#867 – The Expat Files: Life in Latin America, Sports, Homelessness, and Government Surveillance

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 out to play and now as I wonder Hello there all you ex-pat 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 Here's some interesting facts always relating to living working playing and or retiring here in Latin America Now you probably know because baseball is the national sport in the States at least I think it is still could be football I don't know

[00:45] Anyway, historically baseball is always been considered the national sport, right? Well, I'm sure you realize a great percentage of Major League baseball players are Latinos Nothing wrong with that when you're good, you're good But here in Latin America side to see people playing baseball Soccer's the national sport or football. They call it football football and your kind of football They call football a maricano American football like your style of football is just an afterthought Now the irony there of course is that since most Latinos don't speak English They don't realize the very name football has foot in it and ball in it two particularly descriptive English words that they use for their own national sport

[01:31] But have no idea that the words actually have meaning beyond the playing of a sport It's just like the user. I should say overuse of the word VIP very important person Well Latinos use that for VIP lounge in VIP parking VIP crapper, etc Having no idea that VIP is not a real word but an acronym Now if you want that deer in the headlights, look just try to explain that to a non English-speaking Latino, but I digress Where were we? Oh, yeah sports, of course in every professional sport including hockey billiards and cock fighting. Wait a minute Yep, that's right. Cock fighting is a professional sport here in Latin America And it's got nothing to do with porno and man Do I have a cool cock fighting boots on the ground story to tell you I'll get to that maybe in next week's show

[02:19] Anyway when it comes to professional sports practically all genders races and creeds are represented, right? Though I don't think there are any Muslims at all playing American football even in schools and sand lats Why come on you really think they're gonna win one for the gipper when the balls of pigs skin Alright, no more digress in here. Now as far as those 20 Latin American countries There are only four that have picked up on baseball so much that it's actually their national sport Can you guess which countries now? I'm sure you picked Cuba. That's one of them the other three Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Puerto Rico. Yep, Puerto Rico is considered a country even though it really is a US territory or protectorate So anyway, you check out the roster of any professional baseball team

[03:05] There's gonna be some Cubans Venezuelans Dominicans and Puerto Ricans. Nope. No Argentines Brazilians Ecuadorians Guatemala's just not gonna see him now The amazing thing is considering all four of these baseball loving Latino countries, Venezuela is the absolute top of the top They love baseball so much You can't get in your car and drive 10 minutes without seeing kids playing a game in an empty lot somewhere In fact, Venezuela is so nuts about baseball It's a major supplier of talent to the US major leagues and they don't demand gringo prices either at least not at first Get this an astounding 74 of Major League Baseball's current roster of players are from Venezuela In fact, Venezuela is the number two supplier of foreign talent to the major leagues

[03:52] So then who's number one? Take a guess. It's not Cuba. It's the DR Dominican Republic believe it or not They have 84 professional American baseball players on the current roster So as it turns out about 10% of all Major League Baseball players are Venezuelans And of course, these guys are superheroes to their families and their communities and their country They said tons of dough back home. In fact, it's been estimated though I don't know how they come up with this number They say that every one of those 74 Venezuelan Major League Baseball players is supporting around 40 to 50 Family members back home same thing with professional baseball players from the DR Cuba and Puerto Rico now You might have known or figured that's probably what happens But here's what you didn't know in Venezuela

[04:39] It's become kind of a cottage industry to kidnap family members of famous US Major League Baseball players Because they're considered a guaranteed payday and they don't want publicity In fact when these guys go back to visit Venezuela their targets to for example oil back Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos was kidnapped and after an air rescue operation with helicopters and the works It was a million dollar payday for the people involved and now because of all that Venezuelan Major League players are hiring private security agencies to look after their families back home But there's even a bigger irony when journalists try to interview these baseball players up in the states They either have no comment about the situation back home or they're so PC

[05:25] You can tell their answers have been scripted saying things like well, you know, I can't be political I can't be on one side or the other. I'm just a baseball player. I just hope for the best for my people Yeah, right. What a news flash talk about ironies Since when do celebrities especially sports figures keep their mouths shut, you know It's well known that US sports figures at least ones born and raised in the States They never have a problem making fools of themselves at press conferences. Look at Muhammad Ali Dennis Rodman Mike Tyson Pete Rose Lance Armstrong Connor McGregor the list of sports figure blabbermouths is endless It's even worse when it comes to Hollywood superstar shit for brains though with most of them

[06:10] You'll find if you did a brain scan They've got a little poop mixed with two neurons firing between a spirochete. Oh and about famous Hollywood actors I remember what one of my uncle's a very brilliant guy once told me He said the best actors in the world the ones that get all the awards Are the best liars? They have to be they succeed when they convince you there's someone that they're not they're all liars But the most convincing one gets the Emmy or the Oscar, but I digress back to baseball All right. Here's a quote from st. Louis Cardinals player Jose Martinez also from Venezuela Quote it's hard to find bodyguards You can trust people who will take care of your family like you want them to it's hard to find the right people For that kind of work the bodyguards. I have he says have been with me for eight years now

[07:00] I have a good relationship with them, and those are the ones I have in the US back home in Venezuela Martinez says he spends 400 bucks a month to employ Seven security guards to watch over his mother Evelyn two children Mathias Alberto and Elena one five years old and one ten months respectively He's got bodyguards for his brother his stepsister his grandparents uncles aunts and the whole extended family All right to get that he spends 400 a month for seven bodyguards So each of them gets about 60 bucks a month sounds ridiculous like it's from another world, right? But remember that's three times the minimum wage Average minimum wage in Venezuela these days 20 bucks a month

[07:45] Then he says I also have bodyguards to watch the bar. I purchased a year ago near my hometown of la guarilla When I go home in the winter He says I keep a bodyguard with me at all times including one stationed at my bedroom door overnight Because I want to know as soon as I wake up one of my own guys is at the door Then he says he signed a two-year 3.25 million dollar extension on his contract with saint louis without a single delay back in february With almost no negotiation He signed in record time in no small part as the means to protect his family and make sure the dough was coming in He says he transfers money online weekly to his family back home He and another venezuelan major leaguer Milwaukee first baseman. Hey zoos argular

[08:31] They get together with some other venezuelan players and send dozens of boxes of supplies home to venezuela every week They got a regular export business going sending canned tuna dried meats medicine even advil and tylenol Which are almost impossible to get in venezuela now He says along with the money we send boxes of clothes too Then he says arizona outfielder david paretta tells his sister to shop for anything. She could possibly get online He tells her get whatever you need and he'll pay for it The orders from amazon and other companies are delivered to one of the handful of companies in miami Which then deliver them to venezuela within a week or so All right. How about this? Did you know the Milwaukee brewers have the largest venezuelan contingent in the majors?

[09:16] They've got six active venezuelans on the roster Oh and get this ramos says that the venezuelan government has advised them when they come home on their winter break They should never leave their houses alone and especially they should never wear anything that targets them as professional baseball players That means no bling no designer clothes. No range rovers Escalades veraris or lambos and get this it says most players will not tell you how much they spend on bodyguards Or how much they have to spend to pay off comps and political figures when they're back in venezuela Meanwhile major league players from cuba porta rico and the dominican republic have no such problems They make a big point of showing off their success and excess for them

[10:03] It's all about bling cars clothes in vip rooms Bip rooms that is. Oh and the big case you may have heard of where red socks former star David ortez was shot in the back in a bar in the dominican republic turns out now after investigation They believe he was shot by two cops hired by a dominican republic drug lord Who knew that this baseball guy was having an affair with his wife and you know what everyone in the dr Believes that story. In fact, I happen to know a young lady who's the three-time dominican republic bikini fitness champion You know those women's hard body competitions. She knows the guy He's been to some of those fitness events and she says he's a nice guy, but a walking dick The spanish term for that is mujerriego Mujerriego, that's the guy who hits on anything and everything of course

[10:51] He's a happily married man with kids and all that this is latin america You know the land of contradictions by the way that fitness lady says for him It was just a matter of time because you see here in latin america jealousy on steroids is a way of life Meanwhile in the house that plan b coming department Yeah, right as if we need another reason to get the hell out of dodge anywhere here goes Now I know lots of americans who've only been to poop hole towns like tijuana and mexican border towns They say latin america is dirty dingy scruffy around the edges and they'd never want to live there That's the line you hear from so many people who've only been to mexican poop hole towns Or they've been to gringo tourist areas and they say hey It was nice at the airport and then I had to take a taxi to the luxury all-inclusive condo complex and man

[11:40] The crap neighborhoods we had to go through wow. I wish you would have drove in the dark. I didn't want to see that Well to shed a little light on that dark subject comes this article entitled Skid row and skid marks are everywhere and we just received confirmation that the worst is yet to come Kind of long and confusing title, but we'll go with it. It's from michael snyder came out june 7th Let me paraphrase a bit here. It says you guys that live in the small towns or out in the boonies Probably don't know it but all over america Large portions of our major cities are being transformed into stomach churning cesspools of squalor You don't see many reports on it But thousands of tent cities are popping up from coast to coast as homeless populations explode

[12:28] Even in the new york times they're admitting now that we're facing the worst drug and homelessness crisis in american history They openly admit to more than 28,000 official written complaints about human feces on the streets of san francisco just in last year alone and rats Well people are seeing them everywhere people say they're Overrunning the city of los angeles, and if you haven't seen one this week, you probably don't get out much Yet the government authorities and bureaucrats continue to insist the economy is in good shape and everything is humming along just fine And it will look like that to you. If you live in a heavily sanitized upscale wealthy suburban neighborhood And you only get your news from heavily sanitized corporate media sources, and we know who they are, right?

[13:17] However, if you live the city life in the real world things are getting really bad As author ld granderson states in the la times he describes what life is like right at this moment in la He says los angeles spent 620 million dollars in taxes last year to address the homeless issue yet The number of homeless people just this year has increased 16 percent. We've got nearly 60,000 homeless on the streets in la which in aggregate itself is the definition of a small town 60,000 then he says as a los angeles resident i'm among those who are wondering what the hell the mayor's office is doing When I lived downtown, it was virtually impossible to walk a full block in any direction Without seeing a homeless person in silver lake where I live now. There are tent cities everywhere

[14:07] I see people living underneath all the highway overpasses Skid row has taken on a new meaning the skid row is everywhere But that phrase skid row is everywhere or the skid is everywhere also applies to san francisco portland seattle denver minneapolis chicago detroit st louis memphis baltimore philadelphia and virtually every u.s city Hey, hey, he forgot cleveland now. Let's give credit where credit is due Anyway, he goes not to say But without a doubt los angeles where people spend a lot of time outside because of the weather it's particularly disgusting In fact just last week a columnist for the la times admitted that los angeles quote has become a giant trash receptacle

[14:53] A ripe unempty dumpster if you live there or in any big city, you know, it's true All right. Meanwhile south of south of the border There are some scruffy dingy looking middle and lower middle class neighborhoods That's for sure along with some very very nicely manicured upper class subdivisions in every major city and in the outskirts too But there's one thing you just won't find Tent cities and masses of homeless people. Oh, that's not to say there aren't a few homeless people here and there Sure, you see them If you're driving through a big or medium-sized city You might see a guy sleeping in a doorway or a rasta man spread out under a tree with all of his earthly goods In a little plastic sack, but you just don't see conglomerations of them

[15:39] And you know, this might surprise you but even the acrobats human flamethrowers and machete jugglers and little guys with squeegees Who will wash your windows for a quarter. They got someplace to go at night Sure, they're street people of sorts during the day, but they're not homeless people They got someplace a house or a tent shack to go to at night for sure It's a dump but they're not living in a cardboard box under a bridge or in a tent city But you know, it's the damnedest thing the closer you get to a gringo tourist spot the more beggars and street urchins Hey, that's where I'd hang out if my day job was begging for dough How about you? Oh and since we're on the time to get the hell out of dodge subject Here comes another sick but true article Entitled how the feds audit owners of money counting machines Here's the gist of it. The dea seized over 50 million dollars by secretly spying on americans who bought money counters

[16:32] Do you have a money counter at home or in the office only criminals and banks have money counters, right? Wait a minute criminals and bankers same difference, right? Well as it turns out the fact is banks and drug dealers make up a very small percentage of those who use money counting machines All right, prove it johnny Well, have you been in costco or sam's club lately? You walk through the cash register in business aisle where they've got the file cabinets cash registers security cameras You'll find a couple of different brands of money counters and they're cheap too Some of them under a hundred bucks Is that because costco gives a discount to criminals money launderers and drug dealers? I don't think so Well, it's because normal people use them all the time and i'll bet every evangelical preacher has one too because you know, jesus saves, right?

[17:23] Not to mention there's hundreds of thousands of small businesses that use those things daily But that doesn't seem to matter to the dea or the irs Once again, if you own one of those things you're considered guilty until proven innocent Listen up The article begins under a sweeping surveillance program the dea drug enforcement agency Secretly spied on americans who bought money counters The vast majority of whom were never shown to be connected to illicit drug or money laundering activities at all Turns out in an extensive audit the us department of justice office of inspector general revealed that between 2008 and 2014 The dea had collected tens of thousands of records including the names addresses emails phone numbers, etc

[18:09] Of those who bought money counters turns out the dea is a bulk purchaser of retail data So what's that mean? Well places like walmart shopco target sam's club Sell their data and purchase records to government agencies like the dea and department of justice That of course includes google amazon ebay all of them Hey, they don't discriminate if you got the dough you can buy those lists too Oh, and it also says the inspector general found that the dea and treasury department Routinely issues administrative subpoenas to companies that sell and manufacture those money counters Not only were those subpoenas conducted without any court oversight They were unrelated to a specific drug trafficking investigation or target or crime

[18:57] however Once the data was collected the dea and the justice department would send the raw data From thousands of purchases directly to its field offices, which would cross reference data with several law enforcement agencies and databases Then it says even the inspector general found it troubling that the dea was able to do this without conducting a comprehensive legal analysis before starting the program and the bulk collecting of data In fact, it says when asked for a legal review about the process and subpoena program One of the dea's office managers the office of chief counsel responded Well, we haven't had a federal court tell us we can't do it So I guess we'll just continue on then it says in a dark irony here The dea's dragnet collected so many records on money counter buyers

[19:47] The field offices began complaining that they had too much data with one dea staff coordinator writing There were just so many leads. We didn't even know which one to follow Then it says after indiscriminately collecting that data for almost five years the dea decided to disseminate it to other agencies Sending the bulk purchase money counter data to organized crime drug enforcement task force the atf the fbi ice and 15 other federal agencies So if you're an innocent small businessman and you happen to be on that list you are now a person of interest You're not on just one feces list. You're on more than 15 Meanwhile the organized crime task force fusion center is running all those names that have been collected without foundation through a massive government database system

[20:36] Producing comprehensive intelligence products which include detailed information on money counter machine owners Their family members and personal and business connections Meanwhile, the dea continues its version of stop and frisk Which let the agency confiscate over 3.2 billion dollars from 65 Thousand cash money seizures In other words For example If you happen to be driving along a highway and get pulled over for speeding or you get a flat tire and a cop pulls you Over and you've got a thousand dollars in cash sitting on your front seat Well, unless you have lots of receipts and backup proof right then and there They can and will confiscate it. Of course, you've probably heard stories like that before Hope it never happens to you But it could which reminds me of a funny story that happened to one of my gringo expat friends in guatemala

[21:25] He owns a couple of businesses and the customers often pay out in small bills Every once in a while he'll get enough five and ten dollar bills to fill a sack and he'll run it over to the bank And deposit it now normally he says he shoves it in the glove compartment or under the front seat of his car But this particular day he was in a hurry and had a plastic bag full of five or could have been $10,000 and five and ten dollar bills sitting on his front seat. He couldn't see that it was money It was closed but nevertheless there was a bag sitting on his front seat So as luck would have it as he was driving He got pulled over at one of those mandatory roadblock stops. We've discussed that before there'll be five to maybe 10 or 12 cops Off to the side of the road lounging under a tree every once in a while Want to walk out point his finger at you and that means you got to pull over and they'll check your papers and stuff

[22:14] Anyway, he got the finger that day in more ways than one two cops walked up to him He rolled down the window handed him his paperwork and one of them looked in and said what you got in that bag? He said money They said let's see. They saw it just jam packed with dough They said how much you got here and he told him five or ten grand whatever it was and they said Whose is it and where'd you get it and since my buddy was kind of irritable that day He said in a short direct way in spanish, of course. I have a business. It's mine. So what and the two cops looked at each other Looked back at him and one of them said all right, you can go and that was that now you might be thinking Well, you always hear stories of latin cops being on the make looking for bribes and stuff

[23:00] Why didn't that happen to him? It would have been so easy, right? Well, you may have heard me mention this on a past show But if you get pulled over by one or two cops, that's when they're most likely to hit you up for a bribe But if there's three or four a group of cops like at one of those checkpoints, you'll almost never get hit up for a bribe Why well because cops in a big group most likely don't know Everyone in the group and they're not about to ask for bribes when there's one or two guys in the crowd that don't go In for that and you know, i've experienced that myself The only time i've ever been hit up for a bribe is when it's only one or two cops most notoriously when there's two cops on A motorcycle that means generally they're partners and they're working together and they have had a lot of time To work out a scam. Oh and as for my buddy Well, he chucked the whole thing up to the gringo advantage

[23:48] All right. Speaking of reasons to get the hell out of dodge believe it or not There are some dea and irs guys who are looking to get the hell out of dodge too after they retire, of course That's why I want to read you this email that just came in by the way You heard me say I get tons of emails and I do but I think maybe my popularity's dropping off You know, it's been more than a week now since i've gotten an email from a nigerian prince in exile Somehow I feel slighted i'll have to up my game. Anyway, this email comes from lucian. He says dear johnny I too am a fallen catholic, but don't tell my wife I still play along and go to church with her on sunday and i'm never bored That's because i've got an earbud in my left ear and she sits on my right I listen to audiobooks and your podcast while she's listening to fire and brimstone. That said johnny

[24:38] Here's what I think you've never heard before. I'm an irs agent. I've worked for 27 years in the agency But i'm also a gonna be expat too three more years and it's south of the border for me And that three years till pension time I could do it my sleep Plus it'll take all of that three years to convince the wife No, she's partly on board already. Yes. I do work for the irs, but don't hold that against me All right me johnny here Yes lucian, this is a first i've never had the irs write me an upbeat personalized message before Anyway, he says johnny. I realized everyone fears irs agents But did you know that the majority of agents that I know and work alongside are catholics? I'm not sure if that's true throughout the nation, but it's certainly true in my office. Don't ask me how that happens

[25:29] I don't know, but I know this we actually have a catholic patron saint st. Matthew He's one of the original 12 apostles and the patron saint of bankers and tax collectors He was a tax collector himself. All right me johnny here lucian Didn't know that about st. Matthew, but I do know that back then The jews considered tax collectors to be traders And these days most intelligent people will agree that bankers are thieves. Well, look wellsfargo bank of american deutsch bank They could find hundreds of millions a year for illegal practices like money laundering and overcharging and defrauding customers But not a single person ever goes to jail And I also know if a taxpayer lies or cheats to the tune of just a couple of grand

[26:15] He's ruined forever lucian the whole system stinks. You have to know that anyway lucian says johnny I just thought you'd like to know this irs guy listens to your show And almost all of us hate our jobs too And it's also true. We do pick on certain people that rub us the wrong way And we're nice to those who we think deserve it. We have our good and bad days like everyone else Then he says johnny keep up the good work. Hope to meet you someday Signed lucian then he puts in parentheses. Not my real name Wonder why? All right lucian Hmm very interesting. I wonder if he's coming to the seminar. What do you say if he does show up? We slip him a ayahuasca mickey and have him accidentally fall into a volcano

[27:03] But it's true There's no quicker way to rain on someone's party than to mention there's an irs or fbi agent in the house In fact when I went to high school, there was a very cute girl in my french class whose dad was an fbi agent Oh, she was hot. All right, but she never had a boyfriend. In fact, I don't think she ever had a date None of us guys had the huevos to ask her out You kidding go to her house and have a stare down with her dad now. I remember her name was barbara boyking No, not boyking Boyking south you've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan b you can schedule a one-on-one phone call with me But first download my free plan b questionnaire at The new expat.com better yet If you want to get your plan b going from right up there in the states

[27:49] Just sign up for my nine hour expat essentials course get the perfect plan b blueprint by going to the expat files.com academy