelics-in-business ▶ Beth's Coaching & Guidance: https://bethaweinstein.com/coaching  ▶ Beth's Offerings & Courses: https://bethaweinstein.com/services ▶ Instagram:  @bethaweinstein  ▶ FB: / bethw.nyc + bethweinsteinbiz  Download Beth's free trainings here: Clarity to Clients: Start & Grow a Transformational Coaching, Healing, Spiritual, or Psychedelic Business: https://bethaweinstein.com/grow-your-spiritual-businessIntegrating Psychedelics & Sacred Medicines Into Business: https://bethaweinstein.com/psychedelics-in-business▶ Beth's Coaching & Guidance: https://bethaweinstein.com/coaching ▶ Beth's Offerings & Courses: https://bethaweinstein.com/services▶ Instagram: @bethaweinstein ▶ FB: / bethw.nyc + bethweinsteinbiz

Watch every episode ad-free & uncensored on Patreon: https://patreon.com/dannyjones John Nores is a game warden who discovered and combatted Mexican cartels operating in the forests of California & Montana. He explains how China's partnership with the Sinaloa cartel is America's biggest threat. His latest book is "Hidden War: How Special Operations Game Wardens Are Reclaiming America's Wildlands From The Drug Cartels". SPONSORS https://liquid-iv.com - Use code DANNY for 20% off your first order. https://amentara.com/go/djp - Use code DJ11 for an EXTRA 11% off. https://shopify.com/dannyjones - Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today. https://takeultra.com - Use code DANNY for 15% off. https://whiterabbitenergy.com/?ref=DJP - Use code DJP for 20% off EPISODE LINKS https://www.johnnores.com Hidden War Book: https://amzn.to/3PLItP2 FOLLOW DANNY JONES https://www.instagram.com/dannyjones https://twitter.com/jonesdanny OUTLINE 00:00 - The Game Warden protecting the Emerald Triangle 07:38 - Game Warden training 12:00 - Hunting for consumption in California 17:56 - Human deaths from California Mountain Lions 21:06 - Why hunting is GOOD for wildlife 27:38 - Unique elk species in California & Montana 29:25 - Hunting coyotes to protect other species 35:08 - Why cattle ranching is dying 39:14 - Shoot-outs with drug cartels in the California woods 42:50 - How 9/11 changed game warden training 47:09 - Cartels diverting water sources for illegal drug farms 53:52 - Encountering Sinaloa Cartel growers 01:01:45 - The anti-grow operation task force 01:08:07 - The first Sinaloa Cartel grow farm shoot-out 01:19:27 - Cartel booby traps around grow farms 01:22:21 - "El diablo": cartel's favorite pesticide 01:29:30 - When cartels started growing drugs in the U.S. 01:30:58 - Sinaloa boss' confessions about growth farms 01:38:54 - China & Mexico's joint fentanyl operation 01:46:39 - China's involvement in weed & fentanyl trade 01:54:12 - How China penetrates our Northern border 01:59:37 - Illegal cartel grow farms are worse than ever 02:04:53 - How to fix the cartel drug farm problem 02:08:22 - Why legalizing marijuana is a net positive 02:12:04 - The Madeira beach grouper fishing industry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, Dan Duval speaks with Henry and Amanda Hastings of Justice Reigns about a kingdom-driven approach to fighting human trafficking through spiritual discernment, trauma-informed restoration, and gospel-centered cultural reform. They share firsthand experiences confronting child exploitation in Southeast Asia and trafficking networks across the Caribbean and South America, while exposing tactics such as social media grooming, coercion, and porn-driven demand. The conversation also highlights Justice Reigns' partnerships with safe homes, investigators, and governments to support rescues, survivor restoration, and anti-trafficking operations.justicereigns.orgYou can register for the Bride Ministries Marriage Advance here: https://marriage.bridemovement.comThen we ENCOURAGE you to do 4 QUICK THINGS!!Sign up to be a podcast memberwww.danduval.comBe sure to check out and like our new Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/DiscoveringTruthNetworkSubscribe to the new podcast YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5nxloF2rt7-dXkjppGHdFAAND Subscribe to our Rumble Channel, where we will post all of our interviews that are TOO HOT for YouTube!DiscoveringTruthNetwork (rumble.com)

9/16: Evan Ellis discusses the unprecedented US indictment of sitting Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha Moya for ties to the Sinaloa cartel. The indictment reveals deep corruption within the Mexican political system. Ellis explains how cartels utilize global networks and legitimate legal firms to launder billions.1900

Kirk Lane joins Locked In with Ian Bick to share what it's really like after spending over 33 years in law enforcement. From starting out as a young officer to becoming a police chief and later a drug director, Kirk has seen every side of the job. In this episode, he breaks down how investigators get confessions from suspects, the reality of interrogations, and what actually happens behind closed doors. He also dives into the war on drugs, how it has changed over the course of his career, and what he learned from working narcotics and leading drug enforcement efforts. Kirk opens up about the most memorable cases, the challenges officers face, and the mental and emotional toll that comes with decades on the job. _____________________________________________ #LawEnforcement #PoliceLife #TrueCrime #CopStories #PoliceOfficer #CrimeStories #BehindTheBadge #lockedinpodcast _____________________________________________ Connect with Kirk Lane: https://www.cadca.org/team/kirk-r-lane/ _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 Kirk Lane's Law Enforcement Journey 00:18 Childhood & Family Life 01:32 Growing Up with Deaf Parents 02:34 Early Influences & Aspirations 03:13 Choosing Law Enforcement 03:56 Military School & Early Career Skills 04:40 Undercover Skills from Childhood 05:07 Military Training & Wild Youth 05:28 Developing an Anti-Drug Stance 06:08 Early Views on Drugs 07:01 Peer Influence and Personal Choices 07:47 Family Influence and Purpose 08:13 Stepping Into Law Enforcement 09:16 Early Law Enforcement Roles 11:36 Dispatch & Jail Experiences 14:03 Small-Town Policing Differences 15:39 Lessons from Retail Security 16:58 Becoming a Small Town Police Officer 18:19 First Days as an Officer 19:10 Narcotics Enforcement Interests 19:24 First Undercover Experiences 21:03 Facing Danger Undercover 22:02 Maintaining Undercover Identity 23:02 Impact on Family & Personal Risk 25:22 Death Investigation & Advanced Roles 25:55 Missing the Impact of Overdose Cases 26:59 Targeting Dealers vs. Addressing Root Issues 27:00 Drug Enforcement & Asset Seizure Culture 28:18 Evolving Drug Trends & Jurisdictional Challenges 30:00 Rise of Clandestine Labs & Meth 32:00 Cartels, Youth, and Violence 33:22 What Happens After a Drug Bust 34:38 Motivations and Psychology of Big Dealers 35:45 Marijuana Enforcement & Observations 37:05 Leaving Undercover Work & Career Changes 39:42 Transitioning Roles and Maintaining Community Trust 42:42 Learning from Death Investigations 46:06 Community Expectations & Public Perception 47:41 Leadership as Police Chief 48:42 Challenges with Public Image and Media 50:01 Confessions & Interview Techniques 52:21 High-Profile Cases & Handling Evidence 55:41 Roles of Courts vs. Police in Justice 01:00:01 Building Community Trust 01:00:34 Drug Views and the Opioid Crisis 01:02:01 Moving Into Statewide Drug Policy Leadership 01:03:11 Developing & Expanding Peer Recovery 01:06:03 Recidivism and the Power of Recovery 01:09:00 Shifting Standards & Maintaining Ethics 01:10:48 Transition to Overseeing Opioid Settlement Funds 01:13:14 Retirement Reflections & Succession Planning 01:14:14 Final Lessons and Takeaways _____________________________________________ To advertise on the show, contact sales@advertisecast.com or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/LockedInWithIanBicka Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What really happens inside the world's most dangerous underground economies? And why do the people running them trust a journalist enough to talk? Mariana van Zeller — Emmy- and Peabody Award–winning investigative journalist, host and executive producer of Trafficked on National Geographic, and host of The Hidden Third podcast — has spent years embedded with scammers, smugglers, cartel members, assassins, and black-market power brokers. In this episode of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, she pulls back the curtain on the shadow systems that quietly shape the global economy. Mariana breaks down the difference between the black market vs. the grey market, why understanding these hidden economies is the only way to create real change, and how she manages to gain access to some of the most secretive and dangerous players in the world. She explains how empathy, not judgment, is often the key to getting people labeled “the worst of the worst” to open up, and why many of them speak with her because of something surprisingly simple: a deep human need to be heard and understood. She also addresses critics who say she shouldn't give criminals a platform, revealing why listening to these voices is essential to exposing the systems behind global crime. We dive into her most harrowing experiences in the field — including the terrifying moment she and her team weren't sure they would make it out alive, and the time they had to escape a country in the middle of a life-threatening military coup while filming. Mariana also unpacks the current climate in Mexico's drug war, explaining why violence often escalates when major cartel kingpins are taken down, and the troubling implications of the fact that many of the weapons used by cartels originate in the United States. We get into one of the fastest-growing criminal industries in the world: scams. She breaks down everything you've ever wanted to know about romance scams and “pig butchering” operations, including: - Psychological tactics scammers use - Who scammers typically target and why - Massive infrastructure behind modern scam compounds - Why many scammers are actually victims of forced labor themselves - Why victims often stay silent due to shame and stigma Mariana explains why advancing technology, crypto, and AI are making financial scams easier than ever, and why anyone can fall victim — no matter how smart or cautious they are, including the shocking case of a bank CEO who was successfully defrauded. We also explore medical black markets, from organ trafficking to international surrogacy scams, and discuss some of her most intense interviews, from conversations with a suspected Russian sex spy to Anna Delvey, the infamous socialite scammer. Despite spending her career face-to-face with some of the darkest corners of humanity, Mariana reveals something surprising: she still believes deeply in people. In fact, she sometimes finds more hope, honesty, and equality in underground markets than in global governments or legal capitalism. This conversation will change how you think about crime, power, empathy, and the hidden systems shaping our world! Head to https://www.Superpower.com and use code BREAK at checkout for $20 off your membership. After you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them, so make sure to mention this podcast to support the show. Mariana van Zeller's podcast, THE HIDDEN THIRD: https://www.youtube.com/@marianavanzeller Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What really happens inside the world's most dangerous underground economies? And why do the people running them trust a journalist enough to talk? Mariana van Zeller — Emmy- and Peabody Award–winning investigative journalist, host and executive producer of Trafficked on National Geographic, and host of The Hidden Third podcast — has spent years embedded with scammers, smugglers, cartel members, assassins, and black-market power brokers. In this episode of Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, she pulls back the curtain on the shadow systems that quietly shape the global economy. Mariana breaks down the difference between the black market vs. the grey market, why understanding these hidden economies is the only way to create real change, and how she manages to gain access to some of the most secretive and dangerous players in the world. She explains how empathy, not judgment, is often the key to getting people labeled “the worst of the worst” to open up, and why many of them speak with her because of something surprisingly simple: a deep human need to be heard and understood. She also addresses critics who say she shouldn't give criminals a platform, revealing why listening to these voices is essential to exposing the systems behind global crime. We dive into her most harrowing experiences in the field — including the terrifying moment she and her team weren't sure they would make it out alive, and the time they had to escape a country in the middle of a life-threatening military coup while filming. Mariana also unpacks the current climate in Mexico's drug war, explaining why violence often escalates when major cartel kingpins are taken down, and the troubling implications of the fact that many of the weapons used by cartels originate in the United States. We get into one of the fastest-growing criminal industries in the world: scams. She breaks down everything you've ever wanted to know about romance scams and “pig butchering” operations, including: - Psychological tactics scammers use - Who scammers typically target and why - Massive infrastructure behind modern scam compounds - Why many scammers are actually victims of forced labor themselves - Why victims often stay silent due to shame and stigma Mariana explains why advancing technology, crypto, and AI are making financial scams easier than ever, and why anyone can fall victim — no matter how smart or cautious they are, including the shocking case of a bank CEO who was successfully defrauded. We also explore medical black markets, from organ trafficking to international surrogacy scams, and discuss some of her most intense interviews, from conversations with a suspected Russian sex spy to Anna Delvey, the infamous socialite scammer. Despite spending her career face-to-face with some of the darkest corners of humanity, Mariana reveals something surprising: she still believes deeply in people. In fact, she sometimes finds more hope, honesty, and equality in underground markets than in global governments or legal capitalism. This conversation will change how you think about crime, power, empathy, and the hidden systems shaping our world! Head to https://www.Superpower.com and use code BREAK at checkout for $20 off your membership. After you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them, so make sure to mention this podcast to support the show. Mariana van Zeller's podcast, THE HIDDEN THIRD: https://www.youtube.com/@marianavanzeller Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Follow MG Paul E. Vallely at https://StandUpAmericaUS.org Retired U.S. Army Major General Paul E. Vallely, West Point Class of 1961, the “oldest general ever to lead troops into battle,” and Chairman of Stand Up America US, who co-drafted the America First policy, joins host Brad Wozny for a powerful breakdown of what may come next under President Trump's America First plan. This episode explores the cartel war, Cuba, Iran, JFK, and the deeper strategic stakes behind America 250. From sovereignty, national security, Russia's support for a new U.S. dollar, and major geopolitical shifts to a brief but important look at Canada, the Freedom Convoy, and the broader American framework MG Vallely says still matters, this is a sharp, timely conversation with one of the most connected military insiders in the game standing for freedom and all mankind.

Lou Valoze, a 26-year ATF undercover veteran, pulls back the curtain on a world most Americans never see — storefront sting operations, running fake businesses from shooting ranges to international freight forwarders to get cartel members, biker gangs, and the Gambino family to incriminate themselves. Valoze reveals how his career was derailed not by anything he did in the field but by an Obama-appointed U.S. attorney who objected to the racial demographics of his defendants — career criminals in an urban area — triggering a two-year OIG investigation that found nothing, while his star informant Ray Khan, a gas station owner turned indispensable undercover asset who helped bring in cartel members, was simultaneously being hunted by Georgia revenue officers who turned out to be on the payroll of Ray's business competition. Money should have intrinsic value AND transactional privacy: Go to https://davidknight.gold/ for great deals on physical gold/silver For 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to https://trendsjournal.com/ and enter the code “KNIGHT” For high quality made in America products go to HomeSteadProducts.shop and use promo code “Knight” for 10% off your purchases Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.com If you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-show Or you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @DavidKnightShow@protonmail.comCash App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-david-knight-show--2653468/support.

Lou Valoze, a 26-year ATF undercover veteran, pulls back the curtain on a world most Americans never see — storefront sting operations, running fake businesses from shooting ranges to international freight forwarders to get cartel members, biker gangs, and the Gambino family to incriminate themselves. Valoze reveals how his career was derailed not by anything he did in the field but by an Obama-appointed U.S. attorney who objected to the racial demographics of his defendants — career criminals in an urban area — triggering a two-year OIG investigation that found nothing, while his star informant Ray Khan, a gas station owner turned indispensable undercover asset who helped bring in cartel members, was simultaneously being hunted by Georgia revenue officers who turned out to be on the payroll of Ray's business competition. Money should have intrinsic value AND transactional privacy: Go to https://davidknight.gold/ for great deals on physical gold/silver For 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to https://trendsjournal.com/ and enter the code “KNIGHT” For high quality made in America products go to HomeSteadProducts.shop and use promo code “Knight” for 10% off your purchases Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.com If you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-show Or you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @DavidKnightShow@protonmail.comCash App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-david-knight-show--5282736/support.

Lou Valoze, a 26-year ATF undercover veteran, pulls back the curtain on a world most Americans never see — storefront sting operations, running fake businesses from shooting ranges to international freight forwarders to get cartel members, biker gangs, and the Gambino family to incriminate themselves. Valoze reveals how his career was derailed not by anything he did in the field but by an Obama-appointed U.S. attorney who objected to the racial demographics of his defendants — career criminals in an urban area — triggering a two-year OIG investigation that found nothing, while his star informant Ray Khan, a gas station owner turned indispensable undercover asset who helped bring in cartel members, was simultaneously being hunted by Georgia revenue officers who turned out to be on the payroll of Ray's business competition. Money should have intrinsic value AND transactional privacy: Go to https://davidknight.gold/ for great deals on physical gold/silver For 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to https://trendsjournal.com/ and enter the code “KNIGHT” For high quality made in America products go to HomeSteadProducts.shop and use promo code “Knight” for 10% off your purchases Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.com If you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-show Or you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @DavidKnightShow@protonmail.comCash App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-david-knight-show--5282736/support.