Juno News - Security expert gives WARNING to Canadians in Mexico

00:00:00.000 Well, violence continues across Mexico as members of a notorious drug cartel attack police and

00:00:10.240 civilian targets following the death of a drug lord on the weekend. An estimated 26,000 Canadians

00:00:16.560 are in Mexico. Some are trying to leave the country. The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, 1.00

00:00:22.900 one of the most powerful and feared criminal organizations in Mexico, have unleashed a wave

00:00:28.780 of attacks across 20 Mexican states. They have torched businesses and set up blockades. All this

00:00:35.340 followed the government's killing of a notorious drug lord best known as El Mencho, who died in

00:00:42.360 custody Sunday shortly after being captured by Mexican special forces. Joining us is security

00:00:48.940 expert and bodyguard to the billionaires, Ross McLean. What can you tell us about the situation

00:00:53.960 in Mexico right now? Well, from the breakout of it, this was the Mexican special forces went in and

00:01:01.680 took down this drug lord, one of the biggest, most powerful drug lords in the area. When the

00:01:07.100 information first came out, Mark, it was talking about that the Americans were actually involved

00:01:13.380 on the ground with the takeout of this guy. When they went, they got him and he apparently died upon

00:01:19.840 the exercise to arrest him. So what happened after that is the cartel came out, started grabbing

00:01:27.480 people out of their cars at major intersections leading into Puerto Vallarta and other major centers,

00:01:32.960 dragging people out of their cars, killing them or not, I don't know, but then setting the cars on

00:01:37.340 fire as roadblocks so people couldn't leave. Then they apparently sent out an email to everybody

00:01:43.180 saying, hey, if you're a resident here in Mexico, stay in your house after two o'clock because we're going 1.00

00:01:48.640 to be taken to the streets. And we're getting various information about how much they said

00:01:54.400 they were going to do and how much harm and how much shooting and how much killing. And that was

00:01:59.180 the situation as it broke out the other day, Mark. Yeah, I mean, you've got this drug cartel

00:02:04.340 obviously wreaking havoc after the death of their drug lord. And I think Americans are their main 1.00

00:02:11.100 targets. They're upset with America. We had, of course, a call by Donald Trump for action on

00:02:17.600 the cartels. And of course, their president, Scheinbaum, finally did something about it.

00:02:24.560 And so I think the anger is going to be directed at Americans. But of course, in the fog of war,

00:02:29.960 Americans, Canadians, they kind of look pretty much the same, Westerners, you know, on vacation.

00:02:36.520 And so what advice would you have to Canadians down there right now who are finding themselves

00:02:41.400 trapped, unable to leave? Yeah. So when this was breaking out, I saw it breaking out real time

00:02:48.280 on X, of course, like everybody did. Saw the videos real time, right? This is the thing that

00:02:53.840 makes things different with all the phones that are out there, the cameras, the internet, Skylink.

00:02:58.240 You can see this breaking out in full time. So my big concern at the start of this was that what they

00:03:05.880 were going to do was they were going to be targeting Americans. That would have been the 0.97

00:03:11.040 thought. They're not going to target Natives, but they might have targeted Americans. So I was 0.92

00:03:16.440 putting out a series of tips and advice on my timeline for what people could do if they were

00:03:21.340 down there. You know, one of the ones that I put out, which was interesting, was I said, look,

00:03:25.840 if you're American and you're down there, ditch your ID. Someone comes across you, tell them

00:03:32.200 you're Canadian, not American. You know, and I had a lot of people that appreciated that was put 0.99

00:03:37.900 out. And I got a lot of course, jokes firing back from people. Oh, I'd never say I'm a Canadian.

00:03:42.280 Oh, why would, you know, people not realizing the seriousness of it. But of course I do. I've

00:03:47.400 sent executives into very dangerous places in the past and people do get killed because of their

00:03:53.560 ethnicity, their nationality, their color, whatever. And so the concern here would have been if they

00:03:58.820 were looking for Americans, you did not want to look like an American. You know, the next thing 0.99

00:04:03.780 I suggested people should do is they have to get to a place of safety. And what I typically do when

00:04:09.360 I go traveling or I tell people when they go traveling is I go find the top security guy.

00:04:14.440 And sometimes maybe you just find the head doorman at your hotel or the resort you're staying at.

00:04:18.940 And I'd give them 50 bucks and I'd say, Hey, you see this face? Remember this face. You're going to

00:04:23.220 look after me. If I have any questions, if I need help, will you be able to help me? I don't want to

00:04:27.120 get any bad cabs or any bad deals. You look after me. And they say, well, they take the 50 bucks and

00:04:31.520 they say, yes. Right. And you can ask them about where you're going and what the problems are.

00:04:35.880 So what I would have suggested there is I would have gotten ahold of that person in the hotel and

00:04:41.340 say, where can I hide? Where can I hide for cover and concealment? The most important thing, Mark,

00:04:48.700 being you want, not only want to be out of sight where someone's not going to find you, but

00:04:52.520 behind something that's pretty bullet resistant, you know? So if they had, if they had something in

00:04:57.860 the basement where they stored dried food in that hotel or something like that, you could get in

00:05:03.520 there and lock that door and bolt that up. Give, you know, 50, a hundred bucks or whatever to whoever's

00:05:08.060 running the kitchen. Don't give me up sort of thing or whatever. Right. You stand a good chance that

00:05:13.200 actually happened. The other one is going to a local storefront. If you're out somewhere where the

00:05:18.160 store owners, I mean, they appreciate tourists. Right. And you say, can I hide in your store?

00:05:22.540 That happens. If you remember the Charlie Hebdebo when they were shooting, uh, Jews and everything

00:05:28.840 because of the depiction of Muhammad over in France, I think it was. Yeah. What's the one guy did? He had

00:05:33.680 a butcher store. I think it was, and he hid like 12 people in the freezer in his, when they were going

00:05:38.200 around killing people. So you want to get out of sight, out of mind, uh, not be identifiable if that's who

00:05:44.500 they're targeting for what they're looking for. But those are some of the keys that I would look at.

00:05:50.740 Yeah. I mean, to your point earlier about Americans being up to their necks in this operation,

00:05:54.820 there is a, an exclusive by Reuters, a new U S military led task force specializing in an intel

00:06:01.620 collection on drug cartels played a key role in the Mexican military raid on Sunday that killed Mexican

00:06:10.260 drug lord known as El Mencho, that according to a U S defense official. And so this has definitely

00:06:18.580 been a major bone of contention between the Mexicans and the Americans. At one point, uh, Trump threatened

00:06:25.940 to wage his own attacks on these, uh, cartel, uh, on these cartels and their operations and their leaders.

00:06:35.780 She said, no. And I guess there must've been some agreement to allow the U S forces as well to play

00:06:42.820 a role in this. And that's probably why this is going on, but this is probably going to drag on for

00:06:47.940 a while, isn't it? I mean, the, the cartels are incredibly powerful in Mexico and a byproduct of

00:06:55.860 that power as they unleash violence on the population as a result of the death of, uh, of El Mencho. How long

00:07:03.620 do you think this is going to drag on? Well, it's, it depends. It depends what they do, right? The

00:07:10.100 actions they take. I don't think the public is generally aware of exactly how deadly the they're

00:07:14.900 like a military force. They're like their own little army. Uh, these cartels, they make, you know,

00:07:19.700 all the money they make from drugs. We know how big that is, right? Everybody who watched Scarface,

00:07:24.580 all the money they make from that is so much. They can't hang onto it. They make more money from human

00:07:29.780 trafficking, right? All the people that were going across the Southern border. They made way more

00:07:34.100 money from that, from doing human trafficking. As a result, they own all kinds of weapons,

00:07:38.260 armored vehicles. There's even a report out that the cartels sent a couple of people over to the

00:07:43.780 Ukraine to train on how to use drones to kill people. Right. I'll talk to you about that another

00:07:49.540 time. I know someone who was in the Ukraine with those drones and very deadly. So, uh, if they start

00:07:55.860 picking on Americans, I'm not sure where it's going to go. If they start deciding to go looking

00:08:01.220 for them and killing them, I would suspect you're going to see one very, very strong response from 0.88

00:08:06.580 the United States because they know if you're allowed to pick off Americans in one spot, you'll 0.99

00:08:11.460 be, it'll happen in other spots. And, uh, you know, the Canadian response to this has been interesting.

00:08:18.740 Uh, once again, I saw that at best after a couple of hours, you know, I looked right away for the

00:08:24.820 embassy down in Mexico and that part there, they're closed till Monday at nine. So no help there.

00:08:30.020 Right. It was a 24 hour number for emergencies or something, but eventually they came out and said,

00:08:35.060 Oh, we'll send your name to this, uh, text it to this address here and in global affairs or whatever,

00:08:40.740 we'll update you on what's going on. Well, the people are already updated. I mean, they're seeing

00:08:45.220 it live on Twitter. They're seeing the videos, how close it is to where they are. They can find all the

00:08:50.180 information. What I was shocked, uh, was I don't, I don't, this is me. I would like to have Canada

00:08:56.580 have a response to say, don't worry. We're making plans to get people out right now. You know, we

00:09:02.740 have this little opera operation group called JTF two joint task force two. They are the world's best

00:09:10.260 and other special forces will tell you this. I know special forces guys. They're the world's best at

00:09:15.060 going in and getting people out of places. World's best bar none. Ask you, ask a Delta force guy,

00:09:20.820 a seal, uh, uh, an Israeli, uh, Mossad agent. Who do you want to come get me out? They'd say,

00:09:26.820 go get me JTF two. No one knows how good that they are. So I said, why are they not being sent down to

00:09:32.340 the border to hook up with the U S uh, military? Why aren't we getting a couple of globe master planes,

00:09:37.860 those giant planes being sent down? Hey, we're sending them down to Texas. And when the time is right,

00:09:42.100 we'll get them across or something like, why not show some action rather than I'll text you this

00:09:48.340 to stay in your room and be safe. It's that's not much help. It has been, I would think, tepid

00:09:54.660 and kind of slow, but I guess Anita and on finally saying this, Mexico hopes violence will calm in 0.51

00:10:01.940 coming days, says Anita Anand while cautioning, urging caution. I mean, that's, that's all they've got.

00:10:08.820 Ministers says Canadians and affected States should still follow shelter in place orders.

00:10:15.620 Yeah. I would definitely say stay off, you know, stay off the streets if you can. I mean, if you see

00:10:21.860 any potential danger. And I also found it fascinating that you said that the U S may, if Americans are 0.80

00:10:29.700 killed during the retribution against whoever is responsible for the death of Al Mencho,

00:10:39.060 then, uh, the fact that troops could be headed to Mexico would be, that would be huge. I mean,

00:10:45.380 uh, but you're saying that's a possibility from what you've heard.

00:10:49.300 Trump said that to the Taliban in the Middle East, he had the guys, he said to them, if one more 0.79

00:10:55.540 American gets killed here going forward, we're going to wipe you out. And the, the ambassador who 0.99

00:11:01.460 was talking to the Taliban guy pulled out a picture of the guy he was talking to at the front door to his

00:11:06.260 house and said, here, have a look at this. One more American gets it. You're going to get it. 0.62

00:11:11.540 I have no doubt that Donald Trump will make sure that that message is conveyed to the heads of the

00:11:16.420 cartel. I got no doubt that he will convey that message.

00:11:19.780 And let's not forget that there's a Mexican cartel connection in Canada, of course, along with the

00:11:26.500 Chinese, they've got labs in Canada, don't they? And in some cases, super labs, um, at least one that I 0.92

00:11:36.740 know of was, uh, stopped, was, uh, attacked essentially by, you know, people were arrested

00:11:43.780 and put a stop to that, what the operation in that lab. But there's a strong connection and a

00:11:49.300 growing connection between these Mexican cartels in Canada. They see the border, the northern border

00:11:54.980 of the United States as quite porous as maybe something that would allow them to continue operating

00:12:02.180 in a way, uh, even more so than the southern border. Is that fair?

00:12:06.580 Oh, look, that's the way the cartels operate. That's why Mexico is called, not lightly by people,

00:12:12.100 the narco state, meaning that the, the drug lords run it. They decide who's going to be the mayor

00:12:17.140 and who's going to be, do what. And look at, for all the Canadians who've been going to, uh,

00:12:21.940 Mexico for the longest time and they feel safe down there. There's a reason for that.

00:12:25.620 They ring that because the cartels know that killing all the tourists is bad for business.

00:12:30.020 And the tourists are down there buying the drugs when they're down there sort of thing.

00:12:33.300 You do not want to kill a tourist, right? That kills the destination and all the people that are

00:12:38.020 around you sort of thing down there. And the cartels, they, they go down there, they get woven

00:12:45.060 into the police departments, into the politicians. And we've had it up here in Canada. One of the most

00:12:50.260 senior intelligence people for the RCMP was doing that. He created a whole thing where he was making

00:12:56.180 untraceable, unbuggable blackberry phones and running a network and selling them to drug cartels

00:13:01.940 so they could conduct their business. And we're certainly having issues right now where we're

00:13:06.180 looking at it, even in Toronto with organized crime, potentially and allegedly being involved

00:13:10.580 with the Toronto police service. So, uh, you can absolutely bet if the cartel operates the way,

00:13:16.020 that way down there, they will operate that way up here. It's their playbook.

00:13:20.420 Yeah. You make a great point about Mexican tourism. And here, the cartels are saying,

00:13:26.500 you mess with us, we'll mess with you. So the tens of millions that you bring in from tourists,

00:13:34.420 well, you can kiss that goodbye because of what you did, your cooperation with the Americans

00:13:40.020 to kill El Mencho. You know, we're going to cost you an infinite amount of tourist dollars

00:13:46.340 because of that. So that makes sense now, doesn't it? In terms of, it's just, it's not just

00:13:51.620 retribution. It's sending a message to the government saying, you mess with us, we will

00:13:57.220 mess with your huge revenue source here being, uh, tourism. Is that, uh, what you think might be going

00:14:03.780 on? Oh, I, I, I absolutely. That's what's going on. Absolutely. That's going on. Trump could just

00:14:08.260 turn around tomorrow with the secretary of transport and say, that's it. We're closing the border,

00:14:12.500 no more trips, no more flights, no more, nothing into Mexico. And a lot of money gets repatriated

00:14:17.700 back to Mexico too. There's so many Mexicans that, that live in, live in the U S right. I mean, 0.89

00:14:22.900 Mexicans have really spread out a lot from Mexico. We've got lots of great Mexican diaspora here,

00:14:28.580 even in Canada. So I've got no doubt that those are the words that are going on. So where does it go

00:14:33.380 from here? Well, it depends on the level of threat that's being made and what message is being

00:14:38.100 delivered. Uh, but at this point I would not want to be the one that's, uh, testing Donald Trump's

00:14:45.380 patience too far on this. Absolutely. How do people consume your content online?

00:14:51.140 Yeah. They can catch me over at McLean Chronicles for my YouTube. And, and I've known on there,

00:14:55.140 I do have one video that dealt with an active shooter, uh, that was in New York before who went

00:14:59.780 up to the NFL offices. And I, I give some tips in there about how to protect yourself in the event of

00:15:04.900 an active shooter, what you do. And I think I'm going to make one up, do a video on this Mexican 1.00

00:15:10.260 one to talk about what you do, because we're seeing this unrest can break out anywhere. Now you could be

00:15:15.300 in any, any city, anywhere in the world. And all of a sudden this unrest could break out. Absolutely.

00:15:21.620 Ross, thank you so much for coming on the show. We appreciate it. Thanks, Mark.

00:15:25.940 And if you enjoyed this show, consider supporting great independent journalism

00:15:29.700 where breaking news stories are told by going to junonews.com backslash straight up. That's the

00:15:35.300 name of this show. Straight up. Junonews.com backslash straight up. Helped us a great deal. Thank you.

00:15:41.140 We'll see you next time.

Juno News - February 24, 2026

Security expert gives WARNING to Canadians in Mexico

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