#1427 – Expat Life in Oaxaca: Cartels, Culture, and Coastal Contrasts

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now as I wonder Hello there all you ex-pad wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started All right continuing on that theme of what can happen if you're a gringo expat living down here Especially in Mexico and a narco moves into your neighborhood. So then what do you do? Stay leave make friends with them Tolerate the narco shenanigans, you know are going on

[00:49] What if all that's going down in what you thought was your nice gated guarded protected neighborhood or right next door? Well, let's find out. We've got more details coming at us from the horse's mouth We've got mr. B checking in he's been living in Mexico for eight or nine years now and that circumstance That none of us ever could anticipate that is a narco moving into the neighborhood has been visited upon him and his wife That said, let me read you some of the juicier parts of his recent email He says hey Johnny. Have you ever wondered how us gringos renting in a Gated country spot, Mexico have come to coexist With a landlord who let his nephew and his cartel crew move in

[01:34] Well, he says it was too much for my wife She finally threw in the towel and went back to the US to live amongst family as for me I really did love living in sunny high and cool central Oaxaca, Mexico And of course a narco live in the neighborhood does throw a wrench into the works By the way, he says I appreciated that you shared Johnny the Colonel Douglas McGregor interview in last week's show Regarding the cartel situation here in Mexico and I mostly agree with his assessments But I thought I'd share my own nuanced experiences personal experiences Nothing here say about it because now I've got these cartel guys living right here in my gated country enclave Where me and a handful of other gringos and Mexicans are renting small houses Mr. B says a while back in an email. I shared earlier a story about my landlord in this little piece of paradise

[02:27] He's in his mid 70s now still a bit spicy Considering he's a sex addict though in his 70s now a fading sex addict He says I told you in a past email that the guy's got a keen eye for entrepreneurialism In other words, he knows how to make a buck or a peso Which is one of the reasons why I think he's temporarily given one of his six rental houses To the local cartel boss who just happens to be his young nephew by the way, mr. B says the young narco boss is having a bigger house built across town and He'll be staying in our colony. I understand until that finally gets built. That's what we know so far and have our fingers crossed Anyway, he says at first

[03:14] We gringos here in our nice serene little neighborhood we're more than a bit put off by the infrequent random popping off of pistols and the all-night parade of his crew coming and Going during their nocturnal dealings Most of those dealings being in bootleg gasoline Lifted from the capital city's fuel depot, which is right down the road from us So let me tell you what's happened since this nephew narco moved in Well, he appears to be a chip off the old uncle's family black sheep block For a lot of reasons. For example, he's brought a lot of exotic zoo animals onto the property Including a nicely crafted pen for cock fighting though. One thing has recently changed

[04:01] He's now respecting his uncle's wishes not to play loud music or disrespect the renders here like me at all hours And believe it or not over time. We've all had a chance to get to know this guy He's actually a pretty cordial guy for cartel criminal. In fact due to that gringo advantage I guess he sometimes is very disarming and gently flirtatious with the gringo ladies around here though Us gringos and expats know that anytime his crew could turn quite dangerous if need be They certainly have control in the upper hand in the area because they reputedly have almost all the local politicians and police on their payroll in their back pocket that said us gringos and expats seem to be in a delicate zone of being under the loose security umbrella of the

[04:51] Nuevo Heneration cartel You could say they're part and parcel of our homeowners association Which as you might imagine is a good and bad thing by the way Some of our landlords family members on the non black sheep side of the family who live on the other side of town They seem to be a bit afraid or at least have reservations about coming over to visit Since they fear some kind of rival cartel brattle breaking out here and another thing Johnny It's true. All of us gringo stuck in this situation could move out in a second But it really is a delightful Altiplano spot in a charming country setting and life is about weighing risks Right as you get older you usually get less relevant. Nobody wants to fade into the background

[05:41] We all need a reason to get up in the morning, especially when the old bones are creaking some excitement Right and along with excitement often comes a little bit of danger besides that Johnny when you get old There aren't that many surprises Not to mention the really aggravating thing those pistol shots in the night have ceased and really Johnny How many people get to be front row? Observers to something like this of a local example of the narco state in full operational glory right before eyes First person witnesses, like I said Johnny It's all very nuanced and a trade-off in the style of life you want to lead So Johnny needless to say there's never a dull moment in our hood It's your beats a lackluster apartment in Cleveland any day. So even though it's too much for the wife

[06:30] She's headed back to gringo landia I'm staying put for now though things are always in the state of flux always changing and that and 20 pesos will buy you a nice cup of coffee. So Johnny, that's all I've got to report for now Thanks for all you do. Mr. B in the land of eternal spring Oaxaca, Mexico So there you have it another report from mr. B. Who says he's willing to tolerate the narco in the neighborhood At least for the time being he's reserving judgment I mean look movin's a pain No one wants to move and if you can tolerate the situation you're in even if it's the odd narco or cartel guy As long as he's not violent abusive or too unpredictable As long as you could stay on good terms with those guys

[07:16] Man life doesn't get much more interesting than that something brand new every day if those are the kind of kicks You're looking for then again You'd never want to own property in a neighborhood like that Renting fine because you can get the hell out in a hurry the resale value would be non-existent now I have to admit myself I've got a lot of older folks in my family living up in the States and some of them are bored out of their skulls They're living the same old boring life same old boring routine. It's been going on for years. So mr. B's got a point Again, it depends on your tolerance for risk Obviously his wife's tolerance is much lower than his that said I've been down here a long long time over 30 years With only two weeks and all that time visiting the States and that was before 9-11 so anyway over the years lots and lots of newbie gringos and expats and

[08:05] Gringos and expats living up in the States thinking about a plan B Have asked me about my particular interactions with narco's and or cartel guys People think it has to have happened to me I've been around way too long not to have some interactions with them. People are naturally curious They usually hedge a bit and say Johnny you've been down there a long long time Tell us some narco bedtime stories Come on. They say give it up. Maybe found yourself in some testy situations yourself. Well, I always say the same thing I don't know if it's pure luck But I've never had a narco introduce himself to me as a narco or someone else say hey Johnny I want you to meet Paco. He's in one of those, you know forbidden businesses Nah, of course. I know people are not going to introduce a narco

[08:54] Directly as a narco or cartel member. That would be nuts Suicidal even depending on the circumstances. Hey, Johnny, I'd like to introduce you to my friend Jose Jose Johnny's a retired engineer And Jose here Johnny. He's a cartel boss. He's a narco Nope, it certainly won't go down like that. Not in mixed company. Anyway, funny thing though If you're living down here in Latin America, wherever you're living if there's a narco in the neighborhood Everyone certainly knows it rumors get around fast people might roll their eyes and make gestures But no one ever really talks about it So the fact is I'm sure over the years I've met some narco's upfront and personal though Certainly more upscale ones had blend in, you know, the guys at the top that don't have tattoos on their necks and faces

[09:43] You know, it's funny. I always wonder how a guy in the narco business gets to the top Without being completely covered in prison tats Considering most of these guys are on the street for a while and end up doing time Well after a while I came to understand that most top-level narco Inherited those positions from their dads or uncles or family member kind of like the Italian mob the Mafia, you know The big guy that so-called godfather hands off parts of his business to his kids grandkids nephews family members So most of the families and kids of high-end narco's are living in nice neighborhoods Families wives mistresses, etc blending in with the higher class of society their kids going to expensive bilingual helicopter schools Sometimes the kids and teachers know it or suspect it and sometimes they don't now, of course down here in Latin America

[10:34] It's easy to spot a narco or just go to a high-end gym. Just check out the big black SUVs in the parking lot and the bodyguards posted in front of those cars Just twiddling their thumbs. Some of them looking really mean like hitmen that as opposed to guys who are bodyguards for politicians Who more often than not look like pot-bellied fools in suits that are two sizes too small Fact is I've been in quite a few upscale restaurants And I just know a certain guy sitting at a certain table has to be a narco Oftentimes he's there with his whole extended family. I can say annuals party. Whatever It's pretty easy to tell if the guy holding court is a narco Even the more cultured and more educated ones look a little too polished. They try a little too hard

[11:21] But actually being introduced to one myself. Well, maybe I have but it's never been all that obvious Though a funny thing did happen to me a while back in Guatemala And I know I told some of this story a while back on this show probably five years or so Lots of new listeners since then so I guess it's worth repeating Turned out a good friend of mine in Guatemala a gringo expat name was Mike. He struck it rich in the oil fields in Guatemala He was a trained geologist. So he knew what he was looking for. Well about 15 years ago He struck it rich and at the time he told me he was worth something like 15 million dollars with inflation You could certainly double that Anyway, along with his really nice house in Guatemala City. He decided to build a beach house on the Pacific

[12:07] Which is really ugly, but it's always been the thing rich Guatemalans do a beach house in Guatemala I just don't get it Dark volcanic sand beaches that absorb so much Sun that you can't even walk on them comfortably barefooted You know, I always tell people Guatemala's got everything except nice beaches Even so with wealthy Guatemalans to buy a beach house seems to be a rite of passage Never mind the beaches suck and most people don't go in much Funny thing too about wealthy Guatemalans they'll buy or build three different houses one in Guatemala City in a rich part of town They'll buy a second house to use on weekends in Antigua, Guatemala in the colonial part of town

[12:53] There are so many nice restored colonial houses. You can't believe it But some are more or less mansions with fountains and courtyards inside and man You really have to have money to own one of those most of them are well over a million bucks And then there's that third house a beach house Almost all very wealthy Guatemalans have three houses sounds strange, but it's true unlike most wealthy or upper middle-class people in the States who just might have to a regular house in the city and Maybe a cottage or summer house The thing is Antigua Guatemala is a very special little city in Guatemalan society to have a house There is a very posh wealthy Guatemalans also have a beach house They mostly building by those houses on a strip of beach called Monte Rico, and it's not even a pretty beach It's as if even rich Guatemalans don't get around much

[13:42] They've never seen the really cool and fantastic beaches on the Caribbean in fact I'd say the very best beach in Guatemala could be Monterico, and it's only maybe a three and a half out of ten more like a two and a half really Not even average But as they say you play the hand you're dealt and that Monte Rico beach is only about two hours away from Guatemala City Where wealthy Guatemalans have their main digs and by the way Antigua Guatemala is less than an hour from Guatemala City So wealthy Guatemalans with three houses have them in very convenient locations In fact, they could pop in and out of all three in one day Unlike for example wealthy people I know who live up in Chicago They'll often have a nice beautiful apartment on a lake shore drive Or a nice house in the burbs the north shore

[14:29] Evanston whatever and sort of a luxury boat house way up in Wisconsin somewhere Often a four or five hour drive man to motivate yourself to do a four or five hour drive Just one way man. It doesn't take long before you start regretting that purchase That's why if you take a drive through northern Wisconsin, you'll see so many beautiful yet unoccupied lake houses But back to Guatemala. So anyway, if you take a ride to the beach called Monte Rico You'll find when you're away from the little town man. It's little it's only got about six roads Anyway, you'll find as you drive along the big paved road I forgot the name of it as you get farther and farther away from that little town You'll see little dirt roads and sand roads

[15:15] Just sort of branching off the main road that seemed to disappear into the palm tree Well, it's down these dirt and sand roads that you'll find some of the nicest most beautiful beach house So anyway to keep up with the wealthy Jones's my buddy Mike The oil man built a nice beautiful beach house down one of those little deserted roads And when the house was finally finished, he invited me to a party Small party probably 20 people there I didn't know any of them but as usual the guys split off and started hanging around the barbecue and the ladies ended up lounging around the pool and When I arrived and it came to introductions. Mike said johnny, this is so-and-so. He's the minister of defense for Guatemala I said oh really he says yeah, he lives right next door now next door wasn't really next door

[16:04] It's probably about three blocks away, but I can see he lived in more or less a mansion Right on the beach Every house there was right on the beach Of course that house the minister of defense pointed to Didn't quite look like any kind of house a guy on his salary could afford I think later mike told me he was making around 16 000 a year Back then big money in guatemala or anywhere in latin america about 30 000 in today's inflated dollars Oh, and did I tell you the average gp the average doctor in latin america? Makes around 10 to 12 000 a year, you know, just to put things in perspective Anyway, while mike was doing the introductions. He said johnny. I want you to meet so-and-so. He's guatemala's former minister of education

[16:51] He said he's my neighbor too and he pointed to a house across the street This particular guy did not have beachfront property a nice big mansion But across the street from the beach no houses in front of him only palm trees So he had an ocean view again I was thinking these government guys must be absolute whizzes at picking out real estate deals because Later mike told me the guy makes around 22 000 a year What a joke, huh and his beach house worth a half a million easy Wealthy guatemalans have three houses. That's kind of the extra third house the beach house They have one in the city one in antigo guatemala and one here on the beach In fact, I think I told you a long time drummer in one of my bands his father and his uncle owned the pepsicola and

[17:37] One of the bottled water franchises for guatemala. I mean they were filthy rich And this guy the drummer told me lots of stories on how wealthy families would sort of hit the skids Many times the patriarch and his wife have too many lazy ass kids and they end up supporting them or putting them in The business and they screw it up and when the money runs out and they have to start cutting expenses It's either the beach house or the house in antigua that has to be sold And generally if they've got a lot of young kids and grandkids They'll keep the beach house because hey, it's a place to hang and play and sell that big colonial place in antigua And of course, they'll do that on the sly because they don't want anyone to know That the families hit the skids So by selling that house in antigua or renting it out

[18:22] They can afford to keep putting on the dog for a while Though one of the first signs that things are getting rough is when they start paying the cleaning ladies and the bodyguards a week or Too late and man i'm telling you you don't want your cleaning lady or your bodyguard pissed off at you They have access to your house your schedule and no lots of personal things about you But still it's human nature when you're on top. You'll do almost anything to stay there When things get tight and the mighty fall they get reckless Meanwhile back at the barbecue pit. I realized everyone who'd been invited was a nearby neighbor That's when I also realized no one had the usual latin american bars on the windows or razor wire on the fences I saw none of that nor did I see a bodyguard or a reticop

[19:07] That's when I said to my buddy mike in front of the others. How is the security in this neighborhood? You guys have your own police force or something That's when mike laughed and said I bet this is the safest neighborhood in all of guatemala I said mike you mind explaining that he said you see that house across the street He was pointing a long ways away to a house in a cul-de-sac He said did you notice anything unusual about that house when you drove by and I said nope Like what he said the helipad The guy comes and goes in his own helicopter. I said, is he military or something a general? Then mike and his neighbors kind of looked at each other with a smirk in a way that said should we tell him And mike did he said that's our resident narco

[19:53] Then he told me the guy's name. I don't remember it That's why there'll never be any crime in this neighborhood. Mike said that's when it really started sinking in The fact that high-end narco bosses just like mafia bosses up in the states like the fictitious tony soprano Have families and kids and nice houses and cars and want to send their kids to upscale bilingual schools and universities Etc. So they stake out a place in a nice upscale neighborhood And try to seem as normal and low profile as possible with the occasional heliport in the front yard Then I said to mike is he coming to the party? He said no, no, I hardly ever see the guy. He doesn't come to parties though I see him walking his dog once in a while. And so mike and I had a little discussion about it. I said mike

[20:41] Everyone knows he's in arco then right? He said yeah And no one doesn't think about it. Nope In fact, he said he's got a yacht parked in real dulce at one of the big marinas And guess who shares the other end of the dock space though. He has a smaller yacht auto perez former president of guatemala Who is presently serving a 20 year prison term for corruption? By the way, it just so happened that once I was driving with mike down real dulce and he said john I want to show you something real dulce is on the caribbean side of guatemala But it's not beautiful white sand beaches and such. It's pretty much jungle We were driving a couple hours went over a big bridge to real dulce ended up in front of a nice plush marina He said johnny have a look over there

[21:28] And sure enough under a protected kind of quonset hut in the water were two huge yachts He said that biggest of the bunch yacht over there is my narco neighbors And the one next to it the smaller one The yacht that belonged to ex-president and now convict auto perez malina Mike said that in a bunch of bank accounts houses and properties Were confiscated by the courts So anyway, that was the closest I ever came to personally meeting a narco kingpin though I may have serendipitously rubbed elbows with a narco boss or two at a party or a restaurant and a lot of them, you know Have one foot in the narco business and one foot in some kind of legal business. So you never know Besides that there's not a lot of difference in looks anyway

[22:16] Between a rich narco boss and a thieving politician the narco boss. However actually works for a living All right, moving on now since we had that email Oaxaca mexico from mr. B I noticed another couple of disturbing pieces of news coming out of mexico Maybe you didn't catch these little pieces of news up in the states because a lot of the news from down here never gets there And sometimes it makes it up by you but gets relegated to page 30 Anyway, it talks about the recruitment of one of mexico's most powerful cartels The one mr. B referenced in his earlier email that said let me translate parts of this article Which talks about how they recruit members. It says the halasco cartel employs three recruiting methods

[23:02] Number one people volunteer because the pay is more than a regular job. And of course, there's the cartel lifestyle Which experts say make up the bulk of their recruitment numbers Second way halasco cartel recruits people is by targeting Ex-military and ex-police forces who because of their professional training enter the cartel as trainers and leaders of squads of gunmen Finally and this will get you there's the kind of forced recruitment that investigators say Is the saddest and most diabolical of all for method three of their recruitments? Cartels use social platforms so far officials have identified at least 60 different job offer websites

[23:48] Offering fake job opportunities, especially as security guards call center operators and trainers With weekly salaries of six hundred dollars well above the average for such positions in the private sector Turns out once the applicants apply and put down all of their personal information family members contacts phone numbers What's up? As anyone does when going through an interview process When they come in for the second interview after all the pertinent and important data has been collected You're told you will join the cartel or else It says according to one recruit who applied for a job at a call center He and about a dozen others were picked up at a bus station taken to a ranch where they were held for a month

[24:34] Trained in the use of weapons and self-defense And if you refused to cooperate or try to escape you were beaten tortured and or killed in front of the others Now the other crazy news out of mexico involves the halasco new generation cartel as well If you're a long-time listener, you heard me mention in a previous show That cartel leaders have their eccentricities, you know, for example They like to own big properties out in the boonies and have their own exotic zoo and after that gets old hat and boring Cartel bosses like to outdo each other in other ways like for example Cartel bosses and cartel members in general seem to love ranchero music You know what i'm talking about, right? Ranchero music the guys and gals sing in ballads in big sombreros

[25:21] And what these cartel big bosses will do is still hire Their favorite ranchero band to write a song about them In other words the bosses want to hear their names mentioned in songs on the radio and spotify etc They feel they'll be immortalized then when they die And those ranchero bands are more than willing to accept the big doe that they offer And if a band becomes a favorite of a narco boss He'll finance their concerts and tours pay him big money for personal appearances at his private parties anyway This week it's just been announced that the u.s state department Has revoked the visas of a ranchero band a band that happened to be the favorite of a cartel boss The u.s state department revoked the visas because they had written sympathetic songs about the cartel boss

[26:08] And were projecting his face on a large screen during performances Obviously depicting him as some sort of heroic figure romanticizing drug cartels in the process The problem is young mexicans do look up to these guys and idolize him Oh, and by the way, I was talking to my buddy fbi mike. I think I told you about him He's got to be 80 years old retired fbi guy For the last 20 years or so. He's been living in Puerto Rico, Dominican republican, panama He said johnny, you know, I have a solution to the illegal immigration problem in the united states You know how to find people who've been hiding out Been living in the states for years illegally. He said when they have these big Cherro stadium events in places like southern texas He said at the end of the concert just lock all the doors and have one exit

[26:54] Where homeland security and the fbi can check everyone's id and scan it We can spot a fake in like nine seconds. He said He said a good 80 of all the people that go to those ranchero concerts are illegals All that from a retired 80 year old fbi age. I said mike if it's that simple, why aren't they doing it? He said johnny our hands were always tied He said if we even whispered something like that or joked about it We'd have a hundred ngo's filing complaints to them. Everything we do is a human rights violation Everything except giving them free money. That is You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan b we can schedule a one-on-one phone or skype consult

[27:42] Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week-long expat insider seminar in central america Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan b. Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com No spamos