Don't stress about the cartel. You'll be arrested long before you ever get into contact with them. Instead, here a few things to help minimize the number of years you'll spend in prison away from your daughter and the rest of your family.
You mentioned meeting with the DEA in another comment. Bring a lawyer when you go. You'll have to call around to find one who will agree to put you in jeopardy of criminal prosecution when no liability presently exists. Look for an inexperienced solo practice attorney who needs the money. Don't waste your time calling large firms or any attorneys with a reputation they'd want to keep.
Be ready to give the agents every detail when you meet with them. If you hold anything material back, they'll add an additional count to the indictment for violating 18 U.S.C. § 1001.
Miranda warnings won't apply here, so you won't get the "right to remain silent" spill. That won't come until you're actually in handcuffs during the arrest. Everything you say in the meeting will still be admissible at your trial, however.
If you have any pets, you need to go ahead and find new homes for them. Dogs, especially anything over 5 lbs, tend to get shot when arrest warrants are served. Nobody wants to say it out loud, but honestly it's a better way to go than slowly starving to death in your home while you're in custody.
After you're arrested, you're going to need a new attorney. The good news is that you'll finally be able to hire a more reputable attorney to take your case.
> I know there have been situations where federal agencies have turned out to be "the bad guys", but I guess I'm optimistic that they are generally smart, well intentioned, and interested in some of the same outcomes that I'm talking about.
Oh, they're gonna be very friendly and super interested in your ideas.
I thought this was some sort of parody or joke - it sounds like some sort of Nigerian Prince scam pitch - but from your responses you are either genius at playing the whole thing straight or you are seriously out your depth and literally risking your life for no good reason.
First off, saying that you have an idea to "improve their [Cartels] profit margins" by itself is enough to fall foul of the US DEA. Even if you are not in the US, the DEA has plenty of official and unofficial routes to target you and make life unbearably difficult or extradite you to the US where they can really mess you about.
Fentanyl is primarily sourced from China and is knowingly brought in by cartels - it's not an accident it's in drugs and killing people and both China and the cartels are well aware of that and don't care. You're talking about people who torture indiscriminately and dump decapitated bodies in play parks to 'send messages' over minor issues like someone being on the wrong street that they consider their turf.
You're not going to get a "zoom call" with them and you're not going to be able to set up any sort of mutually beneficial business relationship.
There was an article about disappearing engineers - the ones working on communications.
Cartels figured they need somebody to setup sophisticated communication systems - do you think they asked a company for help ? They just kidnapped the people they found working on communications towers, made them do the job, then buried them.
Sorry but your idea of trying to work with a cartel is beyond stupid. With a lot of luck, you could end up working for them. As a slave.
This is a phenomenally bad idea for many reasons, but let's just look at what would happen if somehow you fully succeed at what you're trying to do and you start working with cartels.
If that happens, you are in bed with some of the most ruthless and powerful people in the world, who can certainly kill you and/or your family members even if you're in the U.S., if they want to kill you bad enough. And if you somehow manage to bring a lot of value to the table, they will want to bring you deeper into the fold so they have more control over you and, if you refuse, will probably kill you so that rival cartels can't get their hands on what you have.
And this is what happens in the outcome you _want_ to achieve! OP, especially considering you have a family (you mentioned a daughter in one post), none of this makes sense.
In my limited experience with “Cartels”… there are two kinds of people: ruthless and rational; ruthless and irrational. If they are anywhere near the top, you can bet they are the first type.
It seems you want to deal with multiple cartels at the same time. This is suicide. If you do it anyway, treat them all equally, show no favoritism, never compare them. Think of it as having a bunch of aunt/uncles who always tell you that you’re their favorite. They’ll buy you gifts to get you to say it back.
The other side of this: if your software has a bug and causes profits to go down… you might be on the hook for that. Make sure you make it clear that you aren’t responsible for their profits. Yes, your software MAY increase their profits, but they’re responsible for execution, not your software.
Note, this is second-hand advice from a friend.
You are planning suicide. It's that simple. You have nothing in common with the people who run drug cartels; it would be as safe to meet with grizzly bears.
Instead of risking your life, ruining your career, and ending up on do-not-fly lists, why not get involved in politics? If your idea has merit, promote it through the actual democratic process. Your concept of working with cartels is beyond ridiculous and I wonder how you could have possibly developed such a naive and flawed view of how crime works.
Cartels of any kind (drug, music, oil) are never where new ideas start. If a new drug were going to be adopted, it'd start with a local manufacturer/seller, and spread by word of mouth. If it gets big, eventually cartels will move in and monopolize it.
Monopolies get pitches for new products all the time, but their answer is:
- If it's any good, why isn't it already growing?
- We'll wait and see if it grows. If it does, we'll just muscle our way in.
- Have fun, kid. We'll let you know when it's time to join us.
My main takeaway here is that if OP can make it to Amazon to work on AWS, hell I can make it to a FAANG too.
I'm not really sure what your goal here is Chris, you are either trying to do some gorilla marketing campaign for [redacted], or based on your LinkedIn history of only staying at a company in a role for about one year exactly, you are getting the itch to move to something different now once again, so why not have a go at transforming a burgeoning industry like the drug trade?
There is also a third option of this just being a joke and I have to admit it is pretty funny to imagine you on a Zoom call the Cartel, screen sharing some kind of a process deck you made in Google slides.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that you actually are not stupid enough to think you could get on a Zoom call with a cartel member, so that means this is most likely a growth stunt, but I have to second guess myself there too because this post has made you look like such a dunce I can't imagine you showing up to work on Monday proud to share the results of this with the growth team.
Friendly advice for next time would be to post this from an account that is not tied directly to who you are as a person
I assume the cartel leaders are essentially profit motivated
Not an expert on this but my understanding is that since El Chapo JoaquĂn Guzmán was taken down his cartel splintered and they are no longer operating like a business not that it would have helped your goal here. This would probably be an extra-risky riskier and insane time to try to meet with them. If you are dead set on doing this I would guess that the least risky way to get a message to them would be to talk to a Sheriff in a border town that deals with their drug and people smugglers and knows what people can relay a message to them. They will advise against this as well. I would not try to meet them in person.
Here is one of them [1] give this reporter or Sheriff a call. He's in Yuma County, AZ. Have thick skin, they are going to give you a hard time. Maybe hire an actor from South America the cartel might respect and pay the actor to make a short to-the-point video the cartel may enjoy watching.
Have you read the court transcripts of El Chapo trial? Maybe, better read them, before you think you can safely contact drug cartels. Drug cartels are at least three moves away from your local drug dealer. Cartel folks deal with the wholesale distributors, who are some high level gang operatives. So, you can't even go past the first two levels, let alone the local high level gang operatives. These high level wholesale buyers interact with cartel people (mostly they are born and brought up in the states). And these people further interact with people in Mexico. This Mexican contact is in touch with the big cartel bosses. That's how the structure is laid out based on the transcripts.
Is this how you do growth engineering? Quite a few people looked you and the company you work for up. Is that the end game? :)
As a fan of KenM, Nathan Fielder, and Sasha Baron Cohen, I say well done! HOW did you come up with this? Genius! The bit about getting the cartel to sign your EULA [1] was ::chefs kiss::
(Posting this only as you seem to have decided to low-key reveal the ruse)
Your behavior right now is much higher risk to your daughter’s safety than fentanyl-laced drugs.
You go into business for yourself, and then wait for someone to knock on your door and make you an offer you can't refuse. You'll probably end up in a ditch due to your combination of naiveté and opportunism.
This is complete nonsense. If you don’t want to profit from this there is no incentive to meet anyone. Post the idea, publicize it, and hope they adopt it.
If you are sincere, I have difficulty understanding how you have functioned in society for apparently decades. My guess is that you have figured out that being laughably wrong on the internet is a great way to drive traffic. In which case thanks for wasting everyone’s time. But there’s no obvious hook here other than HN karma?
If not, then I am concerned you are literally, unironically, having a mental breakdown of some kind. Mania perhaps. If you still think your idea is worthwhile, maybe you should ask someone you trust if your behavior has been off lately and get checked out by a doctor.
This is the strangest ask HN question I have ever seen on this site.
The person that made the suggestion to Sanitize your profile and remove the employer has a sense of self preservation.
Is it 8 AM in California yet?
What makes you think these fentanyl deaths are accidental and not warfare by alternative means? Profits? If they can make their enemy pay for their own destruction, so much the better! But is the point truly profit or the destabilization of neighboring nations with an aim of a form of 'Reconquista' type movement?
I'm sorry but you strike me as criminally naive.
Easily the most unique spin on the "make the world a better place" startup cliches heard on HN.
El Chapo's family office is putting together a term sheet as we speak!
This site is insufferable sometimes.
I promise your idea isn't as good as you think and you aren't the person that could bring it to fruition anyway.
I'm going to entertain the possible fantasy: Drug dealers also have a motivation to keep their customers alive. Why not start there and work your way up the chain? At some point the higher ups take notice.
the situation is you have information that you think dangerous groups want.
set the information free.
if you aren’t aiming to make a profit, let the cartels find it. release the idea into the wind, and hope it finds its way. and you go back to yours.
if you are, you have a much bigger problem than the cartels. (it’s you.)
I can think of only one reason you would want to meet cartels face-to-face: because you want a cut of the profits. If you get that, that would make you a criminal. Do you want to be one?
If not, why don’t you just publish your idea and be the one who reduced fentanyl deaths and violence?
Delete this post immediately before your bosses at [redacted] find out, you signed it off too with your name too. SMH
This post left me with several questions.
You mentioned that you want to improve drug cartel profit margins. Is that the reason why you want to connect to them directly instead of sharing your idea publicly?
Are you planning to propose sharing on some of that profit margin increase on drug dealing? Is this some sort of "growth hacking" for drug cartels? Is your company on board with you working for drug cartels?
And finally, did you mention that HN mods are OK with the site being used as a medium for assisting in contacting drug cartels with intent of increasing their profit margins?
Honestly?
Go to federal prison.
You'll make the contacts necessary to do whatever you're trying to do.
If it's really great you should try it on yourself first! Be the change in the world /s
You'd be the first person in the world to consume a novel drug, this should give you enough pleasure (plus of course the pleasure from the drug) to completely abandon the idea of making money doing business with cartels, hell it could completely turn you off to the idea of money at all, if not to continue producing and consuming the drug.
It's a choice, you mentioned better operating margins so I guess your idea makes the drug cheaper to make? This gives you a slower burn rate and thus a longer runway.
I have a feeling that you won't go through with this idea, but in the future remember that any idea which require you to speak with the bosses of an existing organization to completely overhaul their production system should be discarded because it's not actionable and just a waste of time. This idea adds the illegal bit which is of course a whole other story.
Just post in on the internet repeatedly.
Drug cartels do not respond to people they did not meet organically. You could be a cop trying to set them up, so they ignore you. You could be a rival looking to harm them, so they ignore you.
If you get too annoying, they may hurt you. People who value human life do not generally traffic illegal / street drugs.
Sometimes “move fast and break things” is a little more illegal than others.
This time it’s far, FAR more illegal than you seem to think.
I imagine this will have some interesting ramifications on your future employment opportunities, since you managed to nicely link it to your real identity.
Are you Nathan Fielder?
Contact a senator. Oh, you mean illegal drugs cartels?
You're not going to do any good because criminals don't give AF about something that isn't their mission. Ending the prohibition War on Drugs is the best path that even LEOs admit is an abject (and racist and classist) failure. [0]
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Enforcement_Action_Partner...
If you want to meet policy people just go to think tank events about anything related to this issue. Researchers at places like the United States Institute of Peace or journalists may actually know low-mid ranking members, but they are probably not going to introduce you to them directly. With all due respect, this plan seems incredibly ill-conceived and even if it was successful you would likely have legal problems.
The only thing I can think of for this is you have some idea to chemically alter the drug to make it less lethal. If so, consider if it's possible they already know and have chosen not to do it. Why would that be? To not hurt their margins it would need to add zero cost to production (unlikely), not decrease the addictiveness, and not affect their ability to transport it.
> interested in something that would prevent their customers from dying
they don't care. there's more getting hooked to replace them every day.
there's no profit in lifting a finger to prevent the deaths, it is all a perfectly acceptable moral cost of doing business (for people who are very willing to kill in cold blood).
your mental model of the cartels and their motivations and business model is very broken.
If I've learned anything from YC, it's make sure your cartel stock options vest with 4 year cliff.
Short answer: you cannot safely contact drug cartels, and merely publicly stating the intention to do so to pitch an idea about how to reduce their visibility to law enforcement and increase their operating/profit margins creates non-negligible personal jeopardy.
> I assume the cartel leaders are essentially profit motivated, and would be interested in something that would prevent their customers from dying, cut down on the violence that brings law enforcement attention, and improve their profit margins.
This is probably a matter on which you should have done some research that does not involve discussing your idea before deciding to move forward with making even a vague outline of your thoughts public.
> I realize it sounds a little crazy
“A little crazy” is something you might, barely, be able to see in the distance if you look back toward normal right now.
> I'm not even sure where to start or what kind of lawyer to check with for advice.
Well, really, almost any lawyer before posting about it publicly would probably have been a good idea. Not about “how do I execute this idea”, because that is presupposing the answer to several other questions you’ve skipped over.
(Looking at your other posts)
> I'm in the US and I would actually be very interested in chatting with the DEA about my idea.
There are certain enforcement agencies whose approach to certain laws within their scope of enforcement responsibility is primarily to inform and guide so that people don’t get into the position where the less friendly enforcement actions become necessary.
But it has never beem my impression that that’s the DEA’s approach to anything, especially plans to help drug cartels increase their profit margins.
> I know there have been situations where federal agencies have turned out to be "the bad guys", but I guess I'm optimistic that they are generally smart, well intentioned, and interested in some of the same outcomes that I'm talking about.
Some of them, maybe. The problem is that some of the outcomes you are talking about are very much anti-goals of those agencies, and stopping people who are actively pursuing them is an objective likely to trump those that might be shared.
It sounds like if there is a non-insane idea at the core of the very bad execution concept you have laid out—and it sounds like it is some harm reduction approach, which is a fraught area for a number of reasons—and you want to acheive it without getting yourself killed by the cartels (or, more likely, the people you try to work your way through to reach them) and/or killed or imprisoned by law enforcement, you need to stop talking about your concept of execution and do some real researxh on the actors and institutions and structures (government and otherwise) in this space, and understand their goals, operating patterns, organization structures. etc., much better than you do, to evaluate if there is a viable approach to broaching your idea, and which actors (institutionally, by position within institutions, and bt specific named individuals) you should be going to to pitch it, based on institutional, positional, and personal interests, constraints, and capacities.
The naive generalized ideas about cartels and relevant law enforcement agencies you have are juat going to get you in deep trouble, otherwise.
This is not a situation where going forward with a half-considered idea and relying on the good intentions, procedural flexibility, and open civic mindedness and willingness to cooperate of drug cartel members and law enforcement agents is going to be a viable strategy.
who do you want to be safe from?
The Cartels themselves? Probably looking at finding someone who knows someone who knows someone. Maybe a billboard?
The government of your country who might not enjoy you assisting the cartels? You probably fucked that up already.
Would be easier with European cartels, where the whole economy is cartel-based. Not just the illegal criminal organizations in the US. In Germany or France they won't kill you, in Russia the danger is higher.
I'm just going to re-iterate what DonHopkins said below. Just post it publicly and hope it gets out there. Email some journalists etc.
Wouldn't it be rather easier to find a solution to prevent people from becoming substance addicts?
Cartel/Mafias are managed by greedy peoples, their greed is infinite you will never win.
Richard Sackler Family Foundation
17 E 62nd St New York City, NY 10065-7204
Telephone: 212-408-5520
Ok, everyone established this is wild, so whats the idea?
This is absolutely peak HN. I thought I had seen everything. A person is asking HN how to contact a cartel in order to improve their business "for safety". I am strictly commenting here so I can return to it in the future for a good laugh.
Wow
With all this traction you should apply to Why Combinator.
better call Saul?
Why Combinator
Nice try FBI
Nice try DEA
One of the reasons I wish liveleak were still around is so people like you could see the world that most people don't get to see. If only you could see just one video from there with "cartel" in the title. Would give you a much-needed dose of reality.
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You want to go into business with criminals? There's no honor among thieves...they'll eliminate you once it's convenient.
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I wouldn't do it if I were you. Perhaps you can hire someone with extremely good SecOps skills who is willing to.
Off the top of my head though my "idea-marketing" strategy for your case, would be:
- Contact narco influencers on Tiktok & other social platforms
- Contact narco lawyers & ask them to forward your message
- Take out entire page advertisements in main Mexican newspapers for 1-2 months
Hey Chris, I’m a pretty high ranking member in the Sinaloa Cartel that also browses HN in my free time.
Customers always come first in our line of work, so I’m always looking for ways to provide a high quality, safe experience with the drugs we provide and this idea sounds like it could be a game changer not just for us cartels, but also for savvy entrepreneurs like yourself.
I reached out directly to the email you provided in your bio (p.s. thanks for making it your real first and last name so there is no confusion on my end) and am eagerly awaiting your reply.