“Chocolate C*KE!” - Ex-FBI Most Wanted Kingpin on Sicarios, Smuggling & Power | Owen Hanson • 405
Julian Dorey · 6 Apr 2026 · 2h 43m
Guest: Owen Hanson · Host: Joey Def, Julian Dorey
This conversation features a former USC football player turned international bookmaker and cartel money launderer, recounting how a single decision to smuggle steroids across the Mexican border set off a chain of events leading to a career running an offshore sports betting operation and eventually laundering and distributing cocaine for a Mexican cartel across the US, Mexico, and Australia. He walks through the mechanics of the businesses in granular detail: building a call-center gambling operation out of Costa Rica, using ATM shell companies to launder cash, moving cartel cash between safe houses for a commission, and eventually devising ways to smuggle cocaine into Australia hidden in wine bottles and expired chocolate shipments after a earlier laundering scheme unraveled. He describes the psychological toll of the debt he incurred to the cartel, the meeting with armed sicarios in Tijuana where he expected he might be killed, his eventual arrest via an FBI sting at a golf course, and the ten years he served in federal prison. The guest also reflects on his strained relationship with his parents, his USC football and steroid use origin story, his views on the risks of legalized sports betting infiltrating college athletics, and how he rebuilt his life after release, including writing a memoir, cooperating on a documentary produced by Mark Wahlberg's company, and starting a protein ice cream business he conceived while incarcerated. Throughout, he frames his path as one of escalating rationalization and eventual reckoning.
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What comes up
Timestamps link into the episode on YouTube.
- Tijuana meeting with sicarios
- Adjusting to life after prison release
- Book, documentary, and Mark Wahlberg deal
- Walking onto USC football on steroids
- Playing for Pete Carroll's national champion teams
- Parents' divorce and absent mother
- Starting as a bookie after the recession
- Modern sports betting and college athlete corruption
- First contact with the cartel via encrypted phone
- Smuggling cocaine into Australia via wine and chocolate
- Ten years in federal prison and RICO case
- Starting a protein ice cream business in prison
Said on this episode
Quoted from the auto-generated transcript, which mishears names and technical terms. podcite.com reports what a show said; it does not endorse or fact-check it.
“Yeah. Where it all started. that same bridge I used to smuggle steroids across. And uh I meet him six sakario. We meet at this restaurant. He has six sakario with him.”
“How would you like to do what you're doing now, but make a million dollars a day?”
“I said, 'Do you think if we take this this wine and I I break down the cocaine and wine, you can have someone bring it back in Australia?'”
“I said, 'All I need is your expired chocolate.' He says, 'Is expired chocolate?' He goes, 'I got pallets of expired chocolate.'”