1231: Owen Hanson | From USC Golden Boy to International Drug Kingpin

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Speaker 1 Today on the show, you ever read a book and think, oh, that is a party I missed and also a prison sentence that I didn't?

Speaker 1 This episode is for anybody who's ever had FOMO and bad decision-making impulses in equal measure.

Speaker 1 Today's guest grew up chasing dad's approval, joined a frat, turned a $4,200 bag of cocaine into instant celebrity status, then parlayed black market hustle into a white-collar bookie empire complete with call centers in Costa Rica, cartel phone calls, and the kind of high-roller parties that make the Oscars look like PTA bake sales.

Speaker 1 He smuggled cash and UGGs, laundered money for drug cartels, lost a bunch of it, and somehow stayed alive to tell the tale. This is the story of the cocaine quarterback.

Speaker 1 A story about status, networks, hustle, and the exact moment that being honest becomes a survival skill. It's wild, cinematic, absolutely true, and it ends with somebody making ice cream behind bars.

Speaker 1 So buckle up and dive in with me here with Owen Hansen.

Speaker 1 I got to tell you the book, man, it makes me feel like I really missed out on some amazing parties.

Speaker 2 We definitely had a good run.

Speaker 1 Man, I also maybe missed out on some prison time. So there's that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you didn't miss out on that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Maybe less FOMO.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, yeah. That's the FOMO you don't want to be.

Speaker 1 We're not supposed to glorify criminal activity, but partying is not criminal activity.

Speaker 1 It sounds just like you had a really good time in college yeah after that it's like the wolf of wall street yeah and it's just a lot of fun times with minimal consequences until then they weren't so minimal anymore yes the book starts with your mom just basically packing up and leaving with your sister so what happened there because that's kind of an early primal wound that you don't just get over yeah i think you got to understand that two couples you know didn't get along my father and mother divorced and as a child you don't know what's going on because you're young and you're seeing them fight like cats and dogs.

Speaker 2 And you're like, man, what's going on? But at that age, my sister's four, I'm eight. And I'm like, man, I don't know what's going on, but something bad's going to happen.
You feel it.

Speaker 2 And I remember my mom packed up and put everything in the station wagon that day. And my sister's crying.
And like, I'm starting to cry. And shit, man, what's happening?

Speaker 2 Then I remember she drove off, saw me crying. My dad's like, no, no, we don't cry in this household.
Come on. Go get your volleyballs.
Go get your surfboard. We're going to the beach.

Speaker 2 And I remember I didn't see my mom for like another nine months months until Thanksgiving. Like, oh, we're going to get to see your mom.
My dad told me. And I was like devastated.

Speaker 2 I'm talking to her on the phone. And back then, you don't have cell phones.
There's no such thing as FaceTime or Skype. None of that's around.
And I'm just bombed out. What did I do?

Speaker 2 I tell my dad, Dad, did I not shower? Why is mom leaving?

Speaker 1 So you're like thinking, did I not clean my room enough?

Speaker 2 Something I did wrong.

Speaker 1 I mean, look. People handle things in different ways, but it sounds like they just handle this so poorly.
How do you not explain to your kids what's going to happen? You separate siblings.

Speaker 1 You don't allow them to have emotions in one house. What were they thinking?

Speaker 2 They weren't, right? Yeah. And at the end of the day, we obviously make some mistakes in life.
And my dad talks about that in the documentary, Cocaine Quarterback. And he says, you know what?

Speaker 2 I regret what I did and I fucked up. And my dad admits it.

Speaker 2 At least he takes responsibility now, right?

Speaker 1 He wasn't in good shape, though, like mentally, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, drinking a lot of alcohol and just use a partier. And now I see where I got it.
So eventually I fell down that path.

Speaker 1 You were eight and your sister was four?

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Are you close with her now?

Speaker 2 We talk. Listen.
Like, obviously, I went to federal prison and you lose everybody.

Speaker 1 What does that mean, though? You lose everybody. Why? Because they can still call you or you can call them.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you can call them, but a lot of people get scared, I think. And you really, I tell people I can count my true friends on one hand because that's the only people that stayed in contact.

Speaker 2 And two of those are my parents, right? A lot of people get scared. A lot of people are really just enjoying that ride when I had money.

Speaker 1 Scared. Why are they scared of you at this point?

Speaker 2 People get scared because you're in prison. A lot of people are worried, oh, am I going to get in trouble for associating with him?

Speaker 1 Oh, I see. As a lawyer, that doesn't make a ton of sense to me because you're not guilty because someone called you from prison.

Speaker 2 I lost who I thought was my best friend, gone. All my college buddies, gone.
No one would reach out. No one would put money on my books.
No one would accept my letters, my collect phone calls.

Speaker 2 It was a dark moment of my life. I'm not going to lie.
But the guys that did stay are the guys that were there for me from day one. Fullback from USC, Brandon Hancock.
I'll never forget this.

Speaker 2 He would come visit me every month in prison. He'd buy me microwave burritos, black coffees out of the vending machine, like stuff that you don't have while you're inside a prison cell.

Speaker 2 And for me, that was like, wow, that's a good friend. And that day I got released on March 4th, 2024 from federal prison, my dad and my fullback were there to greet me.

Speaker 2 And that was an amazing feeling. Wow.

Speaker 1 I've done some volunteer work in prison. And so I've been inside a prison with people who are there for crimes that are more heinous than money laundering generally, like serious violence, gang stuff.

Speaker 1 Usually, it's murder of some variety. And you're one of the only people who can probably relate to this.
It's a weird dichotomy, right?

Speaker 1 Because they're like really vulnerable, showing you their resume.

Speaker 1 They're trying to speak English if they don't speak English as their first language, and they're really friendly and they're hugging you and stuff.

Speaker 1 And you're like, huh, I wonder what that guy's in here for. And the coordinator's like, oh, he killed like seven members of a rival gang.
And you're like,

Speaker 1 man, that doesn't jibe with who I expect those people to be based on watching movies of gang members.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then she's like, We have to understand he's 45 years old. He did this when he was 17.
And you're like, how long has this guy been in prison? Holy shit, he grew up in here. This is awful.

Speaker 2 And you met probably a lot of people like a lot of lifers, a lot of guys that were never getting out. These guys, they give them like three life sentences.

Speaker 2 Why do you got to give them two extra life sentences? Wasn't the one life sentence enough? Like, what's that going to do?

Speaker 1 Some of that's, you can be paroled for one thing, but not another thing.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's, yeah, it's got to be on the books, but yeah, functionally, functionally, it doesn't make sense when somebody gets a thousand years in prison.

Speaker 2 You're like, okay, how's that going to work?

Speaker 2 The first prison I went to, United States Penitentiary of Lompoc, I remember in my unit, there must have been 80% of lifers because I got sentenced to so much time, 21 and a half years, and I'm young, right?

Speaker 2 I'm 32 years old at the time. And now I'm at this high security level and I'm around like murderers and hell's angels and mafia associates and black hands, Mexican mafia associates, cartel bosses.

Speaker 2 I'm like, holy smokes. I'm this USC kid from Redondo Beach.
What am I doing here? Like, how did I get to this level?

Speaker 1 That's got to be pretty scary. Were you charged with mostly white-collar crime then?

Speaker 2 Yeah, Rico, which was racketeering, obviously illegal bookmaking, money laundering, and distribution of cocaine. That's where I got.
Okay, because I'm thinking

Speaker 1 when somebody's fucking with spreadsheets, it's like, why are you putting them in the prison with the mafia?

Speaker 2 Damn drugs that got me. Yeah, that'll do it.
Yeah. That'll do it.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Well, that makes a little bit more sense because I was confused at first. I'm like, this guy's guilty of manipulating an Excel spreadsheet.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 1 So you grow up, you live for sports, you live for your dad's approval from the sound of it, at least initially, but he's, I guess now they would call it emotionally unavailable.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I like that line. Back then, normal dad stuff, probably.

Speaker 2 That's not one of those dads that can tell you he loves you. You know, like he just wants you to go play sports and excel at it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But one thing you mentioned that was interesting was when you did well, he would say like, that's my son. Look, isn't he good?

Speaker 1 It makes you kind of sad, though, because like that's the only way he was capable of expressing any of this.

Speaker 1 And you can just, I get a picture of a guy that's, I can only imagine what your grandfather was like on his side. Just emotionally stunted guy who can only be like, look, he man put ball and net.

Speaker 1 And you're like, God damn, you need to go sing kumbaya in a therapist's office for a decade or something, man. Get a kick your head.

Speaker 2 No doubt. Yeah.
Like it was never, you did good on your schoolwork. Yeah.
I love you, son. Pat you on the back.
That never happened. Like that happened.
once I went to prison. How funny is that?

Speaker 2 Like now we're saying, I love you. Now it's work.
It like took me this long. Yeah.

Speaker 1 When I had to go to federal prison to get a freaking Christmas card.

Speaker 2 Come on, man.

Speaker 1 So you join a frat in college. You realize how much everybody's overpaying for Coke was your big takeaway.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I grew up literally as this blue-collar kid, and my dad was a construction worker.
Yeah. And I get to USC and my eyes are like, whoa, where am I? I do not belong here.

Speaker 2 American Express Black Cards. Never seen a Black Card.
BMW's Mercedes. Frat Brothers.
Frat Brothers.

Speaker 2 Like, man, I'm driving my grandfather's 1989 Toyota Camry that was given to me when he passed what year was it we're in 2002

Speaker 2 we're in like how does this thing still run territory exactly and i'm embarrassed i don't even want to bring it to school and i'm watching these kids move and they got nice proda and gucci i don't know anything about that i'm just a surfer kid with quicksilver and billabong stuff i feel like that still flies in college oh i love the deliberately laid-back blue collar look yeah yeah yeah that's my aesthetic like okay how am i going to survive like they're asking me to go out to dinner with them and i'm like i don't have two nickels to rub together.

Speaker 2 So I'm just like embarrassed, right? I'm like, I got to study for my test. I had an excuse for everything.
And then enough was enough. I was like, man, I'm watching these guys party.

Speaker 2 And I haven't partied yet. My dad was, like I said, very strict.
Don't drink. It's going to cost you in the long run.
Because he was an alcoholic. Right.
Okay. So I was scared.

Speaker 2 I knew alcohol was bad because my dad ruined his life. I'm not going to drink.
And then come sophomore year. I'm in this fraternity and they're like, dude, you have to drink.

Speaker 2 It's like part of being in a fraternity.

Speaker 1 I was going to ask, you can't be like, I'm sober. If you joined, what is it?

Speaker 2 Babies, they're known for partying. You're known for doing blow.
I'm like, fuck it. What's my dad going to do? Come up here and spank me.
I was just like, fuck it. I had a couple beers.

Speaker 2 It's like, man, now I see why my dad told me not to drink. I felt like Superman.
I was like, this is awesome. And then in beta, I see all these guys doing the Coke.
And I'm like, wow.

Speaker 2 I've seen this, but I've never done it. I would never even cross that line.
And I did some. And I was like, oh, God, made me want to shit right away.
Yeah, of course. It was funny.

Speaker 2 Cause it's like people go, really?

Speaker 1 And then it's, remember when you had that cup of coffee? Yeah. Times 11.
Exactly.

Speaker 2 So I was like, wait a minute here. And I'm asking these guys, like, what do you guys pay for this? I'm just curious.
And they're like, $100 a bag.

Speaker 2 And the bag, for people who don't know, besides the two thumbnails. Yeah.
Two thumbnails. I'm like, wow, $100 for that.
And then my mind, my hustle mindset starts thinking.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, wait a minute. I grew up in Redondo Beach.
I had friends that were part of a Mexican gang.

Speaker 1 There's no no way they were paying $100.

Speaker 2 There's no way these guys were. And they were doing it all the time.
And they were selling it. I was like, man, if I remember correctly, these guys were selling it for, they're buying for $100.

Speaker 2 They're selling it for $40.

Speaker 2 So I made a call. I called one of my friends that was from a gang in Redondo, a Mexican gang.
And I said, hey, scraps, what are you getting? Like those grams?

Speaker 2 They're buying them up here for $100 a gram. He goes, what? He goes, dude, I can make you rich.

Speaker 2 I said, scraps, are you serious? He goes, yeah, I'm going to front you an ounce for $700.

Speaker 1 Break down how many.

Speaker 2 So there's 28 grams in an ounce. Okay.
So 28 bags. If I sold them for $100 like this other guy is doing, that'd be $2,800.

Speaker 2 But I'm like, no, I want to undercut the guy that's selling it for $100. My business mind's like, I could still sell it for $65 or $60, and I'm still making 300% markup.
I'm doing the math.

Speaker 2 I'm like, okay.

Speaker 2 28. I'm like, okay, dude, I'm only getting it for like 25 bucks, a gram.
So I'm like, dude, I could sell it for 50 and still double my money. So I'm like, I set the price at 60.

Speaker 2 And I'll never forget this. He came to USC and he gave me the styrofoam container.
Like I thought it was a burger and fries, right? And he goes, here you go.

Speaker 2 Oh, and I open it up and there's eight ounces of Coke. And he says, eight ounces? Eight ounces.
I thought I was only getting one. He goes, let's see how you do.
And I didn't have money.

Speaker 2 So he's fronting it to me at $5,600.

Speaker 2 I was like, okay, I don't even know how do I weigh out a gram? Like, I didn't know anything. He's okay.
Here's your gram bags. Here's your scale.

Speaker 2 And he's showing me, okay, put the spoon in here, scoop it in. And he's showing me how to do it in his minivan, doing it in the parking lot of beta.
He says, Owen, just undercut the market.

Speaker 2 I'm like, that's easy. He goes, this stuff's a lot better than they have.

Speaker 1 Trust me. That was my other question.
The stuff the guys are getting is like half decongested.

Speaker 2 They're getting it at the Arco gas station.

Speaker 2 There's a Mexican guy that just got off of work painting houses and he's selling graham bags to these fraternity kids for 100 bucks and it's stepped on with baby lactose.

Speaker 2 So no wonder I had a shit, right? Right. It's a baby laxative? Yeah.
It's a baby laxative.

Speaker 1 It's that plus the normal effect.

Speaker 1 So you're just like, I'll just give these guys the pure whatever cocaine because why bother cutting it and making 300% already?

Speaker 2 I remember that summer moving into the fraternity house and school's about to start and I have double days for USC football. And I'm like, man, how am I going to be able to juggle this?

Speaker 2 I told my roommate and I said, hey, I got an offer for you. He says, what? I said, I got this Coke.
I weighed out these gram bags. A lot of the betas and all the sorority girls love this stuff.

Speaker 2 I said, why don't we do a deal? Every time you sell one ounce, you get one gram on me because I already knew he liked to party. And he's like, oh, I love that idea.
And I'll never forget this, Jordan.

Speaker 2 I got back from practice literally maybe six hours later. And I get there.
My roommates just yakk out of his mind. And he's like, God, bad news.
I'm like, what happened?

Speaker 2 He's, Hezekiah, I'm thinking like he spilled it or dropped it down the toilet. I said, what's the bad news? He goes, we're out of cocaine.
I'm like, oh,

Speaker 2 I said, did you put it all up your nose? He goes, look in the sock drawer. And I opened the sock drawer and there's just 20s and hundreds just full.
Oh, he sold everything.

Speaker 2 He sold everything in a few hours. I was like, holy shit.
I think I'm on to something, Jordan.

Speaker 1 It's almost like this stuff sells itself.

Speaker 2 Yeah. It's like, I didn't even have to do this.
Yeah. I said, I was at practice.
Imagine if I could do this every practice. And literally, that's what it turned into.
It snowballed, no pun intended.

Speaker 2 Literally to where I was going to practice, making money while I was practicing, coming back, getting money from my roommate. He's high as a kai.
He's happy. All his girlfriends are happy.

Speaker 2 Everyone's happy because now we got this Coke that's half the price. And everyone's just looking at me like, God, what genius.

Speaker 1 What else can you get? And the answer is more cocaine.

Speaker 2 Cocaine? Oh, you're having problems sleeping? Let me get you Xanax. And then, oh, you want to do a little ecstasy? No problem.
Hey, scraps, can we bring an ecstasy? He'd bring me a thousand pills.

Speaker 2 A thousand. Wow.

Speaker 1 But then if you're selling to every sorority and every frat at US.

Speaker 2 It goes fast. Yeah.
He's giving them to me for $3. And I'm doing the markups.
I'm like, wow, this is insane.

Speaker 1 How much money were you making week to week?

Speaker 2 I was making like average $2,000 a week as a 19-year-old kid in college that had the only job I ever had was working at a surf shop.

Speaker 1 My spending money was probably like $2,000 a year.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And my dad was like, what are you doing? Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right, I'll stop eating lunch.

Speaker 2 Times have changed, right? Everything's so expensive.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so we went to college about the same time. I went to Michigan.
California, it's probably similar to school, but California is way more expensive than Michigan.

Speaker 1 In Michigan, I remember being like, I can't afford to go drinking. It's 50 bucks at the end of the night.

Speaker 2 I can't afford it.

Speaker 1 But all the California kids and all the New York kids, they didn't care because their parents were like, everything's a third of the price in Michigan.

Speaker 1 So if we were going to give you, I don't know, a thousand dollars in spending money per month, those people could live like kings on that in Michigan.

Speaker 1 You grew up poor, but this is like, not only are you rich as shit now in college, you're a man of status because everybody wants to invite you to every party because you're the guy with the stuff.

Speaker 1 They're never going to exclude you from anything.

Speaker 1 And people are going to buy you drinks because if you're running low on stuff and that guy bought you a drink and that guy didn't, this is the one who's getting the bag, even though he still has to pay for it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So, like, now you're the man and you have a ton of money.

Speaker 2 I'm making money and I'm hustling. And now the guys on the football team are seeing me take some performance enhancing drugs.
And I'm starting to get big and I'm on this juice now.

Speaker 2 And people are like, man, how are you getting so big? Like, I got that too. They don't test football.
They do. They test you, but during the summer, you don't get tested.

Speaker 2 So right now, season starts in like September, you start. So I knew how to get there and get them off the stuff in time for season.

Speaker 2 So I'd get guys that are injured and they're like, dude, you got a torn ACL. Okay, let's get you some DECA, some sustenance, some growth hormone.
Let's put you on that.

Speaker 2 So they recover and they recover fast.

Speaker 1 How much muscle you think these guys were gaining in an offseason?

Speaker 2 Oh, man, like 20 pounds. Wow.
Yeah. It just depends what you're on.
Holy smoke. Oh, yeah.
Guys were getting big. I was 185 when I came to USC and I got to 240 when I was playing tight.

Speaker 2 Okay, I was going to say. Yeah.
So I was a volleyball player. And I came there for volleyball.
Then I ended up walking onto the football team.

Speaker 1 But to go to 240, how long did that take three months oh my yeah it was it was that's crazy d must have had stretch marks then oh yeah

Speaker 1 all through my arms oh my god and you're selling to guys that you know and you live with so I won't say it's risk-free but like I'm living in a bubble yeah people aren't getting pulled over with it unless they're flopping out of college or having a medical event nobody notices it oh look at that beta guy drunk and on cocaine that's not going to make the news never and unless something bad happens which you're probably lucky it didn't you're just going to get away with it yeah Yeah, and people aren't overdosing on cocaine.

Speaker 2 Like they're just staying up.

Speaker 1 Yeah, not really. I mean, you can, obviously.

Speaker 2 And now, of course, fentanyl is also dangerous as hell now.

Speaker 1 So you're buying pills. You're selling the stuff in a couple of days.
You're buying the Coke and get rid of it. How did you make the football team? Because that's a real football team.

Speaker 1 You can't just be like, hey, I think I'd like to try this football thing.

Speaker 2 It was an accident, right? My volleyball coach put me on the bench and says, I'm going to redshirt you.

Speaker 2 All you don't know, a redshirt means you're not going to lose eligibility, but you're not going to play this year.

Speaker 2 Because the reason I wasn't going to play was because I got cut from the volleyball team. And I'm like, okay, my coach calls me in the office and he says, hey, you need to work on your arm strength.

Speaker 2 You need to become stronger when you hit the ball and you need to work on your vertical jump. And he says, that's the only way you're going to be able to play on this team.
So I was so bummed out.

Speaker 2 That day I lost that family that I had with the volleyball team. And it felt like that time I was with my mom when she left.
I was like, I just lost my family. Like my volleyball team was my boys.

Speaker 1 That plucked that guitar string. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Now what am I going to do? And I'm scrambling, right? I'm like, you know what? I'm going to come back to that team. I'm going to be part of that family again.
I'm going to do whatever it takes.

Speaker 2 And that's when I went to Gold's Gym in Redona Beach and I found the biggest bodybuilder. And I said, hey, I just got cut.
What do I need to do to work on my arm strength and my vertical jump?

Speaker 2 And he says, you got a set of balls on you? I said, what do I need to do? He says, you were willing to do it illegally? I said, absolutely.

Speaker 2 He says, go down to Tijuana and get some performance-enhancing drugs, some anabolic steroids. And he says, I'll give you the veterinarian to go to.

Speaker 1 Oh, he's a veterinarian. I thought he was just like, go ask around now.

Speaker 2 He gave me a veterinarian to go to.

Speaker 2 And I remember taking my friend from Redondo, and we'd literally drive down to Tijuana. I give them this list and they're looking at it.
And they're like, yeah, we have all this.

Speaker 2 And they're giving me all these horse pills, animal pills. And I'm just like, I'm literally taping them up.
My buddy's like, where are you going to put them? I'm like, I'm going to kester them.

Speaker 2 So I put it around my keystream. I pull up my compressor shorts.

Speaker 1 Oh, so you just taped the pills to your body?

Speaker 2 I taped them right under my balls. I tell people, dude, that was it.
That rush of smuggling these things across the border when the U.S. customs agent says, are you bringing anything back?

Speaker 2 And for the first time, I lied to him. I said, no, sir, I'm not.
I wasn't going to tell him, yeah, I got a bunch of stairwells strapped to my balls.

Speaker 2 He goes like this and he goes, welcome back to America. And I was like, that was the rush.
I tell people that was the rush that I had that I'd been chasing the whole time, that I broke the law.

Speaker 2 I just beat the customs out of this and I smuggled my first drug into America. And that's where this thing literally took off from that run.
Wow.

Speaker 1 I'm a terrible liar. I'd be bad at this, but I remember bringing porn back on a trip once because I was like, Where do you get this? This is pre-porn on the internet.

Speaker 1 And I remember I had it in a bag, and they pulled me aside. And they're like, We need to do some additional screening.
And I was with my friend and his mom. And the guy's like, What's in here?

Speaker 1 And I was like, Don't open that, which you can't say that to a cop, right? And he goes, What's in here, kid?

Speaker 2 And I was like, porn, but my friend's mom is like right there.

Speaker 1 And he goes, Does any of it involve animals or underage kids? And I was like, God, no.

Speaker 2 And he's like, all right, I got you.

Speaker 1 And he just shoved it aside. And I was like, now as an adult, I'm like, wait a minute.

Speaker 1 He just believed me, but I guess I was credibly scared as hell that my friend's mom was going to see these VHS tapes with porn on it.

Speaker 1 And so he cut me a break on that one, which is funny looking back at it. I would never be able to bring it back anything.
And I'd be like, I got to be so readable.

Speaker 1 You're a better liar than me, I think. But you get this rush from bringing this back.
And then do you just think I need to do that again?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I just keep going back. I'm like realizing, okay, no, I'm taking it.
Everyone's seeing me take it, and they all want it. I'm like, okay, I'm that concierge, that black market concierge.

Speaker 2 I tell people, like, I can get you anything. They start calling me Dr.
O'Dog. You know, my nickname's my name's O'Dog, and then people are calling me Doctor.
I can get anything they want.

Speaker 2 And they're asking me for just everything and anything, Somas, Xanax, Adderall. I'm like, Yeah, I got you.
If I don't got you, I got a guy.

Speaker 2 I was like the man around town in USC, this 30,000 people at the school. So it's a small town.

Speaker 1 Man, the stuff in the book, I was just like, oh man, this man has lived a nice life. The spring break stories and stuff.

Speaker 1 And I never joined a frat because I was like, I don't want to get distracted from school. Nerd alert.
But I got FOMO at that part of the book.

Speaker 1 I was like, I've had a lot of fun, but I worked way too hard. I took college too seriously.
And I know that people are going to get upset with me for saying that, but it's true.

Speaker 1 I realized afterwards that. The kids who said C's get degrees.
I was like, what a loser. And now I'm like, damn it, that guy went to the same law school as me.

Speaker 2 How did that happen? Yeah, during that era, you got to remember, Matt Leiner was dating Paris Hilton. Reggie Bush was dating Kim Kardashian.
We were like the NFL team of California.

Speaker 2 There was no team in L.A. that was a professional team.

Speaker 1 Because you guys won that, was it?

Speaker 2 Did you guys won the two national? Yeah, both national championships back years.

Speaker 1 So you guys are like college students and celebrities. That's cool.

Speaker 2 Yeah, everywhere we go, red carpet. Everywhere we eat free.
It was amazing. Anywhere we would go in Vegas, paparazzi.
It was just really? Yeah, it was that era.

Speaker 2 Remember that era when paparazzi started to follow guys to the clubs and the restaurants? It was like right when that started. That TMC.

Speaker 1 Dude, how old are you? 22? Yeah, you're 22. That's not good for you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's good for the head.

Speaker 1 The treatment's nice, but I would also imagine that you have the celebrity of that, but also

Speaker 1 the other guys are treating you as special because you've got the drugs and stuff and you can get out a, I don't know, a ticket maybe here and there.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you're the man.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Jeez.

Speaker 1 What's the markup on the steroids? I know the drugs is like 300%. What are you selling the steroids for at that point?

Speaker 2 Steroids are literally buying a bottle of testosterone for $30 and selling it for $300. So 1,000% marketable.
Wow.

Speaker 1 So how did this end? Did you just decide to stop selling drugs? And if so, why?

Speaker 2 I told myself, this is just to get by for USC. My goal was to graduate from USC and get a job with an alumni.
That's what people go to USC for, networking. And that's what I did.

Speaker 2 I got a job in real estate working for a big commercial real estate developer out of Brentwood, California. And I was making, you know, my first year out six figures.
And I was like, this is great.

Speaker 2 This is the life.

Speaker 1 Most people can't do that. They're like, why should I work when I can just arbitrage and not actually do anything and just party all the time? But you were like, this is not going to last forever.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I just knew like eventually my dad's going to wonder how am I making money.
Now I got to show him that I have a legit job because I still fear my old man.

Speaker 2 And I'll never forget it. The recession hit in 2007 and I lost that job.
And that's when I was like, okay, now I'm scrambling again, just like I scrambled before. But what am I going to do?

Speaker 2 And I'm like, okay, I don't want to get involved in the drugs. Let's do book baking.
I'm going to be a bookie. I love sports.
I'm friends with a lot of athletes.

Speaker 2 I got these A-list celebrities that are partying with us. I got all these fraternity kids with a lot of money.
Why don't I just start being the bookie to these guys that I'm basically grown up with?

Speaker 1 And I'm going to also guess that the penalties for being an illegal bookie are way lower than a guy holding a kilo of cocaine in his dorm room or whatever.

Speaker 2 For sure. It's a slap on the wrist.
Okay.

Speaker 1 That's not a bad idea. And now are you meshing the black market concierge stuff, expertise, I should say, with gambling?

Speaker 2 So what I would do is I would have these VIP customers that are quote-unquote whales. I would provide the VIP service to them where like instead of them going to Vegas, I bring Vegas to them.

Speaker 2 Okay, so what do you want? Okay, so you want to gamble? No problem. Here's my website.
You can gamble on all the sports you need to. What else do you need? Oh, you want an eight-ball in? some patron?

Speaker 2 No problem. Let me have that dropped off.
So that concierge service still came out, but only for my like VIP customers. Oh, you're going to a tiesto concert.
Let me get you some ecstasy pills.

Speaker 2 Let me get you some molly. Oh, you want some girls? Let me call a couple of my girlfriends I know.
Just pay for their room and board, and they'll come and hang out with you.

Speaker 2 Like now it started to be like Vegas, right? But I brought Vegas.

Speaker 1 All you had to do is the girls didn't need to make any money off this?

Speaker 2 No, the girls make money when the guys are winning. So the way the girls make money is if the guys are winning on the tables or because I have a live dealer on my website.

Speaker 2 So you can play blackjack or you can bet on sports. So when the guys win, the girls get tipped.
They get tipped out.

Speaker 1 Is this like explicit? How do they know to do that?

Speaker 2 I tell my VIP customers, listen, take care of the girls if you win because this is part of the service. That's what they do in Vegas, too.

Speaker 1 I have no idea. I rarely pay women to hang out.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't even know how to do that.

Speaker 2 You wouldn't believe how many guys, that's all they do. You're paying them to leave.
At the end of the day, that's all it is. These guys have wives, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 They have families, so they obviously don't want their wives to know. So these girls, they flirt with you and have drinks with you.
And whatever else they do, that's on you guys.

Speaker 2 But I tell them, make sure you take care of the girls. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You said you had a live dealer on the website. Am I watching a a real person in a room somewhere?

Speaker 2 I have someone in Costa Rica that's dealing the cards. Oh, wow.
And you're on a camera and I'm able to say, hit or stay. And I was one of the first ones.

Speaker 1 I was going to say, you must have been one of the first ones to do that because I assume now people do that because we have Zoom and everything.

Speaker 2 It's everywhere now.

Speaker 1 But I've never seen it because I don't gamble. And that must have been, what year was this? 2009?

Speaker 2 2009.

Speaker 1 So video conferencing stuff to have a live dealer, again, I don't gamble and I don't advertise gambling stuff on the show, but that's such a novel idea, especially at that point.

Speaker 1 And people are like, okay, I'm at home and I can't get to Vegas, but I'm with all my friends or something. And I can see the appeal.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it was appealing because now you're not going against the computer. Like when people play these, these games.
Yeah, like, oh, this thing's rigged.

Speaker 2 Now you can't tell me it's rigged because you're actually playing with the dealer with a full deck of cards. Yes.

Speaker 1 No, that makes a lot of sense. Okay.
And you're treating this like a business. Yes, it's gambling, but it sounds in the book, it sounds like you're paying people when they win.

Speaker 1 You're not dicking them around. The game isn't rigged any more than gambling already is for the dealer.
It's a real business. Good luck collecting from me, pal, kind of situation.

Speaker 2 Like people say in the documentary, Owen ran it like a Fortune 500 company. You got paid on Monday, and when you lose, I expected to be paid the same time.
And I treated it like that.

Speaker 2 And the more I treated it like that kind of business, the more clients I would get because people would spread the word like, wow, this guy. He pays you on Mondays.
He gives you 10% off your losses.

Speaker 2 He gives you free play when you lose. He invites you to dinners and he takes you to wherever.

Speaker 1 So you don't feel like a schmo when you, like an idiot when you lose.

Speaker 2 I'm not just treating you like some piece of junk.

Speaker 1 Yeah, now that's interesting.

Speaker 2 Who are the clients?

Speaker 1 Like what kind of people?

Speaker 2 Listen, literally, I talk about it in the book. One of my clients I took a bet from was Paris Hilton, right? My buddy was dating her for many years.

Speaker 2 And obviously a lot of professional athletes that like to bet. And a lot of that LA life back in the 2000s, the nightlife scene, mostly those A-list celebrities that are in the movies, right?

Speaker 1 Do you yourself enjoy gambling or is it just a business?

Speaker 2 No, it's a business. I know you can't beat the house.
Bad place Las Vegas is built for a reason. I don't have the wiring for it.

Speaker 1 I don't feel any elation when I win. I'm just kind of like, oh, that worked out.
But when I lose, I feel like, oh, that was stupid.

Speaker 1 So I have all the downside feeling, but the dopamine doesn't kick in as hard as it does for somebody who really enjoys it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. If I have an edge, right? Like being a bookmaker, you have an edge because you're charging 10% VIG for you to bet $110 to win $100.
That means I have a 10% edge.

Speaker 2 Anytime I have an edge, I'll take that. That's why I'm the house.
But as far as gambling, I tell people, like, I'm already the house. What do I need to gamble for? I'm already taking action.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think when I do episodes on organized crime or whatever, and somebody's got like a rigged game, like they pay a soccer player to take a dive or something, that sounds interesting to me.

Speaker 1 Like, look, it's illegal, so I won't do it. But if you guaranteed to win, I'm interested in that.

Speaker 2 I'll bet on that.

Speaker 1 In theory, again, I don't want to engage in illegal activity because I don't need to. That's interesting to me.

Speaker 1 But just actually betting on something where the outcome is uncertain, far less fun for me. I don't have the appetite for risk.
What if someone doesn't pay, though?

Speaker 1 Surely there were people who were like, oh, I lost 100 grand. Fuck you, Owen.
I'm not giving you that.

Speaker 2 That's where I excelled, right? Everyone's like, well, how does Owen collect? I'm not scared to, you know, start small, right?

Speaker 2 If a guy stiffs me and I just paid him like the week before, let's say I paid a guy $1,000 the week before, and then the next week he loses 500 but doesn't want to pay me.

Speaker 2 That's like stealing to me because I just paid you. So what's your excuse? And that's when I turned to my collection department.

Speaker 2 And usually it's six foot six Samoans from the Booyah tribe, a blood gang and Compton or Carson and tattoos on their face. And that's my last resort.
First, we'll start small.

Speaker 2 We'll call them and let you know, like, hey, we know where your wife works and we know your kids go to school here. Just little scare tactics.

Speaker 2 Obviously, violence is not allowed in our business because that's going to put you in prison for a long time. Always a little scare tactics.

Speaker 2 And if that doesn't work, then we send flowers to the wife's work and saying, hey, let your know your husband know we're trying to collect the money. He goes.

Speaker 1 Why flowers? Just because it shows you know where she is. And

Speaker 2 the message gets delivered. And if that doesn't work, then we will do like a pizza delivery where the pizza man will come to the house now and will say, hey, this is from so-and-so.

Speaker 2 It's time to pay your debt.

Speaker 1 Except the pizza guy is a Samoan gang delivery.

Speaker 2 Sorry, the pizza is called. That's the last outcome.
Yeah, yeah. And then that's where it costs money because now this guy is actually putting his life at danger because the cop's going to get called.

Speaker 2 He's never asked to do anything as far as hurt, touch. He's just intimidation.

Speaker 1 Those guys are still taking a risk, though, because if I'm a degenerate gambler and armed or something and some big guy comes to my house, I don't know that he's not going to hurt me or my family.

Speaker 1 So I might shoot him. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. They're definitely taking the most risk, but they get paid the most.

Speaker 1 Oh, they do? What do they take?

Speaker 2 50%.

Speaker 1 50%. Okay.
So now you're losing money. Yeah.

Speaker 2 At this point, it's principal now. Right.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And also setting an example.

Speaker 2 And you're making a name for yourself. And that's why I was so big in the industry.
I had like a 90% collection ratio. And people are like, dude, Owen was the best in the business.

Speaker 2 It was just, for me, it was a mind fuck. I was going to figure out a way to scare you enough where you're going to pay me.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I would imagine you call someone's mom or whatever.

Speaker 2 A private investigator would get me the mom and the dad's phone number. Always.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's got to have a high situation.

Speaker 2 It's a go-to.

Speaker 1 Like, not only are we disappointed in you, but this dude showed up to your mother's place of employment or your mother's knitting club. Had an interesting guest this evening.

Speaker 1 Do you want to explain why you're gambling and then not paying your debt, pal? Now for some criminally good deals on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 You can find the course, again, all free at sixminutenetworking.com. Now, back to Owen Hanson.

Speaker 1 There was a guy in law school, and for some reason, he owed another guy money, but it was like a legitimate thing, and he just wouldn't pay him. And we were all friends.

Speaker 1 So we were like, what the hell? You're not going to pay him? And we couldn't really figure out why. So, what my friend did was his mother or whatever knew some guy who was like Mike from Breaking Bad.

Speaker 1 And this guy called and was the kid's mom and was like, Do you know your son didn't pay rent? Are you giving him rent money? And she's like, Who is this? And he's, don't hang up.

Speaker 1 Your son owes $5,000 or whatever dollars to another kid. You should ask him about it.
And so this kid like ran to my friend to give him the cash.

Speaker 2 Yeah. That's usually what happens.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Imagine your mom calling.

Speaker 2 It's humiliating, right?

Speaker 1 It is. It scared her.
Because I don't think the guy was like, I'm going to beat your ass or I'm going to beat up your kid.

Speaker 1 I think he was just like, you should talk to your son about the virtues of paying money that you owe. And most parents don't even need to know what that's for.

Speaker 1 They're just like, how are you in this much trouble where this guy's calling me and knows who I am? Yeah. Disappointment, fear.
It's a potent combination, man. It's a potent cocktail.

Speaker 1 So you hired a private investigator to find these guys.

Speaker 2 I'm on my payroll.

Speaker 1 What was that guy like? I can only imagine a guy who's a PI for gambling operations.

Speaker 2 He actually worked for the DEA and FBI. And he was retired.

Speaker 1 Did he have any thoughts about what you were using his services?

Speaker 2 I knew. I told him.
I'm a bookmaker. I said, listen, I do this illegally.
I'm not legit. This is illegal business.
And sometimes guys want to stiff. He's like, well, how are they stiffing you?

Speaker 2 I said, because in my business, we give people lines of credit. We don't get money up front.
And so now he understands. He goes, okay, I can help you out.

Speaker 1 Did he want to make sure that you weren't using his services to go kill someone?

Speaker 2 Exactly. Okay.

Speaker 1 Because I'm thinking, if I'm a PI and I'm a retired federal agent, I'm not going to prison because you found someone and then turned them into a paraplegic with my help.

Speaker 2 He's on the hook for that. He was actually part of the indictment.
He ended up doing two years. Oh, shit.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you'll see that in the movie. Oh, yikes.

Speaker 1 You had another interesting business idea, which you were working with some other guys. You kind of ended up licensing their business or their software.

Speaker 2 Tell me about that. Yeah, so now I'm providing obviously the software.
I'm a bookie, right? I'm having this live dealer. So now people are able to gamble and play blackjack live.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, okay, I have my company called Betto Dog.

Speaker 2 Why don't I use my same software and my same gambling platform and just offer it to anybody that wants to be a bookie and just pay me for the software service?

Speaker 2 So it's not costing me any more overhead. I'm just giving them a domain.
So betjordan.com. I'm giving you an 800 number.

Speaker 2 You're using my software and I'm charging you rent based off your customer list. So if you have 100 customers, I'm saying, okay, it's $25 a week times 100.
That's $2,500 a week that you pay me.

Speaker 2 So now all of a sudden I'm making $10,000 a month from you and it's not costing me any overhead. I've already got people answering the phone.
I got my servers in Costa Rica.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you've got your fixed costs. Yeah.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's great. Why Costa Rica?

Speaker 2 Is it legal there? It's legal there. Oh, I see.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Tell me about this money pickup, the story of your first money pickup. First of all, why were you picking up this money in the first place?

Speaker 2 So I started, the business started to go international. I told one of my sub-bookies, which is a guy that works underneath me, I said, hey, I'm going to international.
I want to go Mexico, Canada.

Speaker 2 If you have customers or family there, let me know. And so I started taking bets from someone in Mexico through one of my sub-bookies.

Speaker 2 And the guy kept losing like duffel bags every Monday dropped off a couple hundred grand here. I'm like, dude, this guy's like a whale.
Keep him happy, whatever he needs. He keeps losing.

Speaker 2 And the guy's bringing me $200,000 every week. I'm like, dude, this guy's awesome.
In a duffel bag? Dufflebag.

Speaker 2 My agent's. First red flag.
First red flag. My agent's happy, though, because he's making 50%.

Speaker 2 I'm making 50%. So we're all like, dude, this is a perfect customer.
We're not asking questions. And it's not my business because he represents his customers.

Speaker 1 So it's in another country.

Speaker 2 What are you going to do?

Speaker 1 API, go down to Mexico and figure out who this guy is.

Speaker 2 It's not happening. And then finally, I see that on Sunday night, the NFL football game's going.
And I'm like, dude, this guy's finally going to win.

Speaker 2 And as a bookie, you always want your customer to win because if they lose, they're never going to keep playing.

Speaker 1 They're going to eventually learn their lesson.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you can't beat the house. So I'm like, yes, this is what I wanted.
I called my sub-bookie and I said, hey, your customer is about to hit. I said, do me a favor.

Speaker 2 Come over here tonight and I'm going to give you his payment. I want you to pay him exactly when he wakes up on Monday morning.
I want him to show that we do good business.

Speaker 2 And he comes over and I give him a duffel bag. I think it was like $220,000.
He hit for it. And I said, 8 a.m.
Sharp, wherever this guy lives, I want you at his front door.

Speaker 2 And I'm telling this bookie, I said, you've made almost a half a million dollars off this guy. Let's take this bag and make him show that we do the same.
And he paid him.

Speaker 2 Jordan, when he paid him on that Monday, I'll never forget this. He comes back like four hours later, and he goes, Hey, my uncle really liked the way you did business.

Speaker 2 I said, Wait a minute, your uncle. He goes, Yeah, that's who's gambling.
I'm like, Okay, I'm glad he liked that. We paid him.
What else? He wanted me to give you this encrypted phone.

Speaker 2 And I look at this phone, and it's a Blackberry. There's three passwords to get in.
There's no GPS service in it. There's no camera and there's no microphone.

Speaker 1 I'm like, So it's like text only?

Speaker 2 Text only. I'm like, okay.
So I go and open up this phone with three passwords. It's literally a Blackberry stripped of everything.
And it says, I like the way you do business. Just that.

Speaker 2 And I was like, okay, I appreciate it. Anything you need, let me know.
You're our VIP customer and making him feel good.

Speaker 1 So he wants direct contact with you, not via his nephew or the business.

Speaker 2 Yes, his nephew. He goes, I know you're a bookie and you do good business.
Would you be willing to help me out? And I'm like, like, how? Like, what's this guy getting at?

Speaker 2 He's like, sometimes I need money dropped off in the U.S. and I can't.
use my cash because I'm in Mexico. Would you be willing to do that for me?

Speaker 2 Because as a bookie, you have money all over the United States. So for me, it's easy because I have people holding money everywhere in pretty much every state that work for me.

Speaker 2 So I'm like, okay, what are you thinking? He's like, I need 100 grand dropped off in San Diego. I'm like, no problem.
So I have one of my sub-bookies drop off 100 grand.

Speaker 2 He goes, okay, every time you drop off money for me, I'm going to give you 10% on the money. I'm like, perfect.

Speaker 1 This is easy. You've already got cash in the place and you're getting 10% immediate pay on this.

Speaker 2 Via wire. And for me, I need wires because I need to pay my office in Costa Rica.

Speaker 2 So I'm like, okay, send it to costa rica bank and now all of a sudden these guys are asking me just moving money for i'm like this is the easiest 10 i've ever made per day and then finally he goes can you pick up money i'm like yeah i can pick up what do you need he goes i got a million dollars in brownsville texas i'm like okay a million dollars i'm doing the math okay 10 is a hundred thousand dollars in one day i'm like okay that's a no-brainer i'm the son of a construction worker But remember, I'm that ambitious kid.

Speaker 2 How old are you at this point? I'm 25 at this point.

Speaker 1 Oh my God. Yeah.
Irresistible.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you can't turn down 100 grand at that age in one day. So I'm figuring out, I'm coordinating a private plane, security, and figuring out how to make this happen.
Yeah. Brownsville, Texas.

Speaker 2 He's like, it's our rival. We can't go there.
Once he said rival, I was like, okay, this guy's obviously involved in some organized crime. Oh, he said he is.

Speaker 1 He doesn't mean football.

Speaker 2 So he was obviously from the cartel. And then that's when I picked up that million and I literally dropped it off within six hours to where he had it delivered in Torrance Airport.

Speaker 2 And he's like, wow, you're one of the best workers I've ever seen. You're so prompt.
And he goes, I've never seen anyone work so professionally.

Speaker 1 He didn't try to run away with his money or any crap.

Speaker 2 I know this guy. I could have easily took it if I was a thief, right? Sure.
And then after that, he's like, okay, a week goes by.

Speaker 2 He goes, how would you like to make a million dollars a day doing the same thing you're doing now, but in Australia? I was like, A million dollars a day. I would love to make a million dollars a day.

Speaker 1 Sounds like a good fun year.

Speaker 2 Where do I sign up? And then he broke it down. He says, I have product in Australia.
And that's what I knew.

Speaker 2 I said, product like what is it he says i have cocaine in australia and i need someone to move it and take the money and bring it back and i'm like sign me up i'm gonna figure out a way right the problem is australia is notoriously difficult to get things into i don't know about out of but into for sure for sure and that's what happened he's like it's already there and i'm like okay the hard part's done so now i got to figure out I'm not an international drug kingpin yet, right?

Speaker 2 So I'm like, okay, what am I going to do? So I put together that Rolodex and I just start going through it. Okay, who can can do this?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I remember I have a guy that played baseball at USC and his brother was a weed dealer. Maybe I'll go ask him.
And that's what I did.

Speaker 2 I remember I asked my buddy at USC and he introduced me to his brother who's a weed dealer. And his brother's like, oh, I got a guy that's an Italian guy.

Speaker 2 And this Italian guy, he's an international dude. He knows everyone.
I'm like, I need to talk to him. And I literally had to fly to Naples to meet this guy in Italy.

Speaker 2 Naples, Italy. And I meet this guy and he's like, there's no way you have product in Australia.
He says, that's the number one hardest place in the world to get products into.

Speaker 2 I'm like, dude, I have it. He's like, don't waste my time.
I said, I'm telling you, I have it there. He goes, well, you do this.
He says, you get over there.

Speaker 2 And when you see it with your own eyes, you message me.

Speaker 1 He said the same thing. Somebody's got to lay eyes on this.

Speaker 2 He goes, I don't believe it. And I don't blame him.
I did so much research. I see why it's so hard.
You're the farthest point in the middle of the ocean, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah. And also their customs is crazy for environmental reasons too.

Speaker 1 Like, I've flown there a couple of times and I remember they were like searching everything with the dog and I was like, you can open my luggage. They're like, we do this with everyone.

Speaker 1 And I was like, what are you looking for? She's like, literally apples, bananas, kiwis, whatever it is, and maybe some drugs. And I was like, okay, fine.
And they went through everything.

Speaker 1 And I used to know another guy who smuggled steroids as well. And I was like, well, how does it work? And he explained how they mail it.

Speaker 1 And I said, wow, so you can just order this anywhere in the world? He goes, I won't send anything to Australia because it gets seized like nine times out of 10.

Speaker 2 So they open every package of mail, everything.

Speaker 1 And this is like 10 or 15 years ago. Now they probably have way better tech.
They probably can scan everything.

Speaker 2 They got cameras everywhere.

Speaker 1 Everywhere. And like, so getting a bunch of cocaine to Australia, how do you think he got it there?

Speaker 2 I didn't ask questions. I just

Speaker 2 like, it's not my business, right?

Speaker 1 You gotta have customs agency.

Speaker 2 For sure, there's a crooked customs agent, no doubt. So I literally fly to Australia and this El Jefe is like, okay, you ready to work? I'm like, yeah.
What do you mean?

Speaker 2 He goes, I'm having the product dropped off next week. I'm like, oh, shoot, I'm scrambling.
So I'm telling this Italian guy, I'm like, hey, it's here. I've seen it.
Come hurry.

Speaker 2 I didn't see it, but I'm just taking this guy's word for it. At this point, I don't want to mess around.

Speaker 1 You also don't really,

Speaker 1 why would he lie to you?

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's paid me all this money already. So I'm like, hey, it's here.
Get over here. So he flies over and that's where it started.

Speaker 2 Literally, first 10 kilos, sample run, boom, million dollars brought back to me.

Speaker 1 The street price in Australia has got to be a million dollars.

Speaker 2 Wholesale is 100 grand a kilo. He was buying it for 100 grand, this Italian.
He's selling it to his people for $150,000. $150,000 for one kilo.
Just so people don't know, the price in the U.S.

Speaker 2 right now is probably like $15,000. Wow.

Speaker 1 So this is a 10X markup retail because it's hard to get stuff into Australia. And that's U.S.
pricing. And it's probably coming from Mexico where it's $500 to produce that kilo or whatever.

Speaker 2 Yep, for sure. Crazy.
Or less. Less.
Wow. Wow.

Speaker 1 So this dude, his name is Uncle Louie.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we call him Uncle Louie.

Speaker 1 Somehow very typical. So what was the first sort of deal you did? You said it was a million dollars just right there.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it was just a million right off the rip. Jeez.
And then the next day it was $2 million. The next day, another $2 million.

Speaker 1 So he's bringing that much in every day.

Speaker 1 It really was a million bucks.

Speaker 2 Holy smokes.

Speaker 1 What was a better high than doing cocaine or doing a deal like this for cocaine?

Speaker 2 I think doing a deal like this. Right? I would rather be a millionaire than a drug addict.
Yeah, okay. When you put it that way.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's true. Man, I am.
having some kind of reaction right now.

Speaker 1 I could very well see myself getting into this type of business in my 20s and 30s and being like, I'm just going to quit after a short period of time, but I'm going to have $50 million.

Speaker 1 I'm not getting caught. There's no heat on me.
I'm working with the best guys in the business. Who would wrap me out? I'm not hurting anyone.
Like I'm already rationalizing it. I'm 45 and no better.

Speaker 1 And you're sitting here, you spent time in prison, spoiler alert, but it sounds so easy. It sounds like you're just right place, right time, great market.

Speaker 2 What could go wrong? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Famous last words.

Speaker 2 And I think that's where things went wrong, right? You're now sitting on close to $10 million of the cartel's money. And you're like, okay, now how do I get it out?

Speaker 2 You're thinking El Hefe is going to come and have somebody pick it up, right? And he's, no, that's why I hired you. That's why you're making a million dollars a day.
This story took a turn.

Speaker 2 Different methods to get it out. And one of my best methods in my mind was to use someone to basically launder it through the casinos.
So let's talk about the first run.

Speaker 2 I give them a suitcase full of a million and a half dollars. It's probably about 50 pounds.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's not that bad. So you could fit that in like a tomie roller.

Speaker 2 It's in a tomie. It's funny you say that.
That's what he requested.

Speaker 1 I will say, they do hold up really well. I abused mine and it looks awesome.
It's still in like really good shape. So I can say, yeah, you put 50 pounds of cash in there.

Speaker 1 Although there's not a lot of room for underwear when you fit 50 pounds of cash into a tomie roller. So the guy who requested that, I guess he knew what he was doing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he definitely shook my hand. He says, for 25%, I'll do it.
Wow, that's heavy. That's heavy.
But hey,

Speaker 1 you got to get it out of there.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And I agreed.
He flew over and he did it. He went to the casino.
Literally, he put put his cash up. They already knew he was a high roller because Vegas called him.

Speaker 2 They gave him chips and he just started playing. Little hands, just like 20 grand here, 20 grand here, playing.
And about after two hours, he's, you know what? I'm not feeling it. Cash me out.

Speaker 2 So he already knows that he's got close to a million and a half. So they cash him out and he takes those chips and he goes to the cage and he says, hey, I'm not feeling it today.
Can you cash me out?

Speaker 2 So they give him a check. The check is made out to the sister company and their big sister company in Vegas is Venetian.

Speaker 2 Now he has a check for the Venetian and he's able to fly back to Vegas where he's a high roller and he goes and he gives them the check for a million and a half bucks and they can give him chips, cash, whatever he wants.

Speaker 2 And he just laundered $1.5 million in 48 hours.

Speaker 1 How is this not an obvious way that people launder money that is under high levels of scrutiny?

Speaker 2 At this time, it wasn't even looked at because he's a high roller. Unbelievable.
But now, obviously, it's gotten stricter and there's busts that happen all the time now. Sure.

Speaker 2 The resort world just got busted with guys doing the system.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because otherwise, everyone is doing this.

Speaker 2 Everyone was doing it for a long time.

Speaker 1 At some point, the feds are going, How did you launder $150 million?

Speaker 1 Oh, look, it all went through the Bellagio. Maybe we should do something about that with a simple regulation that says, Look, you can waste $10 million gambling.
That's legal.

Speaker 1 We just need to know that it's actually your $10 million. Yeah.
Show us any document at all that shows KYC or your customer. Yeah.
It's like with crypto.

Speaker 1 Back in the day, you could just be like, Yeah, I want $100,000 in Bitcoin. My name is John1234 at AOL.com.
And they're like, Fine.

Speaker 2 All right. No problem.

Speaker 1 Go drop it off in this ATM or this random gold place. And here's your Bitcoin.
Now it's like, no, no, no. Scan your ID if you're going to withdraw this from our system.
So, yeah, KYC. So I don't know.

Speaker 1 I've done episodes on Chinese money laundering and laundromats and stuff. So there's people are trying to figure this out constantly because it's the way that you launder drug money.

Speaker 2 Every day you're thinking of something new.

Speaker 1 So you're laundering money successfully, and then what happens?

Speaker 2 He does another round, two and a half million the the next and three weeks later. Two and a half million comes, same suitcase, same luggage.
This time I get a call in three hours.

Speaker 2 I was like, wow, that was fast. And he says, I lost all your money.
I said, wait a minute. You didn't have money to lose.
You had a 25% window that you were making. Everything else was mine.

Speaker 2 What are you talking about? I said, you need to come meet me. And that's when I found out he lost the cartel's money.

Speaker 1 When he lost it, did he steal it or was he just like, well, I'm going to gamble?

Speaker 2 Obviously, we were thinking he stole it. Yeah.
Like he made a deal with the pit boss.

Speaker 2 And after investigations on my side and a couple people I knew at the casino, that we found out he really did lose it. Gambled away.

Speaker 1 So he had a gambling problem.

Speaker 2 He was an addict for sure.

Speaker 1 I guess you need somebody like me who can just like gamble and be like, this sucks. I want my money back.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you got to treat it like a business. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Because again, gambling for me is generally so boring. I'd be like, I'm not feeling it.

Speaker 1 That's a believable thing that I could say that people would buy because they're going to see me completely emotionless, waste 20 grand and be like, I just want to go to Cirque de Sole in a buffet.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 1 Tell me, though, about you were shipping cash back in Uggs. This is one of your sort of like more amateurish attempts, I suppose, at money laundering.

Speaker 2 Before I obviously was working with this gambler, I took it under my own hands and I started to buy gold bullion with cash. I said, okay, I'm going to buy bullion because that's untraceable.

Speaker 2 So I'd go to all these bullion stores in Australia and I'd take $10,000 every store I went to and I'd buy one ounce round coins, which is at the time was $1,600 a coin.

Speaker 2 So I'd take those coins and I take four of them, four one-ounce rounds.

Speaker 2 And what I would do is I'd buy all the Ugg boots I could and I would take the soles out of the Ugg boots and I'd put four gold coins inside.

Speaker 2 So basically, you're getting $1,600, $1,600, $1,600, $1,600. That's like close to $7,000 per boot.
So $14,000, let's just call it $15,000. Every Ugg boot I would send home.

Speaker 1 Dude, for a million bucks a day, that's a lot of Uggs, man.

Speaker 2 You can't do it. I would literally ship out like 20 Ug boots a day.
And I was like, this is taking way too long.

Speaker 1 At some point, the suspicion of why you're buying that many Uggs is

Speaker 2 suspicion of like, but there's Ugg boot stores on every corner.

Speaker 1 But you're going to the UPS store or whatever. That's where it looked weird.
They're like, this is your business. How are you doing this like at a retail level?

Speaker 1 Like, you almost need to buy a footwear company to export that amount of shoes just to put the coin. Like, it's not going to work.

Speaker 2 It just takes too long, right? It was a cool idea. Like the girlfriends and the wives and everyone was excited for the first to have every piece of every color, right? Yeah.
But that gets old.

Speaker 2 They're like, hey, no more UGGS.

Speaker 2 these.

Speaker 1 Also, why do you keep ripping them apart when you come home?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I tell them, don't open them. I said, I want to open that gift with you.
And I would open them and I'd take literally the coins out before they see them. I'm so stressful.
I'll be right back.

Speaker 1 I need to go to the bathroom with all the packages I sent you. Give me 20 minutes.
It's like silly when you picture how it's going to work.

Speaker 1 Also, surely people thought you were either mentally ill or up to something.

Speaker 2 They definitely thought I was probably both. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, so this moron loses all your money. How much were he losing?

Speaker 2 Two and a half, but the same day I had $700,000 picked off from law enforcement because he called the police and said, I think this guy's after me. And I think he has a gun.

Speaker 2 And my personal trainer was literally wheeling a suitcase with 700 grand of mine. And the law enforcement stopped him randomly because all the cameras.
And then they got this call from this guy.

Speaker 2 They said, we've got to report that you have a gun. We need to open your luggage.
And it wasn't a gun. It was 700 grand.
So in one day, I lost 3.2 million of the cartels. Oh, no.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So what's going through your head at this point? Like, I'm going to get killed.

Speaker 2 I'm dead. I'm like, this is over.
I'm done. Do I just stay in Australia or do I go face the music? And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to go face the music.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Anybody who can get kilos of cocaine to Australia can figure out a way to kill you in Australia.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
So I just took it. I took it on the chin.

Speaker 2 I went over, walked over, and I literally met this cartel boss with 10 of his Sicarios, like the guys that carry the guns, these like bulletproof jackets. Their cars are bulletproof.

Speaker 2 And I literally have a sit-down with this cartel boss in this private restaurant in a town called Puerto Nuevo. I'll never forget it.
And he knew about the whole story already.

Speaker 2 There's already articles coming out in Australia. So he knew.
And I told him the truth, obviously. He knew I was telling the truth and I showed up.
So he's like, you know what?

Speaker 2 You don't owe me 3.2 million. You owe me 4 million.
And now you work for the cartel. Oh, man.

Speaker 2 I'm alive. I was like, hallelujah.
Oh, man.

Speaker 1 So what's the plan then?

Speaker 1 Because you're obviously, if the law enforcement guys just took 700 grand from you, the worst thing you can do is be put in charge of a bunch more money in two me rollers and then just try to pretend like you're.

Speaker 2 He knew that. Yeah.
Yeah. He knew.
He goes, you're hot. He goes, this guy's obviously cooperating.
He says, you're going to take two years off and you're going to run your bookie business.

Speaker 2 He goes, you're good at that. Nothing with cocaine, nothing with money laundering.
Handle the bookie business like it's your business for two years.

Speaker 2 Once that's two years is up, things will be settled down by then and you're going to work for me. And I said, no problem.
I was just static. I was alive.

Speaker 1 Yeah, man. So you're laying low, doing your gambling business.

Speaker 2 So he says, you know what? You're not going to use my routes because you're hot.

Speaker 2 Still, you sell my cocaine, but you can't go over there because you're not allowed in Australia right now because I was a wanted man. He says, but I'm going to give you the product in the U.S.

Speaker 2 and you have to figure out a way to get it into Australia. Jeez.
And that's what I was like, oh, man, what am I going to do? That's a tall order.

Speaker 1 Hey, this is one of the hardest things to do in our business.

Speaker 2 Figure it out. Hardest thing in the world to do.
Yeah. No doubt.
Like on the drug trade. Yeah.
For sure.

Speaker 1 Wow. So what was the big idea then?

Speaker 2 So now I had to find a buyer that I already knew someone in Australia. You know, obviously I couldn't go to Australia and I couldn't talk about this on the phone.

Speaker 2 So we met at a private island in Fiji. This guy from Australia flew in.
I flew into Fiji. And we were literally just going over a game plan.
I'm like, how are we going to figure this thing out?

Speaker 2 I said, I have to get this product into you. And I don't know what to do.

Speaker 1 How do you get to Fiji without going through Australia?

Speaker 2 You can. There's a direct flight there.
Oh. Yeah.
Actually, I take that back. You leave from Hawaii.
Oh, okay. So you go to Hawaii.
Yeah. So I get there and we're literally drinking wine.

Speaker 2 We're drinking this white wine on the island. And I'm like, dude, that's it.
Wine. He's like, what are you thinking?

Speaker 2 I said, I'm going to break down the cocaine and I'm going to put it in wine bottles. He's like, how are you going to do that? I said, we're going to get that 150-proof, ever clear alcohol.

Speaker 2 It's like straight alcohol. And we'll break it down.
The cocaine will turn into liquid. And then once we put it in the bottles, wipe down the bottles.
We'll cork it. We'll put it back in the box.

Speaker 2 I'll ship it like their wine coming from Napa Valley because Napa Valley is famous in the U.S. or in California where I'm from.

Speaker 2 And I I said, do you have a chemist that can bring it back and basically take out all the liquid and turn it back to the powder? He goes, yeah, I got a guy. That works? It works.

Speaker 2 So you just evaporate the alcohol.

Speaker 1 It's a boozy cocaine.

Speaker 2 No, it's not even boozy. It's just literally, yeah, it's all gone.
Just literally clear alcohol. And the alcohol is basically taken out of evaporation.

Speaker 1 Surely this is now common that they're doing this.

Speaker 2 Listen, they probably don't do it anymore just due to the fact that the government knows.

Speaker 2 I don't think people knew, but the guy that was doing this with me got in trouble and he basically told them the whole operation. Yeah.
So the government found out about it.

Speaker 2 So that's why I talk freely on it because obviously I wouldn't want to give up anybody's secrets because I'd get in trouble for that.

Speaker 2 But now I speak openly because this guy's already given it to the DA and the FBI. And I'm like, okay, well, now I can talk about it.

Speaker 1 But man, if you just did one bottle here and there, that's the problem, though. Nobody does that.
They go, oh, now I need a whole case. All right, I'll do a case, but not a whole pallet.

Speaker 2 Fine, I'll do a whole pallet, but I'm not going to.

Speaker 1 And then it becomes you're buying your own cargo ship to ship over 500 kilos a blow because you're selling it all every day. Yeah.
Oh, my God. So you just dump out all the wine, huh?

Speaker 1 Somebody's crying over that. You're doing this manually, right?

Speaker 2 You're like ripping out the corks, dumping it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So you're dumping like hundreds of bottles of wine.

Speaker 2 Drinking bad, yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 My construction worker that was helping me, he was like, dude, I'm going to drink some of that wine. I said, listen, you better drink it fast.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 To take it in a jug and take it home, but don't, yeah. Don't drink it.

Speaker 2 I used to put it in one of those big water jugs. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, these big five-gallon water.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's funny. Like, where are you getting this wine?

Speaker 1 It comes in an ugly ass jug, but it's pretty good. This is actually pretty good.

Speaker 2 This is Napa Valley.

Speaker 1 Some guy making mediocre-ass white wine in Napa is like, that's why I was sold out all the time. I didn't think anybody would like this.
Yeah, you know, dumping it.

Speaker 1 You're floating a couple wineries entirely from this business, and the guy's patting himself on the back for making this amazing product. You also use chocolates, yeah?

Speaker 2 That was kind of unique. Tell me about that.
The wine guy started to charge me too much to take it back and to put it in powder cocaine. He wanted to charge me an arm and a leg.
I said, you know what?

Speaker 2 You're going to be out of a job if you want to charge me that. And I put my foot down.
I said, I'm not paying that. And I said, you know what? I'm going to come out with a new route.

Speaker 2 And I figured it out. I said, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.
That's going to be my way. And I went to my Rolodex.
I'm like, okay.

Speaker 2 I had a fraternity brother at USC. His parents were in the import-export business of chocolate from the UK.
And they would ship chocolate and sweets, all kinds of candies from the UK into the U.S.

Speaker 2 And they had a warehouse in Compton where they would distribute the European chocolate throughout the United States. It was a big business.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that sounds like a good business.

Speaker 2 Good business.

Speaker 1 That's why the kid had a black card.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. And I told the kid, I said,

Speaker 2 I'll give you $50,000 a month if you give me your expired chocolate. And I said, I'll give it to you in cash.
And like, how are you going to say no to that? It's not like it's costing me.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, it's going in a dumpster in the back of the warehouse.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 1 And all he has to do is be like, hey, dad, my frat bros will eat it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they want it. Right.
Like, oh, okay, sure. All right.
I'll help you load the trunk. So I remember he's like, dude, I want to be there if I'm making $50,000 a month.
Can I help you?

Speaker 2 I'm like, dude, I don't want you to be there. I said, I need you to leave at 6 p.m.
when all your employees leave, to be honest, and let me do my thing. And he insisted.

Speaker 2 I'm like, dude, okay, I'm telling you, you're going to be upset. And I knew he did Coke.
So I was like, here's a bag. And he started doing it.
I said, that's what I'm bringing into this chocolate.

Speaker 2 He's like, I want to help. So we're literally like,

Speaker 2 yeah, we're stuffing this, these kilos inside. We're taking all the bars out.
We're putting the cocaine in the bottom. We're putting the bars on top.
And we're saran wrapping this palette.

Speaker 2 And there's 50 kilos of Coke in there. And we're literally like hiding it.

Speaker 2 If customs goes through it, they're going to literally have to go through every piece of chocolate to find all these different areas. This sounds like a huge pain in the ass.

Speaker 1 It is a pain in the ass.

Speaker 2 But I guess if you're making a million dollars, you're just like, well, we got to remember, we got to pay back the cartel. Oh, yeah.
You're also going to get it. I don't care right now.

Speaker 1 You're also going to get brutally murdered and probably tortured beforehand if you don't do it. That's motivating.
Yeah. That's true.
I forgot about that part.

Speaker 2 Wow. So it started working.
like the guys in Australia were blown away.

Speaker 1 Speaking of bad ideas, now a word from our sponsors. We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Owen Hansen.

Speaker 1 You used a lot of interesting principles to get El Hefe to trust you. Not even novel or unique, but just stuff most people don't do.
Like answer his calls on the first ring any day.

Speaker 1 Make sure that he's happy with with the service you provided when he was doing the gambling thing a lot of people they feel like business is some kind of or client service is like some kind of big mystery and you really have to do all this amazing news no you just have to be a human being

Speaker 2 responsible responsive and that's it it's not that hard it's just hard to do consistently and that's why most businesses that's what end up dropping the ball consistent is key so who is this boss obviously he's a cartel boss but like he's ruthless but also he's not dumb he's a businessman obviously i haven't given up names i'm not going to say who he is but let's put it this way he's a businessman and he makes a lot of money so he's still operating yeah he's definitely not in prison okay now you're doing drugs and drinking a lot during this time to manage the stress yeah yeah i'm so literally so nervous that i know the fbi is after me because the pi is running license plates and saying it's coming back to authorities and i'm like okay well i gotta get the cartel paid back i don't care about the fbi wow so they're watching you and you're smuggling cocaine to pay back the cartel who's gonna kill you if you don't exactly and did you tell el Hefe like, hey, the FBI is watching me?

Speaker 2 He doesn't care. I told him, I said, dude, I'm running license plates on these cars around my houses.
You got to pay me back. TikTok.
I remember he texted me. TikTok.
Oh, that's scary. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like, okay. I just literally, every time I would see them, I was just like, okay, I got to keep going.
I got to hurry up. Because I knew I was crashing down eventually.
You just feel it.

Speaker 2 That's a stressful way to live. Yeah.
So that's why I was doing a lot of drugs and alcohol. I just wanted to be numb.
Man, so how's that affecting you at this time?

Speaker 1 Because your stress level's through the roof and you're self-medicating.

Speaker 2 Are you thinking clearly? I mean, I was just a machine. Like literally would golf at six in the morning, still doing blow, still working out.
I just was like literally like a robot.

Speaker 2 Nothing would phase me. I was taking so much blow and so many Xanax and alcohol and GHB.
And I'm like, it's sad to say, but like, I just wanted to be put out. I was so stressed.

Speaker 1 This is the part where. People need to pay more attention because the good times sounded really awesome, but this part does not sound like it was worth it at all.

Speaker 2 No way.

Speaker 2 And even then you're lucky that you weren't dead no i should have been dead i tell people like i should have definitely overdosed on drugs yeah or been murdered by the cartel yeah that was next yeah it was one of those two and then luckily the spoiler alert i did go to prison we'll get to that in a minute tell me about this cipriani cipriani guy like he keeps trying to get you in trouble who is this guy first because i don't think we introduced you so rober cipriani is the guy that laundered the money oh he's the guy who lost your money

Speaker 2 gotcha so he keeps trying and i already know at this point he's working for the feds because we see that there's little checkpoints that like you're looking at okay this guy's definitely working with him and then he'd make these phone calls and you call me on my cell phone like hey buddy i got to pay you back your 2.5 million that i laundered yeah i'm so concerned like why are you calling me and why are you saying that i laundered on the phone like no one speaks like that i need to do more of this illegal thing with you yeah i don't want the authorities to ever find out yeah and he's like can we meet up i'm like dude i'm not meeting up with this guy i feel something's wrong and then that's when we started to put pressure on him and like dude you got to pay us back oh so you did want him to do we tried yeah of course any dollar i could make would go towards my debt without that's a good point if he gives you a million and tells you this is all i can do you're that much closer to not dying exactly and he's literally like trying to keep me happy and like he'll put like two thousand dollars in my bank account i'm like dude keep doing that like every day do that make me feel it geez i'm surprised el hefe wasn't like why don't i just send some guys to him and cut off a couple of his toes and maybe he'll pay you back because i was the one that was responsible remember i went into business with el hefe it was my job to figure it out it just still seems like you could be like hey if you have people that are willing to kill can i borrow one of those guys for like an hour i don't need to kill anyone i just need to make sure that this guy really knows that i can yeah that would have no we did put a fear of

Speaker 2 yeah he sent videos of guys getting their heads chopped off and said hey we know where you live this is going to happen to you like stuff that scared the living shit out of him and we used a bunch of scare tactics that basically caused him to go to the fbi and say look at what they're doing i see so that actually hurt us blew up in your face a little bit Okay.

Speaker 1 Once again, I obviously would not have operated any better in this business than you because that seems like, oh, yeah, just have these guys threaten them. Oh, oops, he went to the FBI.

Speaker 1 So how does it all end up unraveling? Tell me about them finally catching up to you.

Speaker 2 Just eventually, them infiltrating my network in Australia, my contacts in Australia were realizing that the money was so hard to get back from Australia to the U.S.

Speaker 2 that it was every time I would have to wait months and months to send new product because we had to wait till our money got back. Otherwise, we weren't going to send new product.

Speaker 2 So the FBI infiltrated them and went on this yacht in Australia. My contacts were on the yacht drinking.
And unbeknownst to them, the FBI are drinking next to them.

Speaker 2 And they're shooting the shit and they're talking. And the FBI says, oh, yeah, we're in the money laundering business.
This is what we do. They didn't know they were FBI agents, obviously.

Speaker 2 And he's like, dude, perfect timing. What a correctness.

Speaker 2 What do you charge? That's where the red flag should have stood up. He charged half of what we were paying, like 12 points.
Oh, right. I'm like, dude, are you sure these guys are legit?

Speaker 2 And I'm telling them on these encrypted phones, you're like, dude, these guys are great. Let's just do a test run.

Speaker 2 Because they hung out with them for 30 minutes and they definitely wouldn't lie or anything. Yeah.

Speaker 2 They literally send these guys back to San Diego where they set up a round of golf. And they're like, my buddy in Australia just gives them 10,000 bucks and sees if they bring it to me.

Speaker 2 And sure enough, they bring it to me minus their fee. I'm like, yeah, they paid me the cash, but that wasn't very much.

Speaker 2 And these guys are like, well, let's do the next one, quarter million, right? So we do it to quarter million. And then the next one's a million.
Right.

Speaker 1 And the DA is like ramping it up. They're going to be doing it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.
Keep doing it. Keep doing it.
And this whole time now we're being wiretapped. Next thing you know, I'm golfing with them weekly.

Speaker 2 And finally, we schedule another half a million dollar drop. And we're supposed to discuss our next way of payment.
And we set up a tea time in San Diego where I'm supposed to golf with them.

Speaker 2 Like I've already been golfing with them. I've already been gambling on the golf course, drinking cocktails with them like they're the bros.

Speaker 2 And that's when that September 9th, 2015, I show up to the the country club and my caddy's literally taking my clubs out of my trunk of my Porsche Panamera.

Speaker 2 And as soon as I turn around, there's 15 FBI agents coming out of the bushes, helicopter in the sky and news.

Speaker 1 Because I thought you might run. A bag of clothes is running down the fairway.

Speaker 2 They put handcuffs on me. And I'll tell you what, Jordan, that was the best day of my life.
Just the relief knowing that I'm done. I'm out of this business.
I didn't end up dead.

Speaker 2 I paid the cartel back.

Speaker 1 Oh, you managed to pay him back?

Speaker 2 I paid them back every penny.

Speaker 2 And I was like, this is the biggest blessing. I'm going to prison.
People are thinking, this is the worst thing ever.

Speaker 2 But I'm like, dude, you don't know how much stress I had living worried my whole life.

Speaker 2 The last two years I lived, knowing that I had this debt and that I was working for the cartel and I'm in so deep, like, how am I going to get out? Like, I'm either going to die or get killed.

Speaker 2 And I got arrested, which was even better. And people are like, oh, that's crazy.
Wow. So I was blessed.
And I tell people that's the best thing that could ever happen to me. I'm here.

Speaker 2 You and I are speaking right now.

Speaker 1 I assume at the time the agents, you weren't like, oh, thank God you guys are here.

Speaker 2 Take me to jail. Definitely not.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Did the caddy know the FBI was there?

Speaker 2 For sure. He was so nervous.
He was shaking like a leaf. He's like, hey,

Speaker 2 Mr. Hanson.

Speaker 1 Let me get your clubs out of your trunk.

Speaker 2 He's looking over his shoulder. He probably was an FBI agent now that I think about it.

Speaker 1 Really? Oh, yeah. That's for sure.

Speaker 2 He was just like.

Speaker 2 Yeah, literally, the whole golf course was shut down that day for this sting. Oh, wow.
You're like, wow, it's so easy to park there. There was nobody in the parking lot.
And I told the caddy that.

Speaker 2 I'm like, dude, why is no one here? Mr. Hanson, I don't know.
And he likes literally shaking when he's bringing my clubs out of the trunk.

Speaker 1 That guy, they're like, your first undercover kid. You're playing the caddy.
And the agents are like, wow, that guy needs a little more work before we put him in a higher stakes situation.

Speaker 1 He's like, you can't even take the bag of clubs out of the trunk. Now that guy's infiltrating the hell's angels or something.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 He's chief of operations.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm better off at a desk. Man, how long were you under surveillance, you think?

Speaker 2 2010, 11. I think so.
Total 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, five years.

Speaker 1 So somebody made their early career officer.

Speaker 2 Oh, for sure. The prosecutor made his career off of my case.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Like my kid is six, and I'm thinking, wow, if I started an investigation when he was born and I made the arrest five years later, and then still the prosecutions after that, that's like longer than my kid has been alive.

Speaker 1 That's a big project to think about. Wow.
And I would imagine you're looking at Discovery. Are they showing you photos of places you forgot?

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Like you forgot.
Like, when was that? Like, oh, you were with that girl there? What was I doing there? Oh, Fiji. Oh, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 I forgot about that. That was my layover in Hawaii.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Sitting at the Starbucks. That's crazy.
So this is where the book ends, right? You go to prison.

Speaker 2 What was the sentence then? 21 years and three months.

Speaker 1 What are you thinking when you hear that at the time?

Speaker 2 It's a life sentence, right? 30. Let's see.
I got sentenced when I was, I think, 35.

Speaker 2 So I finally got sentenced. So I'm doing the math.
I'm like, okay, I'm going to be out close to 60. They want to give me a life sentence in Australia.

Speaker 2 I'm like, dude, my dad, I'm never going to get to see my dad. That's all I'm thinking about is my pops, the guy that's been there since day one.
I'm like devastated.

Speaker 2 And you look back and you just see that disappointed face. And you're like, man, what do I do? And you're scrambling.
And you're like, that's it. My life's over.

Speaker 1 Wow. So what about in prison? Are you depressed the whole time? Or are you like, look, I got to get it?

Speaker 2 For sure, the first couple of months you're depressed, but like, okay, am I going to just take this and just be this guy that's going to be moping around his whole life and eating soups and getting fat?

Speaker 2 Or am I going to rehabilitate like that judge told me and getting that kind of time? It's obviously a time to rehabilitate.

Speaker 2 And Jordan, I'm accepting full responsibility that, yes, I deserve to go to prison. Now, did I deserve 21 and a half years? I don't think so, but I did break the law.

Speaker 2 And therefore, the judge makes that decision. Drug penalties are way too high.

Speaker 2 So I do belong there. I'm not going to lie.
But obviously, I was just going to say, you know what? Let's make the best out of this situation. And I went to school again.

Speaker 2 I went back and got my master's degree.

Speaker 1 In prison? PhD in prison?

Speaker 2 I would have stayed the whole 21 years. I would have for sure.
Yeah, because I feel like there's not a whole lot else going on in there. Working out and go to school.
Yep. That's all I did.

Speaker 2 Worked out, go to school. And then once I got my master's, I started a business inside prison that you've actually got to experience.
That's right. Is that allowed, by the way, to do that?

Speaker 2 No, of course not. But what are they going to do? Take my currency? Because in prison, your currency is stamps, right? United States postage stamps.
So like, okay, take my money.

Speaker 2 You guys go spend that.

Speaker 1 The ice cream business, yeah.

Speaker 2 I just was a hustler my whole life. I'm like, man, I'm tired of asking my dad to put money on my books.
What am I going to do? He's got a life to live himself. I've already put him through hell.

Speaker 2 So I was like, I got to figure out a way to make money in here. And I'm not going to be selling the old ice cream.
I'm going to start selling this new ice cream.

Speaker 1 Prison ice cream, but it's no good.

Speaker 2 No, it's, they don't have prison ice cream unless you know how to make it.

Speaker 2 I would literally take a peanut butter jar, put the milk from the kitchen inside the jar, take the protein powder they sell on the commissary, dump that in there.

Speaker 2 I'd take slices of bananas, put them in there, little swirl of peanut butter, and I literally shake it up like a protein shake. Usually I would just put it on ice, get it cold.

Speaker 2 By the time I got back from my workout, I would drink it.

Speaker 1 It actually sounds really good.

Speaker 2 It's good. It's just not with the blender.
We don't have blenders. We don't have fridges.
We're getting ice from the ice room. There's a room where you can get ice and we put it in mop buckets.

Speaker 2 So you can put your ice in a mop bucket or in a trash can. People put their sodas in there, their protein shakes, their whatever that needs to be cold.
There's no refrigeration.

Speaker 2 So that's what I would do. I would literally make my protein shake every morning, put it in the mop bucket on ice, and I'd go work out and I'd come back and drink my shake.

Speaker 2 I told people, my mind is not in prison. My mind is out there in the real world.
I just finished my workout at Equinox, and I'm just having my protein shake at Earth Bar. That's how my mind works.

Speaker 2 Oh, you really? Oh, that's funny. Yeah, that's how I made it work for me.

Speaker 1 Is that keeping you sane, or is it just reminding you that you're in prison all the time?

Speaker 2 That's keeping me sane. It's keeping you sane.
Yeah, that's the only way I can mentally do it. Yeah, it's a good idea.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I played it right because every day it was like, okay, we're going to have this nice fish, which is a mackerel, tastes like crap, obviously.

Speaker 2 But we're now eating this fish at El Pastyow in Beverly Hills, right? Like you're just making the best of a shit situation. Sure.

Speaker 1 I got to ask. So when you get out and you go to a real Equinox, you're like, nah, this is definitely better.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, yeah. It's a real.
Like, I literally go to that executive locker room and Magic Johnson's like right next to me. I'm like, you definitely weren't there in prison.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 You don't have to worry about getting like beat up or anything at Equinox in Beverly Hills.

Speaker 1 Yeah, man. So this ice cream, you're making this in prison and you're selling it in prison.
And then you decide, hey, I'm going to just bring this to the civilian world.

Speaker 2 Listen, I was making these.

Speaker 2 protein shakes and one day they ran out of ice and my selly he's like hey just throw some salt on there when you get back it will still be cold because if you have salt and ice together, it makes it like freezing.

Speaker 2 Cool. I get back from my workout and it's frozen.
I'm like, dude, you told me it'd be cold. It's frozen.
He goes, dude, just try it. Who knows? Maybe it's good.
So you accidentally made ice cream.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Oh, I came, dude.
It's protein ice cream. He goes, dude, I told you it'd be good.
And I'm eating it. I'm like, dude, wait a minute.
And then I started making it for my workout partners.

Speaker 2 And they're like, dude, why don't you sell this? This is amazing. We don't have ice cream in prison.
Like, it's hard to get ice cream unless you know how to make it.

Speaker 2 And I'm making a protein ice cream. And everyone in prison works out.
Well, yeah, I would assume so. Yeah, that's all you do.
Two hours a day, you're in the morning, you're working out.

Speaker 2 Two hours at night, you're working out. There's nothing else to do.

Speaker 1 So the problem actually is nutrition.

Speaker 2 Nutrition. Because you got to recover.
And if you're eating

Speaker 2 shitty mackerel, there's mackerel. I'm tired of mackerel.
Yeah. And there's soups, and there's like garbage, right? There's soups and Doritos and Zoom, Zooms, and Twix and bad stuff.

Speaker 2 Like, there's nothing that's like a healthy, innocent treat.

Speaker 1 So you guys are eating like pounds of whey protein.

Speaker 2 We only can buy like seven packs of protein a week. So one per week.
Oh, you're limited. Yeah, you're limited.
You can only spend $320 a month on food.

Speaker 1 Oh, I didn't realize they limited you.

Speaker 2 Because what happens is people start gambling in prison and they use that money to pay for their gambling debts.

Speaker 1 Okay. So it's to protect you.

Speaker 2 So protecting extortion.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 I guess they have to think about things like that. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Wow. No, I got out of prison, right? And I go to the halfway house and I'm literally just sitting on my bunk bed with 20 inmates around me.
And I'm like, dude, what am I going to do? I'm a felon now.

Speaker 2 I know I wrote this book. You can't make much money off book sales.
I know the documentary has been already filmed and it's coming out, but I don't know when. And I'm like, okay.

Speaker 2 So I was like, man, what am I going to do? And I call one of my old gambling customers. I told him, I said, I don't know what to do for work.

Speaker 1 How long were you in the clink?

Speaker 2 I was in the clink for nine years and I did another year in the halfway house. So 10 years under the Bureau of Prisons.

Speaker 1 So you didn't have to fulfill a 20-year sentence?

Speaker 2 No, I had a corrupt lawyer in Australia that was trying to get some of the money that I lost. And the corrupt lawyer was in on it.

Speaker 2 The United States government called me six years into my prison sentence. And they they said that corrupt lawyer is taking it to trial, and there's only one person that knows he's corrupt.
Mr.

Speaker 2 Hansen, are you willing to fly over to Australia and testify against him for the illegal stuff you guys were doing? And I raised my hand. I said, absolutely.

Speaker 2 And then the judge in Australia basically found him guilty for corruption and wrote my judge in America and asked for a sentence reduction. under Rule 35.
Which is what?

Speaker 2 Rule 35 is a significant amount of assistance for helping another case, which is this case.

Speaker 2 It wasn't, obviously, it wasn't the cartel, thank God. Yeah.
But it was this corrupt lawyer.

Speaker 1 That's one of the luckiest things that ever happened.

Speaker 2 I won the lot of my life. I tell people that was the Lord looking after me for sure.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wow. So they were like, we really want to put this guy away because he worked for the state, I assume, or something.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he was a public defender.

Speaker 1 Jeez, and he was on the take and just trying to steal your money.

Speaker 2 Trying to get that money back.

Speaker 1 And he had done this to a lot of other people.

Speaker 2 They knew he was crooked for years. The guy was like 70 years old.
And they're like, dude, we finally got him. Like, they had their evidence.
Wow. Okay.

Speaker 1 So you get out. Why didn't you get back into gambling? You already knew how to run a gambling.

Speaker 2 It was not illegal at the time. When I got out, it's legal in 38 states.
Yeah. Why not just move to everyone's, oh, and you'd be a CEO of these companies.
You're great at it. Sure.
And I agree.

Speaker 2 I would love to do that, Jordan. But the problem is that when they found me guilty, the judge put on my restraints that said the restrictions are I can no longer ever work in the gambling world.

Speaker 2 Nothing to do with gambling.

Speaker 1 Ah, because, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 Just the money laundering.

Speaker 1 You're money laundering.

Speaker 1 It's like when with the Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes or Sam Bankman-Free, they can never work in finance or crypto or run a business or anything like that because they've proven that they're not trustworthy to do that.

Speaker 1 Exactly. But you can run a business.
I mean, you're running this business.

Speaker 2 Dude, I started this business from prison, right? And I'm like, it's called protein ice cream. Yeah, no, it was California ice protein.

Speaker 2 I tell people, I'm a California kid, like my book. I'm like, I need to have something that ties to my story.
I'm like, dude, in prison, we call it ice protein because it's not ice cream. It's protein.

Speaker 1 And by the way, this is super good. And I'm not just saying that because you're sitting in front of me.

Speaker 1 I didn't even get to have the majority of this because I'd take one or two bites and then I'd be like, hey, you guys, try this.

Speaker 1 And I'd turn around and it's gone because my kids and wife were like, this is amazing. Yeah.
So it's gone. Where can people buy it?

Speaker 2 Do direct to consumer our website, californiaiceprotein.com.

Speaker 1 I usually don't shill products so hard, but it's

Speaker 2 really, really good. And it's a comeback.
I tell people, listen, this is a second chance in every bite.

Speaker 2 Nice.

Speaker 1 It's like Dave's killer bread.

Speaker 2 Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 So how much protein is in one of these? Because I 20 grams.

Speaker 2 Each bar. Each bar.
And In a four ounces.

Speaker 1 Jeez, how much calories is in each one? 266?

Speaker 2 We've redone the calories. We did a test last week on it.
And we got the calories down to all these bars are at 200 calories. And the cookies and cream has about 20 more because of the cookie.
Okay.

Speaker 2 So that's 220.

Speaker 1 So that's a pretty damn good ratio

Speaker 2 of protein to calories.

Speaker 1 Better than a chocolate bar with protein in it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's like similar to having like a protein shake on a stick.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and that's really good. And my kids liked it.
I know you're coming out with a kid version that's a little bit more because kids eating stuff off a stick is already a nightmare.

Speaker 2 Make it small like a Johnny Pop yeah this is you're full when you finish this if you think you're gonna have it for dessert you're not gonna finish it because it's actually too filling say it's a meal replacement yeah well questionable nutritional choices but sure fair it is actually more or less that do you ever miss the drug game and stuff you ever think like oh man that was cool not that you would go back listen everyone's been asking me that what do you find that makes that feeling right for me it was that rush like for me okay i was sending a pallet full of chocolate into Australia and watching it land and clear customs.

Speaker 2 But last month, when I first shipped my first three pallets to New York and my frozen ice cream, which is harder to ship than cocaine, because we remember frozen ice cream has to be frozen 24 hours.

Speaker 2 Pallets of cocaine, you don't have to freeze. So when that landed in New York and they got my three pallets and they told me that it's not melted, I had that same rush.
Really?

Speaker 2 The same eye because I felt like, wow, it's just the same business principle, but with a different product.

Speaker 1 If only you'd gotten to consumer packaged goods before instead of cocaine. But then you wouldn't have thought of the recipe.

Speaker 2 That's right. Here we are.
Everything happens for a reason, right? That's right.

Speaker 1 Man, what an incredible story. We'll link to the Amazon documentary.
It's called Cocaine Quarterback. Correct.
And that's on Amazon Prime Video.

Speaker 2 So that's like top of source. It's just in the U.S.
right now. Wow.

Speaker 1 And the book, we'll also link in the show notes as well, The California Kid. And people can order the ice cream.

Speaker 2 Ice cream in the book, I let people order it on my website, and I personalize each message and sign it.

Speaker 1 The ice cream, though, again, really good. We'll link to that in the show notes as well.
Thanks for coming in, man.

Speaker 2 Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 What if the next mass shooting wasn't random, but entirely preventable, hidden behind obvious warning signs that we've been trained to ignore?

Speaker 1 With school shootings, most mass shooters are using legally purchased firearms. It's an overwhelming majority.

Speaker 1 We are also a country that has a huge number of firearms and they're very easy to get in most places.

Speaker 2 So therefore, it makes sense on a very fundamental level that we have more mass shootings.

Speaker 1 You want to get a gun, you can get a gun. Everyone goes to their corners.

Speaker 1 I'm either totally for guns everywhere or I'm against all guns and this is all about mental health or it's about something else entirely. Politics, ideology, it's all these things together.

Speaker 1 It's a complex problem. For decades, people have tried to figure out can you predict an act of violence like this? And the answer is definitively no.

Speaker 1 There is no way to predict someone doing this, but you can prevent it if you can identify the process leading up to it. So that's what the profiling is.

Speaker 1 It's studying the process of behavior and circumstances leading up to the attack. Each case is unique.
They're studying patterns of behavior.

Speaker 1 There's a body of knowledge about how to go about evaluating and intervening to stop people from committing violence like this. But every case is different too.

Speaker 1 I think it's really important to have good, solid, dispassionate reporting on what's happening. Follow the evidence, tell the story.

Speaker 2 That's what I do.

Speaker 1 The people who are going to do this work are already in place. Teachers and administrators and counselors in a school system, they're already tasked with the safety and well-being of students.

Speaker 1 It's really more about training and expertise and institutional knowledge of how to handle the situation when it arises.

Speaker 1 My focus on violence prevention in this space is really ultimately a hopeful story.

Speaker 1 For more on the overlooked clues and urgent choices that could mean the difference between tragedy and prevention, check out episode 1140 on the Jordan Harbinger Show with Mark Fulman.

Speaker 1 Fascinating story, really nice guy, and really good ice cream. I'm telling you.
Cocaine quarterback streaming now on Amazon Prime video.

Speaker 1 Owen's book, The California Kid, will be linked in the show notes. I shared this ice cream, by the way.
Jen and I, the kids love it. It's linked in the show notes, of course.

Speaker 1 I'm really into this stuff. I shared it at podcast one where we recorded this episode because he brought a backpack full of it.
Everyone loved it. It didn't last five minutes.
Worth a try.

Speaker 1 Not a sponsor. A lot of protein in there.
Kids and adults love it. Linked in the show notes as well.

Speaker 1 Advertisers, deals, discount codes, ways to support this show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show.

Speaker 1 Also, our newsletter, Wee BitWiser, the idea is to give you something specific and practical that'll have an immediate impact on your decisions, your psychology, and your relationships.

Speaker 1 It's a two-minute read, comes out pretty much every Wednesday. If you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out.
It really is a great companion to this show.

Speaker 1 JordanHarbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. Six Minute Networking at sixminute networking.com.
Doesn't matter how you spell it. I bought those domains.

Speaker 1 I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.
And this show, it's created in association with Podcast One.

Speaker 1 My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogridi, Tata Sedlauskis, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others.

Speaker 1 The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about.

Speaker 1 If you know somebody who's interested in ice cream, cocaine, money laundering, or maybe just a great story, definitely share this episode with them.

Speaker 1 In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time.

Speaker 1 This episode is sponsored in part by Vital Proteins. You've probably heard of Vital Proteins, they're the number one brand of collagen peptides in the U.S.

Speaker 1 And for good reason, a lot of people, myself included, take it pretty much daily to support things like healthy hair, skin, nails, bones, joints, all the good stuff that starts to matter more the longer you've been walking around on this planet.

Speaker 1 But now, Vital Proteins is shaking things up. Literally, you can tell a dad wrote this copy with a brand new collagen and protein shake.

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Speaker 1 High-quality protein, 30 grams of it plus collagen. That's pretty good ROI.

Speaker 1 Usually, you're choosing one or the other, but vital proteins gives you both a ready-to-drink shake you can toss in your bag or fridge, zero added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and no karaginin.

Speaker 1 And I don't know what that is or if that's even how you say it, but you're supposed to avoid that.

Speaker 1 If you're already taking collagen or you're just curious about how it might support your hair, skin, nails, joints, and you don't want any carrageenin, this is a super easy, tasty way to try it.

Speaker 1 Get 20% off by going to vitalproteins.com and entering promo code Jordan at checkout. This episode is sponsored in part by Everything Everywhere Daily.

Speaker 1 You've heard the phrase, learn something new every day. Sounds nice, but do you actively do it? That's where Everything Everywhere Daily comes in.
This podcast makes it effortless.

Speaker 1 Just 10 minutes a day, you'll walk away with a fascinating fact, a slice of history, a science gem. It's no wonder the show has climbed up to the top as the number one history podcast.

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Speaker 1 If you want to make learning effortless and fun, check out Everything Everywhere Daily. It's quick, fascinating, and a perfect way to stay curious.
Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.