Michael Jaco: Hello, everyone. It’s Michael Jaco with Unleashing Intuition Secrets. And today I’m joined by Victor Avila Agent Under Fire. So, we’re going to talk about his book. And we’re going to talk about his experiences on the border. And he’s got some amazing things to share with you guys. Oh, we’re so looking forward to… to having him talk. Victor, thanks for joining me.
Victor Avila: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Michael Jaco: Yeah. So, tell us a little bit about you know, your book and your background and, you know, the border situation. Some of the stuff that we were discussing is like, wow, pretty amazing.
Victor Avila: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. My book is a focus of the… the number 1 reason why I wrote the book is, back in 2011, when I was assigned to the US Embassy in… in Mexico City, Special Agent Jaime Zapata and I was… he was assigned there temporarily. We were sent on an assignment, kind of a botched assignment (and I explained that in the book) on highway, a corridor, where the Zetas cartel controlled. And we were, unfortunately, ambushed by that… by the cartel members. And I was shot 3 times, and miraculously survived by the grace of God. And Special Agent Jaime Zapata tragically lost his life in the line of duty. And so, I needed to, as a survivor, and part of that identity, there is unfortunately, there was not a lot of widespread media coverage. There were some, but not to the extent that I… that I thought it merited to have America know the sacrifices that… that a lot of our US personnel assigned around the world, do and sacrifice for our country and the security of our country.
And so, that’s the main… you know, that’s the focus on the book. I share a little bit of my background. I’m originally from El Paso, Texas, a border town, born and raised there, worked most of my law enforcement career. So, I share stories, obviously, law enforcement stories, we all in the law enforcement world have them. So, I put a few on there. I’m a subject matter expert in human trafficking. And so, I share some powerful stories about that in actual cases, and… and then I move into the… my assignment that led into Mexico, the shooting. And then the second part of my book is really what I call the… because the… the title of the book is ‘Agent Under Fire: A Murder and a Manifesto’. The Manifesto, part of it is really solutions to the ongoing issues with our border security. And really, the way I see it is the protection of our sovereignty.
Michael Jaco: Yes.
Victor Avila: And the conditions that Mexico is in and has been for a long time, and the organized crime with the cartels is a direct impact, and what I feel is an imminent threat to our country. And it’s been for a while. And you won’t see it in the mainstream media, especially in the last year or so because of the, you know, especially the election and all that has taken the… the… the… the timeline and the… the stories and rightly so, probably. But ignoring the problem at our border…
Michael Jaco: Even with all the… all the wall that’s been built, you still think it’s a… it’s a big problem?
Victor Avila: Yeah.
Michael Jaco: So… so, the border is better secure now, because of the wall that was built, and the other measures that the Trump administration has set in place. And we’ll talk about how many of those are probably going to go away in 6 days. And so, the… those… those things that have been done are good. And we need to do… continue to do more of those. However, I wish I could sit here and tell you that our border is secure, but it really is still not. We still have a long way to go. We are seeing record numbers of seizures of methamphetamine, heroin, and fentanyl that’s coming from Mexico, and it’s coming into our communities. We know we have an epidemic in our country with the overdoses. And it’s all related back to the cartels, who, by the way, by Mexico’s own statistic, they control and have influence over 80% of that country. They… the Mexican government has officially said that. And so, imagine if organized crime had 80% control over the United States, what would we do as a community and as in the law enforcement world to tackle that? And so, that’s how serious it is, because they’re our next door neighbor. Mexico is right there.
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: And we have a lot of trade obviously with them. But the illicit activity that’s coming from that border into our country is something that the focus is way overdue.
Michael Jaco: Definitely. So, you mentioned fentanyl. Fentanyl being, you know, manufactured in China and then, you know, leaked over the border. And like you’re saying, like, major numbers, that’s it’s like an attack on us. They’re… they’re doing it deliberately to, you know, bring down America. It’s… it’s… it’s… it’s insane, you know the way they’re doing it. That’s absolutely right. And you’re absolutely right with the relationship with China. Guess who they… the Mex… the Mexicans deal with? It’s China. They’re getting the precursors, the chemicals from them. That’s not a good relationship that we want them to have with, right, because of the challenges that we face with China as well. But they’re there. They’re there. They’re… the presence is there in Mexico. And so, that’s another challenge. There’s… there’s ties from the cartels to terrorist groups like Hezbollah, and others, to finance their terrorist organization.
And so, speaking of that, I… you know, I’ve been talking a lot over the last couple of years about supporting the idea of categorizing and designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations as FTOs, which I think that the big… the big cartels, the big organizations, it would make a big impact, if they were, because now the US would really have… imagined if they’re designated just as ISIS or the Taliban. Now, it’s… you know, we’re no longer going to do these 2-year long term investigations that DEA, Homeland Security Investigations does, FBI, that’ll… those… those type of methods no longer work anymore.
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: We need to attack these guys. And we need to take them down. And the FTO designation will bring a lot of resources to… to be able to do that. And guess what? And not only not only the cartels in Mexico, because the cartels are here in the United States, all over our country and… and 40 countries abroad. And so, they… they are dealing with the gang members in Chicago, St. Louis, and all these communities in California, and they’re directly linked. So, if they’re designated as an FTO, now we could go after these or… excuse me, now we could go after these gangs in California and Chicago and these places, and really, because of their association, just like if you a start associated with ISIS and start emailing right now. You know, the FBI is going to come knocking on your door.
So, guess what? Let’s start taking everybody that’s going to be dealing with the cartels, because of the… the selling of the product. The human trafficking that these cartels have expanded, they’re not drug trafficking organizations anymore. They… they’re into the human smuggling, human trafficking. They’ve gotten into the avocado trade, the… the gasoline and petroleum is changed in Mexico. And so, these organizations are serious. They’re highly, highly sophisticated and organized. Highly weaponized. There’s videos, a lot you can find online. I get some access to some to my contacts, but they’re having firefights in the middle of the day in streets.
Michael Jaco: Yeah, wow.
Victor Avila: Chases. You would… you wouldn’t recognize it as Mexico, you would think this is the Middle East.
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: And so, I think now, that’s our middle east right now. Our neighbor right there. We need to deal and deal with it quick.
Michael Jaco: That’s… that’s amazing insight. You know, I feel like I’m pretty savvy on what’s going on in the world. I had no idea some of the stuff you’re sharing how… how… how bad it was. So, from, you know, my background in a Navy SEAL for 24 years and 11 years in the CIA, all that was finding and eliminating terrorists overseas. But we have them right here at our border. So, like you kind of mentioned to me earlier before we started the show, that there needs to be a huge surge on our border. And I agree with you. And just little conversation we’re having right now, wow.
Victor Avila: The… I put one of those solutions. In my book that I think the… you know, and I mentioned the 20,000 troops that are in DC right now, because of the inauguration all that, I wish I would see those 20,000 troops down on their border because that’s where the imminent danger and the imminent threat is at.
Michael Jaco: Absolutely.
Victor Avila: And I line out in my book, a surge of the 20,000 men and women of CBP that includes border patrol and customs side of it as well. Bring them all in from the interiors. Leave skeleton crews. Bring them all to the southern border. Let’s bring some National Guard if we have to. Bring all of ICE, Homeland Security Investigations. Let’s bring them for a period of 12, 18 months up to 2 years if we have to, and we… and seal that border. Because a lot of the stuff that I’m sharing with you and the stuff… and the stuff that we see in the crime increases is around our country are directly related to the cartels. Well, we could start… you know, we could go to Chicago, and nobody’s ever done that, you know, anything in Chicago and… and all these places. If you want to, we could police that, but it’s going to continue until we get to the source…
Michael Jaco: Right.
Victor Avila: … which is down at the border. And I think let’s seal it. Let’s seal it. Let’s take out these…. these… these cartels, these organizations. And… and then that… that’ll help us then, you know, focus on our country to eliminate the criminal element that… that is, you know, dealing with them. And, of course, the overdoses and that kind of treatment as well.
Michael Jaco: That’s… that’s brilliant. If they were to designate them, like you said, a terrorist organization, then, you know, the military can and would get involved. And that would be like a special forces like me, having been a special force, that would be like, my dream come true, you know, to go after, you know, terrorist organizations that are definitely, you know, a major threat to… to United States, not the guys who are like, you know, 1000s of 1000 miles away, but people that are like a few 100 miles away, you know? Like, maybe…
Victor Avila: That’s right.
Michael Jaco: .. even that across the border.
Victor Avila: And… and in your… in your communities, in your communities. They are in your communities. They live there. A lot of them are illegal as well. And so, you know, the illegal immigration aspect comes into it as well. But… but the… I think the surge would do something. The designation, like you said, it will bring DoD resources. But another thing that it does, it automatically gives the US government the authority to go seize all of their assets, all of their… their illicit funds from whatever bank they have it all over the world. That’s the key, because I get some… people say, “Hey, Victor, well, they’re not… they don’t have the same ideology like ISIS and… and dah, dah, dah.” To me, the ideo… I don’t care about what the ideology is. These guys have killed 36,000 people in Mexico in 2020. They broke the record…
Michael Jaco: Wow.
Victor Avila: … from 2019. 36,000 murders homicides in Mexico, a country of 110 million. It’d be comparing do the math to our country, I don’t even know what that number would be in homicides here. That would be chaotic…
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: … if you have those type of homicides in our country. And so, I think that designation would do that would… would… would freeze your funds, because their ideology is money and power, right? We know, cartels, that’s what they want. Well, let’s take that away from them. Let’s take… we could tackle this in separate ways. And I understand it’s a very cumbersome task, you have to have an enormous amount of coordination between military, Federal agencies, police agencies, State, local, sheriffs. You know, everyone would have to be on a board, it’s cumbersome, but I think it could be done. And we…
Michael Jaco: Oh yeah.
Victor Avila: We could definitely have an impact. And that’s all for the safety and security of our US citizens.
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: That’s all I think everybody could agree. It hasn’t… doesn’t matter what… what side of the political spectrum you’re on, it’s to protect our children and our families.
Michael Jaco: Absolutely. Victor, you know, I’ve worked with law enforcement, you know, as a SEAL and CIA and so forth. And a professional works… you know, it’s like seamless, it doesn’t matter. You know, I can work with a professional in another organization like… like it’s nothing, as long as they’re professional. It’s really easy. So, I think your ideas are like amazing. Your insight is like, unbelievable. You’re a great spokesperson. So, I love it. So, what developed you to that point? Let’s… let’s go back in time, and bring us up to that one tragic moment. You know, your… your training, and all that kind of stuff.
Victor Avila: So, I graduated with the criminal justice degree Bachelor of Science out of the nursing texts of El Paso. And, you know, what do you do with this criminal justice degree? In El Paso there’s a huge presence of law… Federal law enforcement, everybody wants to go Federal. My career started as a State parole officer for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. And really, that really opened up my eyes to the criminal world and the criminal element because I dealt with a supervision of the… I actually was assigned to supervise and surveil the… the most violent gang members that were… you know, people first realize that everybody goes to prison to this day in prison, most… almost all of them will get released at one point or another. And so, these people, because of different laws, would have a mandatory release and they’d be on a monitor, and I would surveillance them then and follow them. And… and really had these intimate conversations with them, hardcore gang members, murderers, sex offenders. And so, that really opened that world. To me kind of a non-criminal underworld. And I realized I’m an ambi… an ambitious guy. I realized that the job that I was doing at the State level exists at the Federal level as a US Federal probation officer. And so, I looked into that I applied. That’s the first time I moved me out of El Paso, I was picked up in San Antonio. And so, now I worked for the US courts.
And so, not only was that now supervising Federal offenders, I was now dealing with the US Attorney’s Office, the defense attorneys, the… the other side is completing pre-sentence investigation reports, the Federal sentencing guidelines to… for these offenders in writing these extensive reports for the courts. And I really learned that second part of our justice system, and our judicial system, and by… I was doing that several years into it, I had moved back to El Paso, and part of that job as a Federal probation officer to talk to a lot of… and interview a lot of the special agents from US Customs. Back then it was INS, Secret Service, DEA, FBI. And I love talking to these guys and the men and women of the… of these agencies. And I got to the point where I said, “I don’t want to read about it. I don’t want to talk to them about it. I want to do what they do.”
Michael Jaco: Right.
Victor Avila: So, I applied as a special agent for US Customs Service. This was right when the merger happened and the Department of Homeland Security was created. And they took the Immigration and Naturalization Service (remember them, INS?) and the US Customs Service Investigators, Special Agents, and merge them into what you know as ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And so, now under ICE, there’s 2 divisions. The ICE is there’s the one you hear about a lot in the news, the deportations, the camps and the administrative part of re… removing people from the country, illegal aliens. And the other part is the special agents like me, the criminal investigators. And so, now they have given, several years ago, that part of it our Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent.
And so, we… a lot of people forget they hear ICE and think immigration only. But HSI does, you know, narcotics trafficking investigations, human trafficking, human smuggling, money laundering investigations, arms trafficking investigations, intellectual property rights, which right now, with the vaccines coming into our country, any counterfeit pharmaceuticals, vaccines, HSI investigates that. Anything that touches our border or has a nexus to our border, HSI has the jurisdiction to investigate that.
Michael Jaco: Yeah, I like how, you know, you, you’re like me, and I wanted to go, you know, high speed. I was a navy seal. And I was like, “What’s… what’s the top?” and it’s like, “SEAL team 6.” So, you know, basically became one of SEAL team 6 and was in a operator in a squadron. But, what… what I got from that, you know, having been in, you know, anti-terrorism teams, and, you know, studying terrorism, for all those years, and then eventually going into the CIA, and working to find terrorists, it definitely improved my abilities to find them and, you know, help track them down and eliminate them. So, that’s… that’s… that’s amazing, you know, your… your progression, and your… your… your drive and your dedication.
Victor Avila: Thank you, every… every job that I had. And at one point, when I was going to college, I went for the post office for a while. It’s incredible that every job that you have, how it helped me as an investigator. The US probation side of it was incredibly incredible for me as an investigator, because I knew the guidelines. And I knew some of the questions that, when I interrogated some of these individuals, I knew certain questions to ask that… that pertain to the guidelines, because I knew that if they… if I, first of all, had to ask that question, and that answer that they give me would possibly put this individual either in jail more or reduce a sentence, either way, right?
Victor Avila: But… but you have to ask the question, and not knowing to ask the question is a big deal. And… and that gave me a great advantage. Growing up on the border, and have been fortunate to be stationed back in El Paso, when I got out of the Academy was a tremendous asset to me. I worked on both sides… I lived on both sides of the border. Lived in El Paso my whole time, but visited Juárez all the time. I knew some of the streets these guys did deals on. And I would sometimes tell them, “Yeah. Are you right next to that blockbuster?” And this… they’d be like, “How the heck does this guy know?” You know, and so it was a great advantage to… with sources and all that. It was really good. That’s kind of the progression that my career led me to my assignment in Mexico.
And first was to the US consulate in Juárez, right, on the other side of El Paso, Texas in 2008. And that’s when Juárez was the most dangerous city in the world. There were about 350 homicides a month at that… in that year; a month.
Michael Jaco: Yeah. I remember there… there actually… that was a security professional in the CIA, they’re actually asking for some of us to go into Mexico, we’re like, “Into Mexico? You’re kidding me.” But listening to you, I’m like, this is very obvious, there were some serious problems going on down there.
Victor Avila: Absolutely. And it was incredible. I mean, that opened the whole, you know, career for me really. I went first as a temporary agent. Because of that temporary assignment, I got to go to and traveled to Mexico City where I actually had never been to. I had been to other parts of Mexico, but never to Mexico City. Went to the US Embassy on an arms trafficking case.
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: You know, the… the stars aligned for you sometimes in your career. And at that point, they needed a new agent, I applied, I got it. And… and I moved my family. My family and I went and Mexico City is a really nice and the Met… you know, Metro. Think of it in New York. It’s a beautiful city, big, and it’s nice. It puts you up and now you become a US diplomat.
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: You know, you get it… you’re an accredited diplomat, you’re representing the country, but still have the mission as a… as a special agent to enhance the… the… the mission of the United States. And Mexico needed a lot of help, a lot of training with investigations. And of course, the corruption is… we can’t ignore that and… and dealing with that. But that’s the most I ever worked ever in my life. I was hardly home. I was sometimes home 2, 3 days out of the month, and a lot of traveling, and really did some good work taking down human trafficking cells in Mexico that would traffic, women and children to Atlanta, New York, Miami, Houston, and rescued a lot of women and kids. That was very rewarding. They are hard investigations to conduct and horrific with because they treat the victims as… as a table as a product, you know? And it is hard stuff to see. But… but… but had success in Mexico.
And… and unfortunately, and like I mentioned in February 15 of 2011, which we’re coming up on the 10-year anniversary, we… we got put into a situation where we found ourselves, Jaime Zapata and I fighting for our lives. And… and, you know, it turned my world upside down, not just with me and my family, the Zapata family, of course, they lost their son. And it was… it was something that was… you know, you never… you never think it’s going to happen to you. In this case, it’s a little different than like a police shooting because it’s a cartel. It was an ambush. There was 8 shooters, AK-47s. And so, you know, I struggled with coming out of that. My agency, I talked a little bit about the book, they… they were not… you know, they weren’t the best at treating me and my family, which is very unfortunate. I still support the men and women of ICE and… and the DHS. But… but in my case, I definitely fell through the cracks. They didn’t know what to do. That had never happened before.
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: You’re… you’re at the top of your game. You feel indestructible. I know, I’ve been there. And here you are, and basically a hit… a hit squad is put on you guys.
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: So, what do you think what… what was it you guys were doing that made them want to take you guys down? Obviously, you’re impacting them and they wanted gone.
Michael Jaco: Yeah. The… their story, the cartels, were they wanted to carjack us and… and steal our armored vehicle. They destroyed that armored vehicle. And people can go online, and there’s some pictures in the book that I put in there of how they destroyed that vehicle. But I believe it’s not… they didn’t want the vehicle and they didn’t want to carjack us. They knew we were Americans. They testified to it that we… they knew that we were Amer… they heard me when I yelled that we were Americans. The trip was about picking up from Mexico City, we traveled towards Monterey to pick up some surveillance and tracking device type of equipment. And that’s as far as I can go with that. But the… and so it was a lot of equipment. It took up the whole back of the… of the suburban to fill up all the boxes.
Michael Jaco: Wow.
Victor Avila: And that’s what we were pick… bringing back to Mexico City. But in this assignment, there was no backup, there was no… usually when we do that kind of travel, and you know this very well, there’s… there’s a convoy.
Michael Jaco: Oh yeah.
Victor Avila: You know, 2, 3 armored vehicles and sometimes the Federal police to protect us or even the Mexican military police… military to travel with us.
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: I mean, I’ve done that many, many times. We weren’t afforded those… those… those protections because they… they send us on… for me on a 1-day notice like, “You got to go tomorrow morning. And I was never briefed on what was going on. I was brought in at the very end. And that’s a big no, no, in law enforcement. You have to be briefed.
Michael Jaco: Oh yeah.
Victor Avila: You know, if you were not briefed, you don’t get to play if you’re not present, right? Well, I had… they had been working on this for… for months. And I wasn’t… I wasn’t part of the email string. I wasn’t part of any of that. It wasn’t even my case that the equipment was going to be used for.
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: But… but that’s… you know, I got caught in that. I challenged the assignment as much as I could, but eventually was ordered to go to it.
Michael Jaco: So, what I… so, I kind of get a feel of what… what’s going on here and where this might have come from. So, I… it’s unfortunate, because I’ve been in kind of situations like that where they want you to do some things that are kind of sketchy, because they want to keep it low key. They’re not going to like, you know, bring a lot of people on board where they need to have a lot of people on board. So, I’m not saying you guys were set up, but what… what do you… what do you feel happened, you know, on a deeper level?
Victor Avila: Definitely. I’m the first one to say our supervisor didn’t want to… didn’t want to… want us killed out. And that’s… that… that’s clear.
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: And I’ll make that clear. But they definitely ignored a lot of the intelligence that we had. I mean, right then and there when I got the assignment, I called the US… the ICE Special Agent in Monterey and I say, “What the heck is going on?”
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: And he’s like, “Man, there’s firefights between the Zetas cartel and the military and the police.” And I’m like, “Whoa, what are we doing picking up this on the highway? Why don’t you fly it in, diplomatic pouch it, and all these other ways?” And they said… they said, “Oh, yeah, we already talked about all that,” and they’ve shut all that down. They wanted to do it by land, by us. And so… and on top of this, by the way, there was an alert issued about 3 weeks before to all US personnel by the US Ambassador prohibiting anyone from driving on that highway, which is highway 57, either for business reasons, or personal reasons. And so, my supervisors completely ignored that alert. And the alert was issued, because of the intelligence that we all get. I mean, you know, one of my… the deputy attaché after… because I challenged it with my supervisor, and I told them, “You got to go talk to the deputy attaché. We got to pump it up 1 more level here. And he… his words, and I quote him… and I’ll quote them until I can, he said he wasn’t aware of any security issues in Mexico. And when he said that, I said, “You gotta be killing me. The whole country is a critical 4 category level issued by the State Department.”
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: “What the heck are you talking about, you’re not aware of any critical…?” You know, there’s incompetence, there’s other issues there. But…
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: … nevertheless, you know, this happened, and I feel as a duty to share the story…
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: … to, you know, make sure that Jaime’s death was not in vain, that his duty to our country is something that a lot of people continue to… to do as we speak all around the world.
Michael Jaco: So, now I wasn’t directly involved with in Benghazi in Libya, but I had 2 friends that died there. And I actually had worked with 1 of those guys like just 2 months prior. And so, I knew a lot of people that were there. I was… I was one of the first people that came in and recovered some of the stuff that was there. So, I get to see the body armor with the mortar, you know, shrapnel in it, and the blood on it and stuff. So, it’s… it was… it was… it was frustrating, you know, to… to know, kind of like what you’re talking about, that things could have been should have been different. So, you’re… you look back and you’re like, you know, “What… what did you guys do there?” It’s like, it’s crazy. So, I know, they call that the Mex… you called it the Mexican Benghazi.
Victor Avila: My… my… my good friend, Daniel Horowitz is the one that… that they called it the Mexican Benghazi. And… and… and I started thinking of it, because obviously, I’m very aware of Benghazi, I’m like, “Well you know, there’s some similarities there, well, of the ignoring of the intelligence, of the ignoring of… of people that know on the ground.” Like, in my case, I knew, “Listen, what are you doing?” Yet you’re overruled by other people not to… you know, not to do this or do that. And so, as… as a Federal employee, sometimes your… you follow rules or orders or you’re insubordinate, you know, and get sent home.
Michael Jaco: Yeah. Yeah, that’s unfortunate. So… so, where does it go from here? Where… where do you think the people should be focused on, you know, going forward? Has there been things that have been done to, you know, remedy that?
Victor Avila: Yeah, yeah. There’s… there’s obviously, afterwards there’s… for example, there was no training on how to drive an armored vehicle. I didn’t get any training. Jaime Zapata, that was the first armored vehicle he ever drove. And, and so it was… that now you… there’s armor training, shooting from an armored vehicle training, mandatory before you get to Mexico. There’s other… other technical things that happen in the suburban. For example, there was a GPS tracker that was installed. We tested it in Mexico. You know, you hit a toggle switch, and there was an alarm that went out in DC immediately, instantly. And we were on the phone tested great. It had a green, yellow and red light. Well, after a couple of months, it was red the whole time. The signal was never going out. I tell my supervisor, “Hey, this GPS thing is not working, man.” And it was actually designed exactly for what we went through.
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: So, at the time of the of the ambush, I did hit the toggle switch, but it sent the message to Washington, DC 8 hours later. So, it wasn’t working out. So, equipment like that. And those type of failures have been… have been remedied. And unfortunately, it took the death of an agent to… to… to get them done. And there’s additional training as well. But… but yeah, Mexico continues to be… it’s… it’s worse now. When I was there, I always… always thought, “This is it. This is the bottom. Mexico can only go up from here.” And unfortunately, I was very, very wrong. And they… it’s worse than way worse now.
Michael Jaco: Oh my god. So, what… we’ve kind of discussed a little bit what the impact of that is on the United States. Now, I’ve talked to… to people. And, you know, I always thought that the drug issue was the biggest thing. But they’re saying human trafficking is even bigger now. Is that… is that your…?
Victor Avila: Yeah, I mean, that’s… that’s my expertise. And human trafficking is now right up next to an enlisted… and illicit funds received by these criminal organizations right next to drug trafficking. It’s a multi-billion-dollar industry. They’ve learned… they’re learning and they’ve learned that 1 victim keeps on giving them money. You know, if you get a kilo of cocaine, and you sell it, you make your nice profit, well, you have to go get another kilo of cocaine. Well, these guys get, you know, 10, 15, 20, 30 victims and put them under the sex slave trade. And they make millions of money off of them until either they die, they… they’re so sick, they can’t work. You know, they have them seen 30, 40 Johns a day and… and under very duress conditions. And it’s a modern-day slavery. But it’s not… you know, it’s not shackles that people think all these girls are tied up. No, they’re not. They’re coerced. They’re broken.
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: And a lot of times they hold their kids hostage in their home country. And saw a lot of those in Mexico threatening to send one of the kids fingers or the ear if they didn’t do this. Plus the additional physical harm they would… they would do with… to them at these brothels. But it’s a horrific crime. And… and yes, human trafficking, right now in the United States, the Dallas Fort Worth area is a number 1 area hub for human trafficking. And now, it’s not just the victims that come from, you know, Mexico, Central America and Europe, which they still are, but the big focus has shifted their learning that, “Hey, I don’t have to go get the victim. They’re right here in the US.” So, you’re looking at runaways, vulnerable, young girls, that they… these guys are… are basically hunting for, and guess where? Online. And they look for them online, they get them, they hook them. There’s a… there’s 3 elements to human trafficking, force, fraud, or coercion. And they use those methods. And before you know it, they got US citizens trafficking working for them, and… and, you know, and getting the money out of them.
Michael Jaco: But I know that, you know, Trump has really cracked down on that a lot, probably more than anyone else in the long time, if not, ever. And I’ve had a lot of guests on that have talked about human trafficking being part of human trafficking, child slavery, when they’re early in their lifetimes, satanic, all kind of, like just out-of-this-world type stuff.
Victor Avila: Yes.
Michael Jaco: And a lot of… a lot of those… that human trafficking is going to people in the high end of like political, social rounds is… is that part of what you’ve been seeing too?
Victor Avila: Yeah, these organizations are tied in at every level, from the lowest of the lowest to very, very high. And the money flows both ways in that… in that type of industry. And because there’s so much money available for these guys, and that’s up for grabs.
Michael Jaco: But yeah, the… a lot of people. Some… some people still might think that they’re like in denial, like, “This doesn’t really happen.”
Victor Avila: Yeah.
Michael Jaco: And I’m here to tell you, I’ve seen it. You can’t take those images out of my head ever. And the… and the things that… that human beings are capable of doing the children and other females and males, by the way. And it’s not just a sex slave trade, it’s the forced labor as well. We got to remember that. A lot of Chinese are brought over and put in the… in sweat… in sweatshops here in the US and abroad in Europe. I worked in… in Spain and Portugal. And that was a big, big problem over there as well.
Michael Jaco: Hmm. Incredible. So, yeah, worldwide too, yeah, you’ve been all over the world too, not just Mexico, but, you know, overseas and European countries too. So, yeah, I saw this in the Middle East, I saw the drug trafficking. I saw human trafficking, slavery, all the way down the trail. And like you’re saying, when you see some of this stuff, and you know some of the people that are involved, it’s… it’s kind of devastating at first on your consciousness. And then you kind of get a little bit like, “Hmm, this is something I’ve kind of worked on,” you know?
Victor Avila: Yeah.
Michael Jaco: And that’s kind of what, you know, I feel emboldened to do right now is, it’s… it’s… it’s a subject that I thought a lot of people resist, like you’re talking about. But I get the most coverage when I… when I cover this stuff now. So, people are really open, finally, I think, on a level that hasn’t been seen before to, you know, “We got to stop this. We want to know about it and know how to defeat it.” And I mean, you… you have the answers.”
Victor Avila: And a lot of… a lot of things that we saw, obviously it’s tied into trafficking is a child pornography. A lot of child sex tourism, a lot. These guys that are US citizens have these… these… these demented individuals started learning quickly that they didn’t have to go to Cambodia across the world, they could just go to Mexico and do it there. And so, we had some… some big cases, taking down US citizens committing those type of crimes in Mexico.
Michael Jaco: Excellent, excellent. So, I mean, it’s got to continue to… you know, we got to continue to like, you know… you know, crank down on that and get it to the point where it’s zero. It’s a long way off, but I think we’re making inroads. So, you’re… you’re not very comfortable with the potential of the next administration pushing this. What… why… why is that?
Victor Avila: Let me tell you what, it’s… it’s… so, under the Biden Presidency, let’s… let’s start with border security. He’s going to try to undo every single policy that the Trump administration implemented. And, you know, the… he’s… I’m hearing a little bit of good news, and he’s starting to walk some of those promises back already. Because he’s… he’s going to realize, either it’s him or his people are going to realize that you cannot do it overnight. You can’t just undo it. For example, the construction of the wall, you just cannot… there’s contracts, there’s all these other issues. You just can’t stop one day, everybody picks up and go. So, he’s going to allowed another 6 months or so to see and evaluated.
And that’s going to happen with, for example, the asylum seekers, the caravanners that are coming. Just about 10 days ago, there was 400 Cubans coming over from Juárez into an El Paso, Texas. They stormed the Port of Entry 400. Cubans chanting, “Biden, Biden, Biden.” And CBP had to put up their gear, and they stopped them at the bridge of the Port of Entry coming over. This is the message that the Biden administration sends all over the world, not just Mexico, Central America, but guess what? The special interest countries, which we call the special interest aliens that come to this country, they’re not the economic migrants that want to come here for better their families into work. And I’m talking about people from Somalia, Bangladesh, you know, Yemen, Syria, that had possible terrorist ties. And that’s the key here is people don’t… don’t… they forget that… it’s not that I’m anti humanitarian. No. I understand people in Central America, Mexico, they have a terrible, terrible conditions. They’re just… they just don’t, by law, by the asylum law, do not qualify for asylum. They’re not being persecuted by their government. They’re not… they don’t… the criteria for the asylum, by the way, hasn’t changed in years. It’s the… it’s the interpretation by like, for example, the Obama administration and now the… the Biden administration and how they interpret that law. And that’s where it starts getting dangerous, because they’re going to start opening the border and allowing these people to come in to seek asylum and… and what we call the catch and release, where people are caught, but they’re released into our country. They’re not released to their country. They’re released to our country, waiting for their asylum case. Again, they’re never… you’re never going to see him again. 90 some 5% of them never show up again for their hearing.
Michael Jaco: Wow.
Victor Avila: And so, that’s a big problem. the asylum cases. The remain in Mexico policy, it’s part of that. Donald Trump implemented that say, “You’ll have to wait in Mexico and/or in your home country to seek asylum.” And if they don’t do that, guess what? They’re going to be waiting in our country?
Michael Jaco: Wow. Yeah. That’s… that’s frustrating. Yeah. And why do you think that is? Like, I know… I know, certain parties claim that they have humanitarian (like you’re talking about) ideals in mind. But what… from what I’ve been seeing, there’s other ulterior motives. Or have you seen anything like that? Or is it just really there’s clueless?
Victor Avila: Are you talking about the asylum seekers or…?
Michael Jaco: No, just opening the border in general.
Victor Avila: Oh, gosh. You know, they the old rhetoric that because I’m… I’m a… I’m an advocate for strong… strong border, I’m the racist, right? And I’m the bad guy, because I want the… the protection of our country, of our sovereignty. And yes, I do believe in… in protecting our US citizens first and our resident aliens first. And not… I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Every other country in the world does that. They put their citizens first. Why can’t we put ours first? And it’s not… it’s not immoral, it’s not racist. It is… it is… well, first of all, it’s the law. I didn’t write the law. The law has been there forever. The difference is allowing our ICE officials, DEA, FBI to enforce that law. And so, I remember even under the Obama administration, when I worked, the… there was a group called in HSI that just focused on employers, right, hiring illegal aliens. They… those groups were almost completely dis… disbanded because President Obama back then said, “No one’s going to go check on anyone.” So, the policy from the administration is a huge impact on the field of what the agent can and cannot arrest.
I was going to go arrest an illegal alien drug trafficker at the university because I found them at the university, and they told me to stand down, “You are not to touch… you cannot arrest anybody at a school, at church, or a courthouse.” And I think you’ve heard… people have heard that in the news lately. But that started affecting us 3 years ago, many, many years ago.
Michael Jaco: Wow.
Victor Avila: Why? The guy’s a criminal wanted on drug charges. And on top of that, he is here illegally. I’ll get them more I get them, right? It’s why because I want to protect the community. And so, that goes into play with the sanctuary city policies that we’ve seen around our country, sanctuary states like California, where the… it seems like the illegal alien has more rights than the US citizen.
Michael Jaco: Right.
Victor Avila: They commit a crime, they commit a crime, and they’re in the criminal justice system at the jail, all they had to do is notify ICE when they find out that he’s illegal so ICE can go pick them up. But they purposely do not release the individual. Guess what? He goes back into the community, his own community, to terrorize them and other US citizens. So, they… they… the… the democrats or the left or the liberals, whatever you want to call them, they say that they… that they’re protecting the immigrant community, when in fact, they’re putting them more in danger. And I’ll give you… I could give you example, after example. MS13 in the northeast part of our country, these guys will butcher, they’ll… they use machetes to chop off their victims, the women, they rape them. When they get released in New York, because not only they’re illegal, and it’s a sanctuary city, but they also have bail reform. But they’re not even going to get bail. They just get released on their own recognizance, and there’s this revolving door, they get released right back to the immigrant community that they terrorize.
Michael Jaco: Oh my God.
Victor Avila: And that’s the that’s the part that people don’t understand. Like, we’re not protecting anyone, we’re actually putting them in more danger. We need to capture these individuals, hold them to serve their sentences in the US, and then deport them to their home country.
Michael Jaco: Yeah. Wow. It’s like… it’s amazing, you know, the level of, you know, naivete that a lot of people have towards these, you know, humanitarian ideas that you’re… like you’re… like you’re saying it’s actually a massive negative. So, there’s…
Victor Avila: I’ll say this real quick. I’m a very, very pro legal immigration.
Michael Jaco: Oh, yeah, me too. Absolutely, absolutely.
Victor Avila: I’m a product of the American dream. My parents… I’m a first generation, Hispanic, Mexican American. My parents came here legally.
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: They did it the right way. I’m very happy they did it. And, you know, myself and my sisters were born here. And I’m a product of that and proud of it. And so, I am also, as much as an advocate that I am against illegal immigration, I’m very, very much of an advocate for pro legal immigration.
Michael Jaco: Beautiful, beautiful. And, you know, when you… when… like, we know, when you have to work really hard for something, you get it, you appreciate it a lot more. So, that’s… that’s… that should be motivation for people to like, you know, be more pro, you know, people that are coming here legally, vise people that are coming here illegally, and have this revolving door on, you know, committing crimes against their communities and being able to go back and do it over and over again. And no one… you know, no one can stop it. It’s very frustrating.
Victor Avila: Yes.
Michael Jaco: So, what… what else would you say in our last few minutes here? What else would you like to say as far as like motivation for people to like, you know, hopefully, you know, keep the border safe, and then eventually make it even safer with what your recommendations were, as far as like, you know, calling up the military and doing a search on the border?
Victor Avila: Yeah, I think the… the awareness would be… will be a big one to… you know, unfortunately, the main… you’re not going to get it from the mainstream media. what’s going down at the border. Just… just dig a little bit in online. You will find a good reporting out there about what’s happening… what’s… what’s happening in Mexico and how the… you know, they talked about it, “Will the violence spill over? Will it…?” Back in… back in the early… I remember early 2000s, “Is the violence going to spill over?” It spilled over a long time ago. And it’s in… and that violence is in our communities. A lot of these crimes that you see around our country are directly related to the criminal organizations in Mexico.
So, the focus, I would say, the awareness and… and another thing I would add is elect… your local elected officials in the… I’ve been… I’ve been talking about this for the last couple of years. For some reason, the local elected officials, the mayors, the county commissioners, the city council’s all of a sudden started dictating to the police, our police chiefs, and our sheriff’s about what they can and cannot enforce. And I think that’s a… that’s a dangerous route to go… go in. I’m a big supporter of the police. Let them do… they’re the experts. Let them do their job.
Michael Jaco: Yeah.
Victor Avila: Let them execute their job, the best that they can. When you have a mayor telling the sheriff, “You can’t arrest somebody because they’re illegal alien,” or, you know, “You can’t call ICE,” that’s a dangerous path. Let the… there’s a… there’s a case really quick out of West Virginia, it was a Fairfax, Virginia, about 2 years ago, where an officer, you know, there’s a car accident, he shows up, one of them… one of the drivers happens to be illegal, he has a warrant, an ICE warrant. He does his job, checks it, checks the warrant, hooks him up, calls ICE. Well, he gets suspended by the Chief of Police because it’s a ‘sanctuary city’. And you can’t arrest the guy because he’s illegal, and you can’t call ICE. But if a guy had a DEA warrant… a DEA warrant or an FBI warrant or… or another, you know, police agency warrant, it would have been okay. But because it’s an ICE warrant and they hate ICE and they want to abolish ICE and they hate President Trump or whatever, all these… all these reasons, they… they fire the policed officer. And eventually, there was a good outlash of the community where the police officer was reinstated. But that’s… that’s something that I would say is, the local level, especially the crimes that we’ve seen and the riots and the decision making by local elected officials, it’s so important who is in there representing you. Pay attention to that.
Michael Jaco: Definitely. So, I have a somebody made a statement in the chat says, “My cousin’s daughter was killed by a drunk driver, which was an illegal alien and ran back to Mexico. They can’t give them bonds. She was a beautiful, smart, 17-year-old young lady.” And I know that happens a lot. I have a have a friend that is from El Salvador and she talks about how the gangs down there will come to America, they’ll, you know, deport them back, and they just make their way back up and come right back in again.
Victor Avila: Yep.
Michael Jaco: Do you see any way to stop any of that?
Victor Avila: Securing the border?
Michael Jaco: Yeah, exactly.
Victor Avila: It comes down to that. And, you know, it sounds so simple, right? I’m not a… I’m not… believe me, it’s not rocket science here. It’s just… it’s just the willingness to want to do it. Mexico helped a little bit in the immigration process because of President Trump put some pressure on them. And they did help. But they have completely… especially the President, has completely turned his back on the whole country when it came to… comes to the cartels. He said he rather give them hugs and bullets. And, you know, it is incredible. And the current President of Mexico has absolutely no will to fight these cartels. They are going rampant in this… and that country right now.
Michael Jaco: Hmm, wow. That’s amazing. So, it’s… it’s frustrating, because we had a president that was like, you know, finally cracking down on all these different, you know, groups that were allowing all this to come through. I think they really attacked him really hard and, you know, did their best to drive them out. We can look at the election, stuff like that and go, “What really happened there?” But I think the American people kind of spoke, but it got shut down. So, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but it doesn’t look good for the border.
Victor Avila: My only hope is… is that… that they realize that… the Biden ministration I’m talking about here, can realize that what dan… would dan… the dangerous path they’re going to set if they open the border up wide. It is not going to… it won’t be pretty. It won’t be pretty for our country. It’ll be… it’s not a good thing. Because now… now, they’re emboldened. And… and all illegals, I’m talking about all, they’re going to… they’re going to rush the border, that we’re going to be overwhelmed down there. It’s going to be a different, very different atmosphere. They kind of almost going to feel entitled, “Well, President Biden says so, you know? So, why don’t we just come in?”
Michael Jaco: Right.
Victor Avila: They’re like we’re supposed to just let people in here. And… and let’s not forget the national security. And what I think is border security is national security. That’s what it comes down to.
Michael Jaco: Yeah, I… you know, I think I’ve heard that the gravy trains are already starting to form up, getting ready to come across right after the inauguration. So…
Victor Avila: That’s right.
Michael Jaco: It’s going to be very frustrating. Victor, absolutely phenomenal. I’d love to have you back and we talk more specifically, maybe even have some of the people that I’m involved with that are into child trafficking, human trafficking, so you could speak more deeply on that? And that’s…
Victor Avila: I would love to.
Michael Jaco: Yeah, absolutely. That’s be… yeah. Because I think, going forward, we’re going to see a lot more focus on that, and people were really interested in stopping that. So, that would be great to have you on again. Thank you so much for sharing your, your insights, absolutely amazing. I had…
Victor Avila: Yeah, if people want to… want to reach out to me, they could go to agentunderfirebook.com, agentunderfirebook.com. They could actually buy the book if they want to there. You can go through Amazon as well. But you could send me a message. I also… I’m trying to expand my speaking engagements. I could come out and speak to a group. And looking forward to maybe do a little bit more of that in 2021.
Michael Jaco: Yeah, your… your… your speaking abilities I know are going to be in great demand, as far as like, you know, not only just for what we talked about here, but also for, you know, that… that fire incident you went through. A lot of people can learn from that. And I think a lot of people are certainly happy for that. That’s outstanding. Get good inside about that. So, yeah, I’ll put your… I’ll put that link in the description box, guys. And definitely go to his site and buy his book, because I can tell you, it’s great to have, you know, our books listed on the big, you know, Amazon and so forth. But we only get a fraction of that. A lot… a lot of you think that everyone that writes a book gets rich, not so much. If they get most of that, they get a lion’s share. But when you come and buy the book directly, we get a nice little piece of that. So, that… it’s more direct to us. So, definitely come in and buy that book, highly recommend it. I looked at it and I was like I didn’t want to put it down. I… it just came unbelievably, I was like, “I hope I get that book. I hope I get that book,” and it came in. So, you know, there you go. Agent Under Fire. So, you want that book because it’s got some good insights, like we’re talking about. Victor.
Victor Avila: Thank you.
Michael Jaco: Thank you so much. Lots of love out there to everyone. Thanks for joining us. And those…. those of you that are going to watch this all over the world, take some good insight because it’s happening, not just here in America on our border, but like Victor was talking about in other countries as well.