#341 Katarina Szulc - Cartels Are Recruiting Drone Operators From the Ukraine War

The Shawn Ryan Show

Investigative journalist Katarina Szulc discusses the evolving landscape of Mexican cartels, specifically focusing on the expansion of CJNG and

Key takeaways

• The Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) is expanding through powerful sub-cells like Fuerzas Zacatecas Nueva Generación.
• Cartels are diversifying revenue by controlling legitimate sectors including avocado farming, Wi-Fi services, and crude oil theft.

Main topics

• CJNG expansion and sub-cells
• Sinaloa Cartel internal conflict

Notable quotes

If you eradicate cartels, you eradicate the Mexican economy.

Conclusion

The episode provides a chilling look at how organized crime has become

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:05) Katarina Schultz. Sean Speaker 1 (0:07) Ryan. Speaker 2 (0:07) Welcome back. Speaker 1 (0:08) Thank you for having me back. Thanks for coming back. Speaker 2 (0:11) You've been busy. Speaker 1 (0:13) Truly. Speaker 2 (0:14) How many places have you been? When was the first? We met like two years ago, I think. No, Speaker 1 (0:18) we Speaker 2 (0:18) met Speaker 1 (0:19) last year. Was it last year? A Speaker 2 (0:20) little Speaker 1 (0:20) over a year ago. Yeah. Speaker 2 (0:22) Wow. How many places have you been since then? Do you even count them? Speaker 1 (0:25) I actually couldn't tell you off the top of my head. Everywhere. It feels like. Yeah, I can't tell you off the top of my head. Where's your Speaker 2 (0:34) favorite place you've been? Speaker 1 (0:35) In the last year? Speaker 2 (0:36) Yeah. Speaker 1 (0:37) Ukraine. Speaker 2 (0:38) Really? Yeah. Speaker 1 (0:39) I love Eastern Europe. And I... I was really interested in the war and, like, doing the certain stories that I went to do that I felt like didn't have any coverage. So... And everyone was so kind. Like, it was a very different experience for me. Speaker 2 (0:55) Interesting. Well, I mean, it's not surprising that's your favorite place, especially with the conversation we just had, you Speaker 1 (1:00) know, prior Speaker 2 (1:01) to being on air here, that... Yeah. ...your first passion is being a war correspondent. Speaker 1 (1:06) Mm-hmm. Speaker 2 (1:06) That was Speaker 1 (1:07) the goal. Speaker 2 (1:08) Well, here, let me give you an interdue, excuse me, an interdue, an introduction. You're a former traditional journalist who realized you had to get out of the newsroom to understand what was really happening on the ground. Now based in Mexico City, you report on cartels, organized crime, and political corruption through your work in borderland dispatches, often traveling directly into the regions where these stories are unfolding. Today, you're back to share updates on some of our past discussions and break down your latest reporting from the field. Welcome back. Speaker 1 (1:43) Thanks. All Speaker 2 (1:44) right. So since we last spoke, I know you've spent a ton of time in Ukraine. But if you remember, I think we opened the show last time with this Valeria Marquez. Speaker 1 (1:58) Valeria Marquez. Valeria Marquez. Speaker 2 (2:00) When Speaker 1 (2:00) we spoke about that. people, it really popped off. People wanted to know more. Speaker 2 (2:04) So this is just a recap for the audience. Speaker 1 (2:07) This Speaker 2 (2:07) is... She was a, what, a TikTok influencer? She Speaker 1 (2:09) was a TikTok influencer. She also, on Instagram, did, like, beauty pageants and stuff. Pretty well known across Mexico, and particularly in Guadalajara. And she was shot three times, murdered, on TikTok Live. Last year, over a year ago now. Uh... And... For the longest time. It wasn't until last month. Speaker 2 (2:35) Someone Speaker 1 (2:36) was officially accused by the Mexican government for putting the hit on her. Prior to that, the United States government actually... Speaker 1 (2:46) gave their own accusation, so to speak. They said that el doble R, a major figure high in the ranks in CG &G, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, was responsible for it. They sanctioned him, did all that business, the OFAC list. And then Mexico denied that, and Mexico said they were still investigating. Speaker 1 (3:09) And then just recently, Mexico arrested R1, high-ranking member within the Rs. Everyone kind of has an R name in CG &G. Speaker 2 (3:24) Why is that? Speaker 1 (3:25) It's just that sort of sub-cell of CG &G in a way. Los R's. R1, R2, R3. Speaker 2 (3:34) So these are like call signs? Speaker 1 (3:35) Yeah, call signs. Um, and so they arrested this individual for the murder of Carlos Manso, a... Speaker 1 (3:46) mayor of a town in Michoacán who was very outspoken against cartels and the violence, and he was murdered in broad daylight. It was an assassination very similar to Valeria's assassination. So, R1 was arrested for that murder, and then Omar Garcia Harfuch, the Secretary of Security of Mexico, did a press conference saying, you know, we've finally taken someone into custody. for not only their ties with this major criminal organization, but for the murder, particularly, of Carlos Manso. Now, we are looking for his son, who they believe put the hit on Valeria Marquez. And this young man was in a romantic relationship with Valeria Marquez. Actually, Luis Chaparro went to Mexico and interviewed this guy, who's hiding from authorities right now. Speaker 2 (4:40) Really? Mm-hmm. How do you feel about that? Interviewing somebody that's hiding from authorities. Do you feel like there is... Have you done that? Speaker 1 (4:49) I've definitely interviewed criminals who... who have... who are being looked for, yes. Do Speaker 2 (4:55) you feel any type of responsibility to... Give Speaker 1 (4:59) them up? Yeah. And not my job? Not your job. And here's the thing, right? Speaker 1 (5:05) if I can get to them or other journalists can get to these individuals, how is law enforcement unable to get to them? Good point. Right? So, especially in Mexico, it's definitely a level of... Speaker 1 (5:21) I don't know, it's a lack of motivation to get the bad guy. Speaker 2 (5:26) Why do you think the, I mean, if these guys are wanted so bad, you know what I mean? And I know Luis very well. Speaker 1 (5:33) Yeah. Speaker 2 (5:33) Did you Speaker 1 (5:34) watch the interview? Speaker 2 (5:35) I didn't even know he did it. I've lost touch with him. Speaker 1 (5:37) Yeah, it's like a 40-minute long interview. He went, even documented getting there. He actually called me when... the contact was first made between him and the accused. And was like, I think that I'm gonna be able to interview this guy because he let me know because I had obviously been doing a ton of reporting and following the Valeria case. And I was like, can I go with you? And he's like, I don't think so. This is very much keep it low key and this guy wants to clear his name. And my first question was, how safe do you feel? Like, do you trust that this isn't a setup? Right? Because there's a lot of violence against journalists in Mexico, especially against individuals like us who are particularly focused on organized crime in the cartels. And, you know, shady government officials. And he was like... I think he told me he was kind of 50-50. He was leaning towards more that it was legit interview, but that it was worth the risk. And I fully agreed with that. So he went and spoke to this individual. I watched the interview. This kid wants to clear his name. and says that he was in a relationship with Valeria, but he would never kill her. He actually cared about her. And he was living in an apartment building really close to the beauty salon, her beauty salon, where she was murdered in. Because, you know, for people watching who don't know, she was on live in her beauty salon, and she was getting messages that she was going to receive gifts that day, which wasn't uncommon for Valeria. A lot of people liked her, a lot of people had crushes on her. She was a really attractive young girl. And she first, she receives two gifts. First receives a gift. Speaker 1 (7:35) a delivery driver on a motorcycle comes and brings her Starbucks, and then brings her a pig teddy bear, like a stuffed animal, a pig. Which, right off the bat, bad sign in Mexico. Speaker 2 (7:50) Uh, Speaker 1 (7:51) you know, there's a lot of times where hits are taken out or people are assassinated, and a pig head doesn't happen so much anymore. But perhaps in like early 2010s, a pig head would be left there to signal that that murdered person was a rat or, you know, dirty, puerco. So she gets that. Doesn't really clock it, but she does start to say in this live, I'm worried. I'm nervous. I feel like something's wrong. She says at one point, I think they're going to levantarme. They're going to kidnap me. Speaker 1 (8:23) And at the same time, her best friend, Vivian, is texting her, telling her, don't... Because she wanted to end the live. And her best friend is telling her, don't leave, wait. There's a really expensive gift coming for you. And Valeria says in the livestream, ooh, an expensive gift. Un regalo costoso. She says that. And then the delivery guy, you can't see what's happening outside of the salon because her camera, her phone is facing her and there's a wall behind her, but she's looking outside of the salon. And I guess she sees that the delivery guy is coming and she mutes the live. And at that point, the individual comes in and shoots her three times and she dies holding the pig stuffed animal. And... Speaker 1 (9:12) in this interview with the individual who's accused of killing her or putting the hit on her. He says that he loved her, that they had fights, but he never would have killed her. And there was documented conflict and toxicity in her relationship with him. She posted screenshots on her Instagram story of how someone she was in a relationship with was threatening her in messages saying, you don't want to find out what kind of guy I become or what I'm capable of when you piss me off. Speaker 1 (9:46) And I think if I remember correctly in the interview... Did Speaker 2 (9:50) Luis bring that up in the interview? What did he say to that? About Speaker 1 (9:53) the threats and stuff. And I don't know if he said explicitly those messages, but he brought up the toxicity or how she had claimed one time that when she showed up to a nightclub that he was at, he got her kicked out. And the accused says, you know... we're just like two young people in love and it's part of a toxic relationship. Of course, we had conflict like any relationship, but never to the point where I would want her to be killed, is what he said. But I mean, when you... And he says that she knew what family he came from. Uh, and that, you know, she knew his dad, his parents, his family, uh, and vice versa. He knew hers. But... Speaker 1 (10:43) I think... I mean, my opinion doesn't matter on this case, but when you're talking about someone who, you know, he claims that he cared about her and never wanted her to die, and that it should have never resulted in that, then go to the authorities. Speak your truth, you know? Speaker 2 (11:05) So was that R1 he interviewed? Speaker 1 (11:07) No, R1's son. Speaker 2 (11:09) R1's son, excuse me. So Speaker 1 (11:10) R1 is accused of killing Carlos Manso. Speaker 2 (11:13) And in Speaker 1 (11:13) the same breath, his son was accused of asking R1 to send someone to kill Valeria. Speaker 2 (11:20) Is R1's son affiliated? I mean, is he active in the cartels or is he just, you know, got a relation to R1? Speaker 1 (11:26) Well, he says no and that, you know, it's his family and he, you know, what everyone does is their business type of thing. Speaker 1 (11:36) Read between the lines. Speaker 2 (11:37) Why do you think, you know, when these guys are wanted, I can see this guy because he wants people to think he's innocent. He's Speaker 1 (11:43) innocent. He wants to clear his name. Speaker 2 (11:44) But let's just go back. I mean, you've interviewed guys that are wanted by authorities. What are they doing? Like, that's just shitty tradecraft to me. Why are they talking to investigative journalists? Why are they not undercover all the time? Speaker 1 (12:01) Is that the Speaker 2 (12:02) ego? Do they just want to see themselves in the media? Speaker 1 (12:05) Ego is part of it, but a big part too is getting their version out. It's PR. And, you know, we've seen this time and time again with cartels. They're big into PR. They'll put out sort of their own, like, press releases, whether that be, like, they'll start circulating an official document or when they put the narco banners around the city or near dead bodies. That's PR for them. They're sending messages to the public. Even you'll see videos. The Cartel del Noreste is really known for this, where they'll set up a camera. CG &G does this too. They'll set up a camera and you'll have all the armed operatives of the cartel and then one guy in the middle announcing a message, saying something. They did that for a lot of, like, big news stories that came out, painting them in a really bad light to kind of clear their names or clarify the details of whatever they're doing. And then when it comes to speaking to journalists, it's of course a combination of... PR. So, you know, for this accused killer Valeria, now there's this interview of him speaking his so-called truth, right? So, he can kind of... in his hopes, clear his name, give his side of the story. But also, it sends a message of, yeah, ego and power. Catch me if you can. You know, there's this manhunt for me, and I'm sitting here, comfortable, speaking to a journalist on camera for the world to see. Speaker 2 (13:48) I wonder, I mean, why don't you think that... Speaker 2 (13:53) How bad do you think they really want these guys? Speaker 1 (13:56) Who? Mexico or the U.S.? Speaker 2 (13:57) Either one. I mean, it seems like it'd be pretty simple. Maybe not you, but money talks. You know, it would be pretty simple to flip a journalist or... Speaker 1 (14:11) It happens a lot in Mexico. Introduce Speaker 2 (14:13) a fake news organization and build rapport through time. Like, oh, look at all these articles reporter A has done since, well, started today, 2026. Then a couple years go by and it's just, you know what I mean? And then you can use this army of undercover journalists to feed these guys' ego to find out where they are. Done. I mean, I don't think it would take long to replace. you know, to replace the leadership. I mean, if there was a point in time during the global war on terror where I think the number two had like a... We were killing the number two every two weeks. Yeah, Speaker 1 (14:52) which is happening now. You know what Speaker 2 (14:54) I mean? So I don't think it would be any different with the cartel, but still, I mean, it's a... It makes people... You know what I mean? It shows we can get to you. Speaker 1 (15:03) Well, I would hope that they don't start using journalists as, like, boys like that because I would not get any access and my life would be in danger, so... You Speaker 2 (15:12) know what I mean, though, right? Speaker 1 (15:13) Yeah, I... That's why Speaker 2 (15:13) I'm asking, like, it can't be... If you're getting to them and Chaparro is getting to them and all these other journalists, I mean, they can't be that hard to get to. You just have to build some type of a presence to feed that ego. Speaker 1 (15:28) Yeah, that too. I think also because... You know, I have a really good track record of... well, a clear one, of being able to speak with victims and perpetrators, high-level individuals, and they don't get caught afterwards. You know, I'm not, like, leading them into, like, a trap. Uh, that's actually my biggest fear. Like, if that were to ever happen, I'm super careful about that. I'm more scared of that than just getting shot dead, like, set up. Um, but... Speaker 1 (16:00) I think when you ask, you know, how badly do they want them, Mexico doesn't want them badly. They... Cartels make up so much of Mexico's economy. Speaker 2 (16:11) You Speaker 1 (16:11) eradicate cartels, you eradicate the Mexican economy. Point blank. And so many high-level politicians, ranking officials that are on the payroll that directly benefit off of organized crime. Why would they want that to end? Speaker 2 (16:27) Mm-hmm. Speaker 2 (16:29) I mean, it makes sense. It does make sense. So what is the... Let's switch gears here a little bit. What's the landscape like down there? Who's in charge now? There's always a battle. It's like a full-scale war down there. It Speaker 1 (16:44) really is. Did you see what I posted yesterday? There were car bombs and IEDs going off in Zacatecas, Mexico, because there's a very active cell of CG &G in Zacatecas called... Fuerzas Zacatecas Nueva Generación. So, New Generation Zacatecas Forces. It's a sub-cell of CG &G. And there's someone who I've actually been, who's kind of on my radar within that cell, who's been really quickly climbing through the ranks of power. And it's very clear that this cell of CG &G is becoming... a very violent and powerful one. Speaker 2 (17:26) Before we go into... Speaker 1 (17:28) Sorry, I get... No, no, no. The landscape. Speaker 2 (17:30) Don't let me forget that either. Yeah, the landscape. I mean, I think last time, if I remember correctly, it seemed... I think it was Sinaloa? Speaker 1 (17:38) Yes. It Speaker 2 (17:39) was kind of running everything? No, it Speaker 1 (17:41) was... When I spoke to you last time, it was CG &G, and Sinaloa was already fully in their whole civil war, the infighting. And now... It's, of course, C.J. and G. extremely powerful, and they're essentially absorbing the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, El Chapo's faction, because they made an alliance with them, fighting against the Mayos Mayito Flacos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel. And when I was in Sinaloa this summer, I went to Culiacan and across Sinaloa for a couple of weeks just to kind of get the two-year update. since Elmayo was captured, Sean, it was like, you're just... you're not walking in a city, you're walking in a morgue, okay? Speaker 2 (18:29) Sheesh. Speaker 1 (18:31) From the moment I got there, I drove from Mazatlán to Culiacán because I wanted to go through the towns and kind of try to get a grasp of who's controlling which areas because it's ever evolving. And when you're going through these small towns and you're taking that highway from Mazatlán to Culiacán, and I took the old highway, not the new highway, so it's like, I guess in... layman's terms, like, more dangerous, like, just to really understand it, you can see who's controlling there. You know, you'll see the white sombreros, which represent, okay, this area, Mayitos faction. Um, and I drove through there. As soon as I touched down in Culiacan, uh, you know, I let all my journalist friends over there, incredible journalists over there, fucking fearless. I told them, you know, I'm coming, like, keep me in the loop. with any big activity. as soon as I got there, they're like, all right, there has been a murder. You wanna pull up? It was far, I didn't end up going. And then there was another one, and then there was another one. So within the first four hours that I got to Culiacan, I think I went to six different crime scenes. I posted that video on my YouTube channel. And you just see me going from one scene to the next to the next, and... as the clips go on, you know, the sun is just going down. And it's just constant. It was brutal. And at a lot of these scenes, you know, family is outside distraught, crying. And I showed that in my video, and some people gave me flack. They were like, you're so insensitive. You know, this is the reality of it. And I think a lot of the times... the collateral victims of war and cartel violence are, you know, these family members. They're also victims of murder in a way. Their lives change forever. And it's very, I mean, you've probably seen it. One thing that really gets me, it's not seeing the dead body. People ask, like, how do you see the dead body? It's not about that. What I find is to be the most jarring is when you literally see the shift in the victims' families. You literally watch the realization happen in real time that their lives will never be the same again. Like, tonight is my first night without my son for the rest of my life. And they witnessed him get killed. But a lot of these murders, well, most of them in Sinaloa, these victims are involved in organized crime. It's this civil war continues on. And a lot of the people being murdered now are people who are switching sides. So a lot of people have switched from Chapitos faction to Mayos faction, Mayto Flacos faction. And those people are the ones being targeted heavily. Speaker 2 (21:28) I'm always skeptical of health products that look clean on the front of the label, and then you turn it around, and it's full of sugar, sweeteners, flavors, or artificial ingredients. I got so tired of looking for a clean way to hydrate that I eventually almost designed my own product. And then I found... Bowie. Bowie is purposefully unflavored liquid electrolytes and trace minerals. No sugar, no sweeteners, no flavors. No artificial ingredients. 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Speaker 1 (23:05) Again, head Speaker 2 (23:06) to justaddbowie.com slash Sean and use code SRS. Speaker 2 (23:14) Well, that's interesting you're switching sides up, because that's where I wanted to go with this. How often are you seeing power exchange in Mexico from prominent cartel to prominent cartel? Speaker 1 (23:27) I can't even keep up with it right now. Okay. Speaker 2 (23:30) So they own the vast majority of politicians down there run off the cartels. Of Speaker 1 (23:37) course. And Speaker 2 (23:38) so what I want to know is how are they... How are they navigating that? How are politicians down there who are for sale, which sounds like it's pretty much all of them, not unlike the U.S. It's Speaker 1 (23:51) a lot of them. Speaker 2 (23:51) I mean, how do they know when to switch sides? Or are they getting killed all the time? Because that can be a, obviously, a very tricky game. Especially, I mean, if prominent cartel gets taken over by another cartel and then this one comes back. What do you do? Exactly. Speaker 1 (24:10) So, okay, great example of this is Ruben Rocha Moya, governor of Sinaloa. I think last time I was on your podcast, I said, this guy is the most corrupt motherfucker ever. And he was just indicted by the U.S. a couple months ago. This is someone who... has had a very strong alliance with the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel with El Chapo. Um, and he has been profiting off of it for a long time, openly, at the cost of the people in that state. Now... to kind of paint you a picture, he was having a sort of dispute with a state legislator in Sinaloa. This was right before El Mayo was captured. And this was kind of part of the whole bigger picture of how the Sinaloa cartel, or how El Chapo's faction, at least, and his family are going to move forward and be protected. So... When El Mayo was captured, it was because he was set up by El Chapo's son to go to a meeting to resolve the conflict between the governor of Sinaloa, Rocha Moya, and this state legislator. His name escapes me right now. Speaker 1 (25:36) When he gets there, he allegedly gets beaten up, and then he ends up on that small aircraft that lands him in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, where he's taken in by the FBI. Rocha Moya walked out of that meeting alive and continued to be governor of Sinaloa. The legislator was murdered during that encounter. So... Speaker 1 (26:04) I think what a lot of these politicians are doing, they're playing the game as far as they can get to the point where I think a lot of them at this point, particularly, their hands are sort of tied. I'm not defending them by any means. I hate these guys. But their hands are tied in the sense of they can't move too much to the left or too much to the right or talk to this guy or do this action because they will get murdered. So, yeah, it's... Speaker 2 (26:33) Do they have a choice? I mean, are they interested in monetary value, you know, and being paid off? Or are they interested in just keeping their lives? Speaker 1 (26:46) You know what my belief about this is? Hot take. If you're going to become a politician in Mexico and you want to be a good politician, either fucking stand your ground and be willing to die for it and be good or don't do it. Speaker 2 (27:00) Because Speaker 1 (27:00) the only other option... is you're doing it either with the incentive to make dirty money and be on the payroll, or you're doing it scared and haphazardly and accepting the pay or doing what they want, and you're a bad politician. Speaker 2 (27:17) And Speaker 1 (27:17) everyone's suffering because of it. Speaker 2 (27:19) I mean, I guess there's no surprises either at this point. I mean, it's pretty obvious, you know, what you're walking into. Of course it is. Speaker 1 (27:25) Of course. Speaker 2 (27:29) Are there any legit politicians down there? Speaker 1 (27:31) I think, you know, Carlos Manso was one of them. That was someone who really took a stand against organized crime. Lili Tellez, she's in the Senate, I believe. She's a Mexican politician. She really speaks out against organized crime, and she'll call out these corrupt officials by name. Uh, but they're very few and far in between. And the reason for that is because when the president of the country herself is profiting off of organized crime and allowing it to happen, how can anyone else at a lower level be clean? Speaker 2 (28:12) Good point. So let's move back to, you were talking about somebody that you were interested in that's been rising through the ranks. Speaker 1 (28:20) Ah, yeah. So, Zacatecas has become a hot... Well, I mean, Zacatecas was always known as