Top Cartel Journalist on Jalisco Extermination Camps & 2025 Mexico War | Kat Szulc • 313
Julian Dorey · 25 Jun 2025 · 2h 37m
Guest: Kat Szulc · Host: Joey Def, Julian Dorey
A cartel journalist who covers organized crime across North America returns to walk through how Mexican trafficking networks have expanded into Canada, exploiting a largely unprotected northern border, weak enforcement resources, and local organized crime alliances to move fentanyl precursors and finished pills. She describes cultivating a law-enforcement source inside Canadian organized crime, infiltrating cartel recruitment chats on WhatsApp, and documenting Canadians being hired as hitmen and straw buyers for guns headed south. The conversation moves into the fallout from the U.S. terrorism designation of cartels, covert CIA and military activity inside Mexico, and the strange spectacle of relatives of El Chapo being quietly moved into the United States while the Sinaloa cartel fractures and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel consolidates power under a low-profile leader. A guest whose family is from Sinaloa adds firsthand detail about daily violence, car theft by cartel spike-strip crews, and the fear and resignation among relatives still living there. Other threads include an extermination-camp discovery in Jalisco, narco-corrido propaganda and recruitment of chemistry students, cartel involvement in crude-oil theft and legitimate industries like avocados, and the practical and psychological toll of reporting on organized crime from inside the countries where it operates.
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What comes up
Timestamps link into the episode on YouTube.
- Introductions and mutual show plugs
- Cartel expansion into Canada
- Canadian law enforcement capacity and organized crime numbers
- Fentanyl production and trafficking through Vancouver port
- Recruitment of Canadians as cartel hitmen and gun straw buyers
- Terrorism designation of cartels and CIA/military activity in Mexico
- El Chapo family crossing into the US and Sinaloa cartel infighting
- Narco-corrido propaganda and cartel PR videos
- Cartel revenue streams: crude oil theft, avocados, chemistry student recruitment
- Jalisco extermination camp discovery
- Life for family in Sinaloa under cartel violence
- Journalism sourcing, safety, and future reporting plans
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.
“less than 1% of all cargo that's coming into the Port of Vancouver is searched.”