Ioan Grillo is a contributing writer at The New York Times specializing in crime and drugs. He is the author of El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency; Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields, and the New Politics of Latin America; and Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels. (This is part two of a two-part episode. Part one can be found here: https://youtu.be/-xAH-KvuyAc) Full show notes can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/701 Subscribe to the podcast: http://jordanharbinger.com/subscribe What We Discuss with Ioan: 00:00 - Intro 00:06 - Ioan needs Jordan's lawyer skills 10:13 - The Iron River: Firearms in the US moved to Mexico 19:11 - Are all firearms used by cartels? 28:04 - The firearms trade isn't strategic 33:32 - Why we can't digitally trace firearms 39:21 - Operation Fast and Furious (not the movie) 44:22 - Firearms vs. police: checks and balances 48:47 - How El Chapo beat the government 56:22 - The journey of an illegal firearm 1:02:41 - Why it's so difficult to regulate firearms 1:07:51 - 3D-printed firearms Mexican cartels are infamous for their ruthlessness in carving out whatever piece of the $300 billion annual illicit drug trade they can. This means waging war against one another, as well as terrorizing the populace unlucky enough to call a contested town home. The police can’t be trusted to serve and protect them because, if they’re not on the take from the cartels, they’re certainly outgunned by them. Thousands of innocent people disappear every year as pawns in whatever games the cartels decide to play — children often recruited to carry out the bloodiest, most gruesome work while their parents and relatives wind up in mass graves. For 20 years, journalist Ioan Grillo has been immersed in this world of nonstop cruelty and chaos, resulting in two books: El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency and Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields, and the New Politics of Latin America (we’ll get more into his third and most recent, Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels, in the second part of this two-part episode later this week). Here, Ioan shares the horrors he’s witnessed over the past two decades and tries to make sense of it all while retaining his own humanity. Get the BEST highlights from each episode on our clips channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-cxPJ7QxPE8M7EYe5Vv7ag Want to watch more in-depth interviews with some of the world’s most amazing and successful people? Find full episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNbAQB8BYtM&list=PLxuPu-uyanrrBgAl5-76enemxVsxFjnEQ&index=1 Welcome to The Jordan Harbinger Show, a video podcast where you get to join a conversation with some of the world’s highest performers and incredible personalities each week. I’ll ask them the tough questions to tease out their top tips so that you can reach levels of personal growth and mastery that you never imagined possible. Learn more about Jordan: http://jordanharbinger.com/about