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0:55

Cases of corruption seem to be growing

0:57

in America. It's so widespread

0:59

and politics that we barely raise an eyebrow

1:01

when it's exposed.

1:02

A Justice Department official has confirmed

1:05

to Sinclair that the FBI opened

1:07

up a criminal investigation into Hunter

1:09

Biden and his associates back in twenty

1:11

nineteen.

1:12

Federal authorities are now investigating claims

1:14

of corruption tied to the Clinton

1:16

Foundation.

1:17

For US senators, including Intelligence

1:20

Committee Chair Richard Burr, reportedly

1:22

sold stock before coronavirus

1:25

fears sent the markets plunging. Fraud,

1:27

paola profiteering, shady deals, insider

1:30

trading, influence peddling, and any number

1:32

of other unscrupulous behaviors seem to be spreading.

1:35

But with a country as big as America, is a

1:37

little corruption, that big a deal. I'm

1:42

Patrick Carelci and.

1:43

I'm Adrianna Cortes.

1:45

And this is Red Pilled America, a

1:48

storytelling show.

1:50

This is not another talk show covering the day's

1:52

news. We are all about telling stories.

1:55

Stories. Hollywood doesn't want you to hear stories.

1:58

The media marks story worries about

2:00

everyday Americans. If the globalist ignore

2:04

you.

2:04

Could think of Red Pilled America as audio

2:06

documentaries, and we promise only one

2:08

thing, the truth.

2:15

Welcome to Red Pilled America.

2:25

Our leaders are constantly getting caught using

2:27

their positions to wet their beaks, yet

2:29

Americans just seem to shrug it off. In

2:31

fact, certain stories of corruption are often

2:34

ignored by the mainstream media and suppressed

2:36

from spreading by big tech. But

2:38

even with all this shadiness, our economy

2:40

keeps marching on without missing a beat.

2:42

So why should Americans care about corruption?

2:47

Define the answer, We're going to tell the story of

2:49

a family that got caught up with the cartel

2:51

and what they learn from that deadly experience.

3:00

Was born in Tijuana, a Mexican city

3:02

just south of the California border, and

3:04

it was there, when she was around four years old, that

3:07

she first met her future husband, Chewy.

3:09

Okay, So we grew up in the same neighborhood.

3:12

That's Gloria.

3:13

I only seen him when he must have been

3:15

like maybe seven or eight years

3:17

old, and we were on the swimming pool.

3:20

And the thing she remembers most is him splashing

3:22

around

3:26

At the time. Gloria's entire family lived

3:28

in tj and their clan was big by any

3:30

measure. She was the eighth of ten siblings,

3:33

and how she ended up in the United States shows

3:35

just how much Mexican immigration to America

3:38

has changed. Gloria's mother,

3:40

Tony, first came to America in nineteen

3:42

twenty eight when she was around seven years

3:44

old, putting down roots in East Los Angeles.

3:47

She would eventually become a naturalized citizen,

3:49

but from time to time Tony would visit her

3:51

childhood town of Chihuahua, Mexico.

3:56

On one of those visits, when she was about fifteen,

3:58

Tony met and fell in love with a b Instead

4:01

of them setting up in America, they got married

4:03

in Mexico and began building their family

4:05

in Chihuahua, where they had seven kids.

4:07

Their Catholic now

4:12

Chihuahua is about two hundred and thirty miles

4:14

south of El Paso, Texas, a world

4:16

away from Tony's parents in East La So

4:19

to be within driving distance from her family,

4:21

Tony and her husband moved everyone to Tijuana,

4:23

then about a two hour drive from Los Angeles.

4:26

While there they had three more children, including

4:28

Gloria in nineteen fifty four. Toni's

4:31

family was dirt poor, and that's Mexican

4:34

dirt poor, which is several floors down from

4:36

American dirt poor. Her daughter Gloria

4:38

remembers often not having shoes and

4:40

frequently went to bed hungary. Their

4:42

diet consisted primarily of beans

4:44

and tortillas, and when the tortillas got hard,

4:47

they'd have to dip them in water to soften them.

4:49

It wasn't long before Tony realized that there

4:52

was no future for her family in Mexico.

4:54

There was just no way for them to make enough money

4:56

to survive, so she decided

4:58

to bring her family to America the right way.

5:01

She left her kids with her husband and TJ moved

5:03

in with her parents in East La worked on

5:05

the line in a factory and as a telephone operator,

5:08

and sometimes taking as many as three jobs so

5:10

that she could send money back to her family so

5:12

that they could survive, and then, one

5:14

by one, over the stretch of two decades, she

5:17

slowly brought her kids into the United States

5:20

Legally, it was a sacrifice.

5:22

She spent long stretches away from her children,

5:24

and he created some animosity.

5:29

A few of their older kids decided

5:31

to stay in Mexico with their father, but her

5:33

daughter, Gloria, joined Tony in America when

5:36

she was around eight. Gloria grew up

5:38

in Elmonte, California, a suburb

5:40

of Los Angeles, but would travel back to Tijuana

5:42

from time to time.

5:43

We used to go and visit my sister because my

5:45

older sister she lived in

5:47

the neighborhood.

5:49

On one of those trips, she ran into that rambunctious

5:51

pool splasher Chewy from her childhood.

5:54

We were at a club in Tijuana.

5:56

We kind of connected again.

5:58

There was a bit taboo for the to date. Gloria's

6:01

family and Chewy's family had no ongoing

6:03

feud.

6:04

My mother in law knew my sisters.

6:07

They were like enemies, they were really friends.

6:11

The women from Gloria's family were drop dead

6:13

gorgeous. Most of them were fair skinned

6:15

with light red hair, which was a novelty

6:17

in Mexico. As a result, they were popular

6:20

with the boys, but not so much with the girls

6:22

of local families. However, the little

6:24

feud didn't matter to Gloria. She was aunty

6:26

to get out of the house and start her life, and she was

6:28

attracted to the boy from her old stomping grounds.

6:31

He was he was nice, you

6:33

know, he was nice, a little bit aggressive, I

6:35

think, you know, kind of like machismo,

6:38

you know.

6:39

When they reconnected, Chewey was also visiting

6:41

TJ. He was around twenty one at the time

6:43

and was living just north of the Mexican

6:45

American border in the San Diego, California

6:47

area on a permanent resident green card.

6:50

The two started dating. Chewy visited

6:52

Gloria in La and she drived down to see

6:54

him. They quickly married, and Gloria

6:56

packed up and moved down to San Diego to live

6:58

with her new husband. A few months into their

7:00

marriage, Gloria was pregnant, and at

7:02

the young age of eighteen, she gave birth to her

7:05

first daughter, Your humble co host,

7:07

Adriana and I.

7:08

Barely barely made it into the country.

7:11

I was born about two miles from

7:14

the border.

7:18

Adriana's father, Chewie, did grow up poor,

7:20

but at an early age he showed signs of

7:22

being a real go getter and his family

7:24

took notice. Again.

7:26

Adriana's mom, Gloria, what happened

7:28

is that when he was a kid, he

7:31

was basically the first boy

7:33

of his family and the mom

7:36

adore him. He could do nor

7:38

wrong. He would have one

7:40

of the older sisters look after

7:43

the little boy him and

7:46

if anything would happen to him, they would

7:48

get beat up. I mean, he

7:50

was like the king.

7:52

And with that crown came a burden.

7:56

My father was also very,

7:58

very poor, but my dad was always a

8:01

hustler by nature.

8:02

He used to sell I don't know if

8:04

it was cheek liz or newspaper in

8:06

the borderline.

8:07

And when he was just a little

8:10

boy, he would sell

8:12

cheek litz at the Mexican

8:14

border.

8:15

Chicklays are chick lits, the small square

8:17

shaped gum.

8:18

So you know, when you're leaving Mexico to come

8:20

into the United States, there's the border and

8:22

cars get in line, and you always have these

8:24

young kids or people that are trying to sell you things.

8:27

And my dad was one of those

8:29

kids. From a very very early age. He

8:31

took it upon himself too to make

8:33

money, and he would and he would take it home

8:35

to his mom so that she could feed her

8:38

kids.

8:38

But Mexico was not the place for a poor,

8:41

smart kid with an acumen for business.

8:43

If you live south of the border, there is really

8:45

only one way to make it out of extreme poverty,

8:48

and that's getting involved with its system of corruption.

8:51

The cartel grabbed a hold of Chewi at a

8:53

very young age. A neighborhood godfather

8:55

enlisted him when he was just a boy.

8:57

He hired him to do the

9:00

chananigans. Since

9:02

he was a kid, he had been doing you

9:04

know, I want to say

9:07

seven eight, oh, really

9:09

that young?

9:10

Do you know what he was hiring him.

9:12

To do, probably

9:15

picking up money or you

9:17

know, dealing drugs.

9:18

He was as young as seven when the cartel pulled

9:20

him in. By the time he married Gloria

9:22

Cheui was in his early twenties and was already

9:25

shackled to the system. In fact, Gloria

9:27

initially since but didn't fully understand.

9:30

I think he was doing chady things. I

9:32

just don't know the details, you know, because

9:35

he wasn't going to tell me. You know that I knew

9:37

that something he was doing something shady

9:39

because he always had all this money, and you.

9:41

Know, Gloria was naive at the time,

9:44

but she was about to get a crash course in the

9:46

corruption of Mexico. For the first

9:48

year of Adriana's life, their family lived

9:50

in Sanya Sidro, a district of San

9:52

Diego, California, right on the American

9:54

border with Mexico.

9:56

I lived in San Diego when I was born, and

9:58

then at some point my parents

10:01

moved back to Mexico to

10:03

live with my father's father.

10:05

Yeah, because when we moved into

10:07

that apartment in Sanny Sidro, it

10:10

was a small little apartment, brand new complex.

10:13

It was nice. You know. Jianna

10:15

was like a year old, she was already walking,

10:18

and they got

10:20

busted crossing. I

10:22

mean a truck full of stuff

10:25

and wat it was wat,

10:28

and so they

10:30

were. I went to the store and they were

10:32

following.

10:33

Me, they being undercover officers.

10:35

So I got back and I said, I think somebody's

10:37

following me, and they were waiting

10:39

for him outside.

10:41

They were going to arrest them, so we made a

10:43

run for it.

10:43

So he sneaked to the back and

10:46

he left. He went to.

10:47

Tjuana basically to hide out at his dad's

10:50

house.

10:50

So here I am alone with a baby. You

10:53

know, I was eighteen, for God's

10:56

sake, So then

10:58

that's why I ended up that I'm staying over

11:00

there with his dad for a while.

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11:32

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11:34

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11:37

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11:41

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11:45

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12:16

back to Red Pilled America. So

12:19

when Adriana was just a year old, her

12:21

father's trucking company was caught up with the Mexican

12:23

cartel. One of his drivers got

12:25

busted in the United States transporting

12:27

weed. The cops were out to arrest

12:29

her father, Chewy, so he decided to sneak

12:32

out of the country. He went south of the

12:34

border to hide out at his father's house in

12:36

Tijuana. Adriana and her mother followed

12:38

him there. Adriana was, of course,

12:40

oblivious to what was going on, she was barely

12:43

a year old. While

12:49

living there in Tijuana, she formed a bond

12:51

with her grandfather.

12:52

And my grandfather is the person that

12:55

taught me to speak, and my first language

12:57

was Spanish. Apparently I talked at

12:59

a very very very early age and people were astonished

13:02

by it. And I was a little chatterbox.

13:05

And I was also a very small child,

13:08

and so they called me la Perichiki's which

13:10

means little parakeet.

13:12

The family lived in Tijuana for about a year. Adriana

13:15

had her second birthday there and that's when she got

13:17

her first taste of stardom when her little sorrier

13:19

made it into the local papers. Adriana

13:21

Cortez turns two years old. The newspaper

13:23

headline read it was a sign of her father's

13:26

growing influence. But shortly after,

13:28

Gloria wanted to go back to America, so

13:31

her and Adriana moved back to Sania Sidro,

13:33

leaving her husband in Mexico. The

13:35

two lived there for about a year, but Gloria

13:38

was lonely. Most of her family was in Los

13:40

Angeles. Two hours away. So when

13:42

Adriana was almost three, her mother moved

13:44

them to La. It

13:50

looked like the young family was done.

13:52

Gloria and Adriana were in La. La land Chewy

13:54

was south of the border, and frankly, the young

13:57

mother was in no hurry to reunite with her

13:59

husband because of line of work.

14:01

I made it very clear the when

14:03

I came to La with Adriana,

14:06

I didn't want to be part of that because I

14:08

was afraid, you know, that he's doing shady

14:10

stuff. Then you know, I have a baby and they'll

14:12

take her away from us. So I moved to

14:14

La and I

14:17

rented this little apartment in Elmonte.

14:19

Adriana turned three there, so

14:21

he came back to us Chew.

14:23

He was going to learn the trade.

14:25

That's when he went to a school to

14:27

learn how to drive the trucks.

14:28

And he convinced Gloria to come back down south with

14:30

his daughter. And even though the young mother was

14:32

scared, it wasn't surprising that he was able

14:34

to convince her.

14:35

You know, when people always talked about

14:38

my dad as being this, you know, this

14:40

man that was so so

14:43

so tough, so strong, And

14:45

I knew that he was tough and I knew that he was strong, but

14:48

the way that I knew my dad was it. He

14:51

was always singing, He was always

14:53

in a great mood. He was

14:56

jovial, and he was charismatic,

14:58

and he was the life of the party.

15:01

He really was. He was a great time. He was

15:03

the kind of person that would you

15:05

know what. He kind of reminded me of Donald Trump, where

15:08

he would playfully insult people

15:10

and people loved it. They would wait for

15:12

his insults. You know. He was a very

15:15

very charismatic person and

15:17

everybody liked him.

15:18

And the girl from Tijuana couldn't stay away. Gloria

15:21

decided to move back to San Diego with Chewiy.

15:24

So then from there we

15:26

went back to San Diego.

15:28

Chewie appeared to be taking his first adult

15:30

stab at an honest dollar, but this

15:32

new trade just opened the door to more

15:34

shenanigans.

15:35

He was young, He was a young truck driver, and

15:38

he worked for somebody who

15:41

was basically he

15:44

worked for somebody that was basically, you know, doing

15:46

some illegal, shady stuff. He was transporting

15:49

things from Mexico into the

15:51

United States that were not exactly

15:53

legal. And my father,

15:56

who was from a very

15:58

very early age, he really had an entrepreneurial

16:01

spirit. He quickly

16:03

saved up money and he bought his own truck.

16:06

So then the man that he originally

16:08

worked for would hire my dad to drive

16:10

his truck. So my dad

16:13

very quickly started to a

16:15

mass more and more trucks, and

16:18

he built a trucking company.

16:19

He was back in the illegal trade business,

16:22

or perhaps he never left. Adriana

16:25

was roughly four years old when the family moved

16:27

back to Sania Cidro into a house, and

16:29

this is when, at a very young age, she

16:31

started becoming aware of the environment she

16:34

was in. As I said earlier, Sanya

16:36

Sijo, California is right on the Mexican

16:38

American border. From her house, you could literally

16:41

see Mexico.

16:42

And it was very, very close to the border.

16:44

It was so close to the border that we would

16:46

often see the coyotes crossing

16:49

with the illegals, you know, bringing

16:52

them into the United States.

16:53

Coyotes are human traffickers connected

16:55

to the Mexican cartels.

16:56

That's how close it was. It was like a stone's

16:59

throw the Mexican

17:01

border. My parents used to call the illegals

17:03

it would cross with the coyotes los.

17:06

Boos, ye loos, The

17:08

chickens.

17:11

They would run across like little chickens.

17:14

That sounds so awful, and we

17:17

were terrified as children of the coyotes.

17:19

We knew back then. I was taught

17:22

at a very very very very early age

17:24

that these people were very

17:26

very dangerous.

17:27

They come in in the back and they

17:29

would cross, and we had a dog and

17:31

the dog would bark, and Adrianna

17:33

was always afraid of that, you know. So I would

17:36

go out with the gun. Can you mention

17:38

me with the gun back then? And it's like,

17:40

what was I thinking? Man? You know, I wasn't afraid.

17:43

I would go and you know, look, and she was

17:46

like very scared. So

17:48

because he was gone all the time, he was

17:50

always gone.

18:00

So when Adriana was almost five, her

18:02

father moved them again.

18:04

And so my dad moved us to Coronado

18:06

Island. And you

18:09

know, my dad was always into Shenanigans.

18:11

He was super much eismo and

18:14

my mom and I were alone a lot, and

18:16

so he wanted us to be in a safer

18:18

neighborhood where nobody

18:20

could find us because he was also dealing

18:23

with a lot of very shady people

18:26

and he was, you know, he was scared. He was scared

18:28

for us, so he moved us to Coronado Island. It was a

18:31

beautiful, beautiful neighborhood. It was a

18:33

you know, idyllic island. That's

18:35

beautiful. I went to private school there, I went to Catholic

18:38

school. But there was always

18:40

this underlining fear

18:42

that was going on because of the

18:45

things that my dad was doing.

18:48

And little Adriana's intuition was right.

18:50

The next day, apparently

18:53

they found a body in that car. There

18:56

was somebody chopped it up in

18:59

peace.

19:00

Yes, do

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19:15

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19:17

Welcome back to Red Pilled America. So

19:20

Gloria and Adriana were forced to move around

19:22

a lot because of Chewiy's involvement with a cartel.

19:25

They went from San Diego to Tijuana,

19:27

back to San Diego, up to Los Angeles,

19:29

then back again to San Diego. In a house

19:32

a stone's throw from the Mexican border, where

19:34

Adriana regularly saw coyotes trafficking

19:36

people into the country. Her and her

19:38

mother felt unsafe because a man of the house

19:40

was never home. So when Adriana was around

19:43

five years old, their father moved them to

19:45

Coronado Island, a safe beach town

19:47

oasis in San Diego. She attended

19:49

Catholic school there and even with her father

19:51

never around, her and her mom were finally

19:54

in one place for an extended amount of time.

19:56

They felt safe. But when Adriana's

19:58

seventh birthday came along, that feeling

20:01

quickly disappeared.

20:03

Okay, so what happened was that Adriana

20:05

had her birthday party and

20:07

he showed up.

20:08

Adriana's father, Chewiye, arrived at the party

20:10

with his friends.

20:11

Bobby was with his friends and his cars.

20:14

You know, he's Mercedes.

20:16

You know, he had a fancy blue Mercedes

20:18

Benz. After the party, Chewey

20:20

let one of his associates borrow the car.

20:22

And the person that he the

20:24

person that borrowed it, never brought the car back.

20:27

And there were whispers and there was going on.

20:29

And as a child I was I was definitely

20:33

very very attuned to the fact

20:35

that something was going on and that it was not

20:37

good, and I knew that, and I think

20:39

I was picking up really on my mother's fear. And

20:41

you have to remember my mom had me when she was eighteen.

20:44

She was very very young. She was in San Diego

20:46

by herself. Her family was all in

20:49

Los Angeles by this point. She only had one

20:51

remaining sister in Tijuana,

20:54

which was maybe fifteen minutes

20:56

away from us. But then we'd have to cross the border, which

20:58

was, you know, kind of an orde. Anyway,

21:01

So my dad lets somebody borrow his car.

21:03

The person doesn't bring.

21:04

It back the next day. Apparently

21:08

they found a body in that car. Somebody

21:11

chopped it up in pieces.

21:13

The person that borrowed his car was

21:16

found in the trunk of the car, and he had

21:18

been chopped up into

21:21

many, many pieces. And that person was

21:23

intended to be my father, and there

21:25

was blood everywhere.

21:27

It wasn't long after that that Gloria got herself

21:29

and Adriana out.

21:31

Like I was so naive and I was so young

21:33

and so stupid, you know, when

21:35

I realized it, it's like this is not a

21:37

good thing. You know, I have to get out of it here because

21:40

you know, they'll take my daughter away from me. That's

21:42

when I walk away.

21:44

They left Coronado and moved to an apartment

21:46

in Los Angeles. It's seven years

21:48

old. That was it. That was the last

21:50

time the family lived together, and the timing,

21:53

oddly couldn't have been better. Gloria

21:55

was pregnant with Adriana's brother.

21:57

Once we, my mom and I

22:00

came to Los Angeles to be with her family.

22:03

My parents never got back together, and

22:05

when my brother was born, my parents

22:07

were separated already, so my brother

22:10

never lived with my

22:12

father under the same roof as my

22:14

mother.

22:14

They got out in just the nick of time. You

22:17

see. Chewi's business was expanding, which

22:19

might have been the reason why someone was killed in his car.

22:21

You know, he was the type of person. He was like a

22:23

godfather. Really, you know, I mean really.

22:26

You know, after week came to Los Angeles,

22:29

my father's business got bigger

22:31

and bigger. He definitely

22:34

he was thriving. He was growing in

22:36

the organization that he was a part of. He

22:39

remarried a woman named Diane.

22:41

His trucking company added more and more

22:43

trucks. They also got into another

22:45

form of transportation.

22:46

He also at one time had three seven

22:49

forty seven airplanes that he was using to

22:51

transport things.

22:53

Chewi began expanding into other arenas

22:55

as well.

22:56

You know, like he owned horses at the racetrack.

22:58

He was like a partner in an airport. I mean he

23:01

would go there, but.

23:08

His chewi's racket was on the upswing. Gloria

23:11

and Adriana were experiencing something completely

23:13

different.

23:14

First, we moved to Elmanni

23:16

because one of my aunts had a house there.

23:19

She had a rental property and

23:21

we lived there for a while, and then

23:23

we got robbed so we had to move. And

23:25

then we moved to West Covina. And my

23:28

brother was born in West Covina

23:30

at Queen of the Valley Hospital and we

23:32

lived at apartments. They were called the Daisies.

23:34

The difference between the life they were living and the one

23:36

that their father was experiencing were at completely

23:39

different sides of the economic spectrum.

23:41

With her parents now divorced, Adriana

23:43

and her brother would spend time with him in the summer.

23:46

We would always see him on the holidays or for

23:48

our birthdays. He loved

23:51

us in his way, but he was

23:54

he was very troubled. He in

23:56

many ways abandoned

23:58

us.

23:59

He did.

24:00

My mother was the person

24:02

that took care of us. And what

24:05

my dad would do is he would come see us,

24:07

you know, on our birthdays or Christmas or some

24:09

sort of a holiday, or we'd go

24:11

visit him for the summer, and he

24:14

would buy us anything that

24:16

we wanted, like the most extravagant

24:19

things. And I think you hear these kinds

24:21

of stories from people that grew up

24:23

the way that I did have a parent that is

24:25

basically involved in illegal

24:28

activity. You know, the

24:30

highs are super super high,

24:33

and there's a lot a lot of money at sometimes

24:35

but then sometimes there's no money. But

24:37

at the end of the day, even when he had a ton of

24:39

ton of money, he never helped my mom. He

24:41

never gave a child support, He never

24:44

said let me get the kids health

24:47

insurance. I did go to Catholic school

24:49

and he did pay for that, and I think

24:51

that he felt like he was taking care of

24:53

me and my brother because when

24:55

I would go see him, I would go on the

24:57

most extravagant shopping

25:00

spreez.

25:00

You know.

25:01

My stepmother would take me to Neiman Marcus

25:03

into Sacks Fifth Avenue, and I thought, oh my gosh,

25:05

and that was literally the definition of poor little

25:08

rich girl, because I'd go to my mom's and

25:10

wouldn't have any food. But then I'd go to my dad's

25:12

and I was shopping at Neiman Marcus, and

25:14

it was just this very,

25:17

very strange dichotomy of a lifestyle.

25:20

As she progressed through her preteen and teenage

25:22

years, struggling along with her mother and baby

25:25

brother, Adriana had to grow up quickly in

25:27

her daily life. She was becoming the polar

25:29

opposite of her father, where he was largely

25:32

absent working with a cartel, she was developing

25:34

into a moral hard ass, always

25:36

looking to do things the right way and calling

25:39

out those that didn't. Adriana was

25:41

always aware of the real dangers of

25:43

life and became the type of person

25:45

that would probe any suspicious situation

25:48

with uncomfortable questions to make sure

25:50

her and the people around her were safe.

25:53

Now out from under her dad's roof, Adriana's

25:55

family was poor, but that's not how

25:57

she felt.

25:58

You know.

25:58

My mom worked hard to trade school.

26:00

She got herself a trade so she could support us,

26:03

and she really had the support of

26:06

her mother and her siblings that

26:08

always helped her taking

26:10

care of us. And she was a hairdresser,

26:12

and she really worked hard to

26:14

put food on the table. But it was not

26:16

easy for her, but she made

26:19

it happen. Nothing bad ever happened

26:21

to us, to my siblings and I.

26:24

We were poor, that's it. But

26:28

if we were ever sick, my mother got

26:31

us to the doctor. She always took care

26:33

of us, and she loved

26:35

us. We had a lot of laughter

26:37

in our home, and we never felt

26:39

poor. I never felt poor. I

26:42

always felt like I was normal and I

26:44

was rich and I was not less than because

26:46

we didn't have a ton of money because we were

26:48

happy in our house. We were

26:51

good.

26:51

As for her father, their relationship was complicated.

26:54

Adriana loved her dad and adopted his

26:56

charisma, sense of humor, and self confidence.

26:59

His absence bummed her out, but at some

27:01

point she began to understand why he was always

27:03

gone.

27:04

I think he wanted to shield

27:06

me from it as much

27:08

as possible, but he also he

27:10

wanted me to know. I'm not with you every

27:13

day because I can't be because it's

27:15

not safe, and I love you so

27:17

much that I would never I'm not

27:19

going to risk your life and I'm

27:22

stuck in this You're not.

27:31

Adriana didn't know the details of what he was

27:33

doing, but knowing he worked with the cartel

27:36

was enough to get the picture. She hated

27:38

his line of work and never shied away

27:40

from rubbing it in his nose. Her

27:42

father saw that trait developing and

27:44

at some point became a bit more open with

27:46

her about the danger of his business so

27:48

that she wouldn't get herself in trouble.

27:51

When I got my first car, I was sixteen,

27:53

my dad took me to a dealer in

27:56

San Diego, really close to the Mexican

27:58

border, and there

28:00

was an old Mercedes. There are used

28:02

Mercedes, and I wanted it, and

28:04

my dad said, no, you can't have that car.

28:07

Well why not? I want it and it's in our you know. You said I

28:09

could get any car I want. I can get it, I can

28:11

get it, you can afford it. I want this car.

28:12

I want this car.

28:13

And he finally had to pull me aside and said, I

28:15

can't get you this car because underneath there's

28:17

a hole where they stashed the drugs, because they've been

28:20

using this car to transport drugs

28:22

from across the border.

28:23

So you can't have this car.

28:24

So, you know, there was a point where he

28:27

knew I knew, and I would call him out, you

28:29

know, I'd say, Dad, can we do this? And

28:31

he'd say no, and I'd say, oh, why is there

28:33

going to be dread dealers, you know.

28:35

I was. I was that kid.

28:37

I threw it in his face any

28:39

opportunity that I could, and I think

28:41

that he made the decision at that point

28:44

that he was going to have to tell me

28:46

the truth in order to keep me safe, because

28:48

if we went somewhere and I ran my mouth,

28:51

that would spell trouble. And when I say

28:53

trouble, I mean we could get killed.

28:55

And it was a good lesson because it prepared

28:57

Adriana for the moment that she was confronted

29:00

face to face by the cartel next

29:02

time on Red Pilled America.

29:05

And then things started to take a

29:07

very very bad turn, and I was getting very

29:09

very nervous because I knew that a lot

29:12

of these men were

29:14

heavily and deeply involved

29:16

with the cartel, and I knew it was it was

29:19

very very unsafe. I wasn't as worried

29:21

for my brother as I was for Patrick. Red

29:24

Pilled America is an iHeartRadio original podcast.

29:27

It's produced by me Adriana Cortez

29:29

and Patrick Carrelchi for Inform Ventures. Now.

29:32

Our entire archive of episodes is only

29:34

available to our Backstage subscribers.

29:36

To subscribe, visit redpilled America dot

29:38

com and click support at the top of the menu.

29:40

Thanks for listening.