HIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR INTERVIEW WITH JAESON JONES

Q: Lone Star Standard

What is your background and expertise on the cartels? 

A: Jaeson Jones

I am a retired captain from the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division. During that time I managed the state fusion center and the Texas Rangers cross border operation center. When I retired, I was so frustrated about what was happening at the border, what was happening in Mexico, and to Mexican citizens and to our own citizens, that none of the real information was getting out to the public. 

After retiring in July of 2016, I went public. I started an initiative to designate the Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations in this country. And, if you told me at the time, that eight years later we’d still be in the same spot and our country would be suffering from 112,000 overdose deaths per year, I wouldn’t believe it. It is really an indicator of how broken our federal government has become in the U.S. 

Q: Lone Star Standard

How do the cartels operate at the border? 

A: Jaeson Jones

Those who control the plazas near the border, what we call in the U.S. a municipality, control both legitimate and illegitimate goods that move across the border. Unfortunately, what we still hear from most national media is a 1980s model that the cartels battle for control of smuggling and traffic. That is fundamentally false. They did in the 1980s but, now, they battle for control of territory. So, when you hear national media use the terminology that the cartels have operational control of the southwest border, nobody ever explains what that means or how the cartels do it, because the pundits have no idea. 

Here is how it really works. The cartels leverage what is called the Call Network, a network of lookouts or scouts. They check on and off, just like law enforcement. They are operating in South Texas with two-way handheld encrypted radios as far as 30 miles in the state of Texas. I’ve seen them in Arizona, 70 miles from the border. They  use repeaters and then simulcast back to Mexico, which is called “Central.” They operate every day, twenty-four seven, and especially when there’s bad weather because they know our law enforcement doesn’t want to work in bad weather. 

Every cartel operates a little differently, but I’ll explain South Texas because I know it very well. Who controls most of the border with Texas? First off, every bend in the river where they control territory is considered a gate. They have half guns on the U.S. side and half guns on the Mexico side. They watch everything, all the time and communicate back to central. When the gate is open, meaning there’s no law enforcement, goods are able to move between the ports of entry. If they are moving south, it is usually money and weapons or people that’ve been kidnapped. If they are moving north, well, it’s dope or it’s people. That’s how the game works. It is very dynamic. 

The question you should be asking is why is nobody telling me this? Why am I on a podcast with this guy who’s retired and he is telling me this? Where is the DEA? Where is the FBI? Where is DHS? It is because most people in Washington have no idea whose job it is to understand it. Nobody in the national media has the resources and funding to go down and understand the depth of what’s taking place. 

So, what happens? When they do send a reporter to the border, that reporter doesn’t know where to go to find evidence of the cartel's operational control. So, the cartels send massive groups of people to certain areas. They do that by design. That way, when the reporter comes down, he sees all the people but he doesn’t see the cartels control of the border. 

Q: Lone Star Standard

What are the wristbands being found at the border used for by the cartels? 

A: Jaeson Jones

Each migrant is assigned a wristband when they cross the border. When we first saw this, there was one wristband color. They were red. Now, there are different color wristbands and each color represents a different smuggling organization.

When the migrants get to stash houses, the cartels get all of their personal identifying information. Where they are coming from. What is their mom’s name? What is their dad’s name? Home address. Where they are going in the U.S. Who they are staying with in the U.S. Cell phone numbers. And, the cartels try to validate all this information. Once they get all of this information validated, they get one of these wristbands. This is what we call debt bondage. This is not smuggling. This is the trafficking of people in what we call “the final form of trafficking.” 

I think that when most Americans hear about trafficking, they think commercial sex. But what they don’t know is that we also have forced labor. And now debt bondage. And we have found thousands of these wristbands. I held these wristbands up before Congress at the Homeland Security Committee just a few months ago and I said America is witnessing the new slave trade. And what we need to understand is we’re going to be dealing with a tidal wave of human trafficking, because now these people have crossed the border, they are being sent all throughout the country. And, they are in debt to a criminal organization in a foreign country for years, if not decades to come. This is where we really are. 

It’s taken me years. I’ve briefed Senators and Congressman and many, many others. I have seen these wristbands on a 10-day old child and these migrants have to pay because that child is a commodity. I know it is hard to understand, but a child is a commodity to the cartels. So, when I tell you that we are witnessing America’s new slave trade, I am serious. The cartels are so emboldened, they’re even willing to put these on children. 

 

Jaeson Jones is an internationally renowned border intelligence expert. He has led investigations targeting Mexican cartel leadership and collaborated closely with the US intelligence community to help save lives throughout Mexico and the USA.

This interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Listen to the full discussion here: https://texas-talks.simplecast.com/episodes/ep-5-jaeson-jones