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In the shadowy underbelly of British Columbia's drug trade,
there's a hidden network that operates with the efficiency of
a well oiled machine. It's called the Dialado Trade.
For years, this system has fueled the province drug
economy, providing a steady stream of revenue for organized
crime groups while eluding law enforcement.
Today, we're pulling back the curtain of this Dark World, and
there's no one better to guide us through it than Chris, a
former high-ranking gangster who not only managed multiple dial
Dope operations but also navigated the treacherous waters
of international drug trafficking.
Chris's journey into the criminal underworld began with
the Dial Dope trade, a business that's often the first step for
those looking to make their mark in organized crime.
From the streets of Vancouver to the violent territories
controlled by the cartels in Mexico and Colombia, Chris has
seen it all. His first hand experience offers
a rare glimpse into the mechanics of a trade that is
dangerous as it is lucrative. In this episode, we'll explore
the history of the Dialydo trade, its ties to organized
crime, and the brutal reality that comes with it.
But we also hear about Chris's path to redemption, his deep
connection to the Vancouver's Downtown East Side, and how he's
now dedicated to living a new life, free from the shadows of
this past. Join us as we into the world
that most people only read about in headlines with someone who's
lived it every day. Born and raised in in Vancouver,
you know, a middle class family. It kind of all started for me
with it was a desire to fit in. I mean, in high school I was
bullied and you know, I had this moment where I stood up to the
bully and then all of a sudden, you know, people would talk to
me. Girls were looking at me and I
just in my whole MO, to fit in and gain acceptance was just to
do whatever these bad guys were doing to, you know, be cool.
So that was where it started. Out of high school I became
heavily addicted to cocaine and my MO was cocaine and money.
Right. My first introduction into
making money were, you know, through working dial a dopes in
their in their infancy in, in the lower Mainland where that's
where you call a number and then the number dispatches a car to a
customer. I worked those for a long time.
I, I ran those. I had a couple of my own.
We had a couple. You know, there's, there's a lot
of fraud going on, a lot of phone calls to Europe doing, you
know, lottery scams and that kind of thing, which I do know
still exists today. Then following that, you know,
I, I was living in Mexico for, for three years, yeah.
That was when I really got exposed to, to how this stuff
works. After that, I was in Columbia
for about a year. Then after that I, I got clean,
had a relapse and then I ended up in the Downtown Eastside and
through there, I've been out there on and off in the Downtown
East Side for about, I don't know, 6-7 years.
And I mean, I've been clean for about a year, almost a year and
a half now. So and I don't live in the
Downtown East Side anymore. So really, even the time I've
known you, you've really come a long way.
And yeah, you've been, you've been even just watching your
journey. It's been inspiring because I
know it's tough. It's not easy.
We live in a very fucking stressful society and it's easy
to go back to what's comfortable.
And sometimes what's comfortable is for someone else would be
like scary as fuck. But you know, you get used to
stuff, right? So I'm sure, you know, you're,
if you're struggling and you're going through shit, the, the
temptation is always there because the, when you make that
kind of money, and I've been around a lot of like drug
dealers that were pretty successful and people who made a
lot of money. That's the hardest thing that
they found when they left the life because we're just used to
like, you know, I'd go out and I'm going to go out with one
dude. He'd bring like $20,000 with
them, just that that was his spending money.
Go to the bar, go to the strip bar, buy rounds When you can't
do that. We're from for most people, like
a hard working dude, making $20,000, especially in Canada is
almost impossible. You might be able to make it
then the government comes and takes half your back down to 10.
You know what I mean? So really you got to make like
40,000 legitimately to bring home 20.
So but for a dealer, Oh, what, what's 20 grand, right?
You know what I mean? So you don't get money
differently and and and that could fuck with your head it
right. I told I totally right.
So that that there's that temptation must be always there,
if that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, the, that blast of
cash is, is an addiction in itself.
And I mean, when you're, you know, you're on payday, when you
get that paycheck in the underworld, you know, you get
$10,000 stock of $100 bills or, you know, a $2000 stock of 20s.
And and they, they just, they just become really disposable.
Like that money leaves as fast as it comes, you know, whereas
if I make 500 bucks working minimum wage 10 years ago, I
might stretch that out a bit because, you know, I've put a
lot more heart and soul into that.
So you have that blast of cash is very addictive.
Absolutely. When you have a lot of money,
it's easy to get women, you know.
So, so you almost really got to change like, and just from my
personal experience, the shit I went through, my friends and
stuff like that, you got to change your life completely.
Even the people, everything, even like my friend Kevin who
did five years in in Kent when he got out of jail, like he, he
was on a work program. So he at least when he came out
of prison, he had about $30,000 saved up and and then he moved
right out of Vancouver because he said everywhere I look, I see
a mistake I made, you know what I mean?
So there's that constant reminder and, and that that's
why he had to leave. Well, then leave, but then he
ended up he ended up relapsing himself and dying anyway.
So that's a different story for him.
The temptation was was drugs, right?
He wasn't so much chasing the money.
He he, he would, he would chase the drugs like big time.
Like he would go clean for a year and then he would have like
a month where he would just go scorched earth and then clean up
again. And it was like, so it was just
horrific to watch, right. Yeah.
And dress life and all that kind of stuff.
So anyways, I really appreciate you.
I do. I mean that from the bottom of
my heart. And, and and I know like,
sometimes as shit, it's like the only way to get through it is
white knuckling it, right? You know there's no other way.
Right. Yeah, it.
Takes takes a lot, right. So let let's talk about
something here. Then you brought up a few
things. So let's talk for the audience
because I, I'm always was fascinated by the dial A dope
businesses like I you know, I've been only been around for a long
time when I even back when I was younger, they used to have one.
It wasn't drugs, it was booze. So you know, about 3:00 in the
morning, you need a bottle of something and it and they would
actually hand out cards that said roadside repair.
So so you can put it on your fridge and say it looks like,
you know, if you need a flat tire stuff, but they'd come to
your house, deliver whiskey, bought, you know, case of beer,
of course, you know, had a huge markup, right.
So maybe just breakdown the dial A dope business for a while
because I'm sure that had some adventures.
Dial A dope five dial A dope operations are always looking
for drivers. And I mean, that's that's a good
starting point into into the life, you know, and but most of
these drivers also use the drugs that they're selling.
So it's that's a little bit of a liability, but, you know, you
get one out of every 10 guys that's actually just there to
make the money and doesn't mind driving around meeting addicts
and dealing with that, that sort of dynamic.
So I mean, yeah, you, you will check in at a place where the
drugs are being weighed out and, you know, organized and you will
take like a package that's maybe worth anywhere from 500 to
$1000. You'll have your phone and then
you're in your car and the person that either owns a dial
it up or is working dispatch will receive phone calls from
addicts. And he will in turn call you,
dispatch you to a certain location.
So you're never actually taking calls from customers.
You're just taking calls from the dispatcher and you're going
to each location that he we need you to go to.
And you know, you don't want to, they don't like you carrying a
lot of money. So that's why they only give you
$1000 worth of shit. And then you know, you get to
500,000 bucks, you go back to the dispatch location and you
drop off the cash. You got more drugs and you're on
your way again, so. Have you have you been in any
like crazy situations where someone tried to rip you off or
maybe even like rivals trying to disrupt your crew or.
Yeah, I mean myself not not so much, but I, I was in the car
once. Like most of the time there
you'll be a, there'll be a driver and then someone else
that has the product. So the driver just drives and
then the guy with the product give the drugs.
But I was in the car once and the guy got in the back seat and
he took out a pipe wrench and started clubbing, clubbing and
the guy and my guy that had the drugs and yeah, like I just, I
got out of the car and tried to rip him out, but you know, he'd
grabbed his bag and, you know, he was with a buddy and they got
out and ran away. So yeah, it's in this guy was
left. I took him to the hospital so.
Welfare Wednesdays, right? So baby breakdown for the
audience. How busy?
A welfare Wednesday or a check day for less business?
Operations will usually stock up triple, quadruple the amount of
drugs on welfare Wednesday. I mean, welfare Wednesday in the
Downtown East Side is a massive day every month.
Like, it's so busy. Overdose after overdose after
overdose. But yeah, welfare Wednesday is a
big day for for the drug industry for sure.
And then it's OK. So you did the Dialado business
and then I guess you did well. So you got kind of like in in
your organization with it. How does that promotion work is
because you just put in the work you're you're you're reliable.
Yeah, it's. It's all, it's all about
reliability. If you're reliable and you're
bringing back, you know, you're bringing back envelopes of cash
and you know, you're not using all the drugs all the time, you
know, you're not getting pulled over and screwing up that, that
just, you'll move up pretty quickly, you know, and then
they'll, they'll push you usually in a dispatch position.
And I mean, it can end there. But if the organization is
involved in higher level stuff or other activities, they'll
usually offer you some sort of other position.
As long as you're reliable, like you said, reliability is
everything. That's the key.
Yeah. What?
Have you ever seen the consequences of someone not
being reliable like you? What?
What are the consequence for someone fucking up?
Maybe go into like a minor fuck up and then a major fuck up?
The consequence? Yeah, I mean, a minor fuck up is
usually just coming short on one of the packages you owe for, and
that'll just be added to a debt in the start.
But once that debt accumulates, you know, you you're short 200
bucks 5 or 10 times, all of a sudden it's 1000.
Or. A and you know there's there
will be consequences for that like you, you might take a
beating or something like that. So nothing too crazy, but I
mean, when you start sort of like leaving with packages and
then you use the whole package, which happens quite often, you
you'll probably take a beating and they just won't deal with
you anymore like it's. Just be out.
Yeah, and there's always someone to replace you.
So I mean the the consequences aren't super heavy on that
because it's pretty expected that a lot of these drivers are
going to be addicts themselves. So it's actually quite common
for for people not coming back with $0.00 or short or whatever,
so. Dealing with addicts itself must
for the faint of heart too. Like I remember I had a friend
back in the day who was a pretty big coke dealer and, and the,
and the, The thing is that he was the most unlikely guy that
you would ever think that he was.
He came from like a upper middle class Jewish family, very
buttoned down, very clean cut. But this guy, you know, not, not
to go into the stereotype, but he was obsessed with money and
he tried a bunch of businesses. They failed.
And then he said, fuck it, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm
going to start selling coke. And he built a business up
pretty fast. And he for him, he was telling
me, he said the turning point was for him, he had this regular
customer and he would, he would deliver to the guy every single
day. And, and as soon as he gave the
guy the flap, the guy already had a needle spoon.
Boom like just like this, like like that, that fucking shot.
And the guy couldn't even wait like fucking 30 seconds for him
just to leave it. He was, it was like, it was that
immediate. And then he realized like, wow,
what the like the what you're dealing with, right?
So the nature of addiction is kind of what I'm getting at,
right. So it's kind of like, is it hard
to be in that life to and not get addicted because you're
always having to block that shit out.
You're seeing violence, you're seeing like and, and then quite
frankly, dealing with addicts and the depth of their addiction
is, is it's not fun. No, it's, it's, it's it's
traumatizing on its own scale. I mean, it, it's really for like
when we're talking about dialogue, you know, you're,
you're driving around, you're just dealing with people that
are experiencing high levels of unmanageability in their lives.
So they're completely scattered. They're disorganized.
They're, you know, and they'll come with the money ready.
But yeah, often they'll want to use in your car or, you know,
there's a problem. They'll be short themselves.
And, you know, you've already driven across town and, you
know, and you see people getting worse, worse.
You see people starting on as a cocaine customer and then, you
know, moving to a side customer or a fentanyl customer, you
know, and yeah, you see the progression happen for sure.
But there's, there's a lot of chaos and a lot of unreliability
with customers. Like you never know what's going
to happen. So that's always in the back of
your mind. And you know, when you're just
doing that long enough, you know, the, the question about,
you know, people becoming addicted, like it's, it's almost
like I like 9 out of 10 people are addicts who because you have
to be using to, to just, just to just deal with that.
And even the monotony of it all too, like driving around in
traffic and, you know, just the same thing over and over again.
It's pretty hard to do without some sort of substance in the.
Where's the day going, right? You know what I mean?
You make the day go by a little quicker, David.
Same thing too David, he did traffic in at a high level, but
he also he was doing hit so he he had to use to get over the
head. So I'd I'd ask him point blank.
OK, you did a hit. How do you decompress it?
Oh, escorts 8 ball hotel. He'd have to get blasted to put
it out of his mind what he did right.
A funny story of a dealer I once knew.
He was pretty successful downtown Vancouver and he had a
regular guy was, you know, and they get you said first he was
all, you know, pretty, he had a shit together, had a good job.
You know what I mean was we'd show up, give him the money, go
away. Not no problems whatsoever.
And then slowly over time getting worse, lost his job.
And then he said he got a call from him like at 4:00 in the
morning, frantic, right? The guy comes by, has no money,
but has like some leather jacket that looked like it was from the
70s. It's a leather jackets vintage.
It's worth a lot because I don't want this fucking brown leather
jacket. You know, we had four lording,
arguing with the guy for over a Coke deal for a leather jacket
that you don't want. Right.
So, you know, there, I guess there's some, you know, in
gallows humor. There's some funny moments, but
it's pretty pathetic at the same time, too.
Like you're, you know, you're so wired and like, Oh my God, what
can I trade? Oh, my God, that leather jacket.
Yeah. I mean.
You get addicted enough and you you run out of money.
And then just slowly things in your house start going missing.
And I mean you, you, you try to start trading goods or services
for drugs. Yeah.
So let's maybe segue then into what I wanted to ask you about
because you spent some time in the Downtown Eastside.
And then we don't, we talk a lot with me and you.
We went back and forth quite a few.
We've had quite a few conversations, you know, over
the year and stuff and I think quite a few of them we're about
the Downtown Eastside. And you know, I'm fascinated.
Like I've, I've been around the Downtown Eastside for about 30
years, work in close proximity, live downtown, had friends that
ended up there. And I've seen it like it's
always was rough. I personally think it's the
roughest it's ever been. Now, you know, David talked
about, he ran around Blood Alley, one of those SRO's,
incredible money, incredible. 20,000 a day was a slow day for
the building. Yeah, 100K on a welfare
Wednesday was was, you know, welfare Wednesday.
You make 100K, Yeah, in a day, right.
So it's a massive drug economy, first of all.
But there also must be like so many sharks and say, you know,
maybe breakdown this the kind of the environment for the
listeners. Well, I mean, it's, it's an
extremely vibrant place, but it's also very, very volatile.
And I mean, if you're going in there with any sort of trying to
run any sort of CODA ethics, you're going to be sadly
mistaken. Because I mean, with the sharks
and the sharks that are on drugs and you know, the Sentinel and
crystal meth epidemic and the potency that is just driving
more and more shitty behavior and, and, and just, and just
weasel type shit. It's just not a safe place at
all. You know, I, I'm a guy like, you
know, I was raised with pretty like pretty good family and
like, I'm just, I'm not a sociopath.
But I mean, I'm convinced that 95% of those guys.
Down there are all sociopaths because nobody seems to give a
fuck about anything but themselves.
Your life is worth pretty much nothing.
Like if, if there's an opportunity for them to, you
know, somehow be involved in taking your life for some sort
of personal gain, like that'll happen.
Like, no question. Just like that, you know you can
become the center of something pretty quickly.
If you don't just have money for drugs, you will start doing
other things for drugs and that's when the problems start.
Right. Yeah, that totally makes sense
because the nature of addiction, like we just broke down.
It's like you gotta feed the hunger.
Yeah. And, and no money, you're
hungry, then you got to do other stuff, right?
With with the women, that tends to be prostitution with dudes,
it's stealing, shoplifting girls to shoplifting stuff, right.
Conversations that we've had too was about human trafficking,
which I truly believe it's on the rise.
And, and there's such a transient population there
because it's like people rolling into town coming across Canada.
And what's important for the audience when they, when they
see Hastings Street, they think, oh, people from Vancouver,
majority of those people are not from the city.
Like I when in my research, and this is off the top of my head,
it's estimated that only about 15% of the population there are
like, you know, Vancouver, Metro Vancouver based most of them
come across Canada, but one way bus tickets up north from BC
running away from stuff, right. It's a it's a good place to hide
out, you know, if you want to be an Incognito for sure.
Vulnerable people on the run unaccounted for, especially
women. They can go missing.
No one will even know. You know one of the series I've
been writing for the last year, the Picton stuff, the missing
women of the Downtown Eastside. There's, there's more cases than
you can count, you know, and, and the other, the other aspect
too is I talked to a lot of parents who've had kids that
have, you know, their sons or daughters having overdoses or
dying under very mysterious circumstances and then just gets
written off fentanyl overdose, nothing to see here, right.
So if I wanted to kill someone, the easiest way I can think of
in this environment, inject someone with fentanyl, throw a
baggie in their pocket. Oh, good luck.
They're doing fentanyl. They must have died.
Must have did too much. Yeah.
In case. Closed Scary shit, eh?
Yeah, well, it's, I mean it is terrifying.
The like an addicts worst nightmare.
A fentanyl addicts worst nightmare is is getting what's
called hot capped where they get injected with battery acid.
There's a misconception where hot cap just means somebody
overdoses you with fentanyl. I mean that that would be an
easy way to kill someone, but for for whatever reason like it,
it doesn't happen that way that often like this.
Hot capping happens a lot in these shelters.
Actual fucking battery acid. Actual battery acid.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I even heard a story about, you
know, this, this crew that was making videos of, of, of
injecting people with battery acid, filming it while it was
online when the person, you know, started convulsing and
and, and slowly dying there. So yeah.
Yeah, that would not be a good way to go.
You told me a crazy story and you, you that just, you know,
for your own personal safety, maybe just kind of censor it
down so it doesn't mean identify.
But you told me a story that I was shocked I didn't make the
news about a decapitation and Oppenheimer Park.
Yeah, so there there was a dispute over over drug supply
and somebody was was doing it in a dishonest way and their crew
found out that they were kind of looking to another crew at the
same time and and his his head got displayed on a hockey stick,
you know, Oppenheimer Park. Yeah, he does not just sound
like gallows humor, but how Canadian.
What a hockey stand. You know, if it was Mexico, it'd
be like hanging from a bridge with some, you know, morbid sign
and scary writing. But Canada, you know, a hockey,
you know, again, a poor bastard, you know, extremely traumatic
for everyone that saw that. But wow.
So OK, here's a question right from seeing that, and this is
just, you know, your speculation.
Why do you think that the media itself really tries to keep a
lid of how fucking horrible it is down there?
Because again, anyone I talk to, any of the shit I've seen and
people I've talked to, I've talked to people that talked
about people being thrown out windows, chicks being thrown out
windows or head shape or because they owe a crack dealer like
$10. Beatings, fingers cut off with
like cigar choppers, you know, the chop the end of your cigar,
right? So horrific.
And I feel that the media, the mainstream media does a terrible
job of actually breaking down because I think if the average
person really understood how it really works on that, they'd be
horrified that that this is a neighborhood in their city.
It's strange. It's absolutely strange.
I mean, I, I've kind of wondered that myself because I mean, you
hear horrific story after horrific story that doesn't
actually make it into the paper or the news.
And you know, what's motive for keeping it out?
Is it to keep the, the, the glow of our city in a more positive
way or, or what is it? Because I mean, we're not
hearing about, you know, the women being thrown out of the
third story or fucking, you know, just the the sexual
assaults taking place in these Sr.
OS and the filming of those. And there's just there's none of
that in the paper ever. It's yeah.
So it's surprising they keep kind of a lid on it.
And maybe it's to maybe it's to show that harm reduction that
that whole that whole policy is working or right, doing the
right things to make the Downtown Eastside a better place
and reduce the overdose rate, which we all know is not
reducing. But I think it's just to keep it
shining in a more positive light.
They don't. It's.
Like, you know, again, everyone's a human being,
absolutely. And everyone deserves respect.
They deserve a chance and they also deserve, you know, I've had
you know, I've, I, I'm, and there's a lot of phases of my
life where I'm not that person anymore.
I had the opportunity to change right.
So I I believe that for other people as well.
However, silence pretending that the problem is not there going
into the hardcore stuff of the human trafficking.
When I was researching the Picton stuff about the missing
women, there was these crews of of organized crime crews like
that would make extremely violent pornography.
And then it was it was a rumor that then after these women were
used in these movies, they'd be sold to truck drivers.
And then who knows where they're ended up with, right?
So there's an economy and this is what I'm getting here.
There's an economy of exploitation, right?
There's a exploitation of addicts exploit to human
exploitation of like you're saying, like making movies.
Injecting someone in battery acid I'm sure ends up on dark
web for psychopaths, you know, eat their grilled cheese
sandwich in their bathrobe and have a giggle, right?
You know what I mean? It's like by the media not
exposing this, they're catering to the worst in our society, in
my opinion. You know what I mean?
I talked to a journalist, he was a pretty good journalist and
he's living in he's a Canadian duty, but he's, he's living in
Mexico right now. His whole philosophy and he's
written some pretty good pieces on the down to see especially
the regarding the missing women. So what his his view of it is,
it's so they can sell real estate in Vancouver because that
was the big thing and who buys the expense of real estate is
people overseas. So they're not going to want to
hear about decapitations and women being thrown out of
windows and stuffed movies being made right.
That's, that doesn't sound good in your real estate portfolio,
right. No, he believes it's tied to
keeping that offshore money coming in to buy up real estate.
That's. So that's what his opinion, my
opinion. I do agree with that.
But I think there's like some overlap.
I think there are people here that like fast money may not be
involved in drugs, may not be the person, you know, making the
transactions, but they're in the position where they get an
envelope, if you get what I'm saying.
Yeah. So hey, it works for them,
right? Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. I mean, there, there's a lot of
irony there because I mean, the, the, the real estate boom is
really a large part of it is fueled by the drug economy in
Vancouver. Because, I mean, they, they
import these chemicals from China, they make these drugs,
then they sell all these drugs. Then they have guys to take
these stacks of cash to casinos and trade equations.
Then they launder the money by trading the chips back and they
take the money to these clandestine banks that are
linked. And then they wire all the money
back. And then in turn they use that
money to buy real estate in Vancouver.
Like that's not all of it, but. It's but it's a single, right?
Yeah. It's so crazy.
Well, look at the history of Vancouver.
Like start off the Groves, you know, the grow OPS, like I knew
guys that were just oh, fucking killing it.
What do they do? They buy real estate, right?
They launder the money. So it started really like in the
90s with the grow up, the grows. Then the BC bud was so valuable
and so high quality and and seen as a almost a status symbol like
in in the United States. Oh, you got BC bud.
Everyone love BC bud and BC bud was being traded on par with
cocaine. Now think about this.
You grow a fucking plant, right? You grow, you grow a plant and
then that plant gets, you know, harvested and then you come back
with cocaine. Now that's worth like five times
as much, right? That gets converted into cash
when you break it all down. And you know what I mean?
You get the idea, right? So it, it was literally, and I
think I did a in my early days, I did a podcast called the Green
Gold Rush. And that's really what it was.
And then I think as the grow up, things fizzled out, then it got
into other drugs. And then I think where we're at
now we're we're in a scary place where we're awash with drugs.
Absolutely. And now you have the government
itself and call it what it is straight up dealing.
Like to me, the the government is trying to be it's almost like
a competition to the drugs because people will take the
so-called safe supply drugs and buy and sell them, putting more
drugs into the marketplace. Like like for a good.
I'll ask you a straight up question then.
Like most drug addicts, right? You know, they need a fix.
They need a fix. They do they really care?
Oh, this is a government pill and this is a cartel pill.
You know what? I mean when they're jonesing.
Not in the least. Not in the least exactly.
Sickness itself is is is one of the most powerful things I've
ever experienced. Like when I'm sick in that way,
there is nothing that will stop me from moving through whatever
is in my way. Family, friends, the law,
morals, nothing. Just to get away from the
sickness. Yeah.
What's your view if you were still like in in your, in that
life and this safe supply mandate where you're allowed to
have 2.5 grams, how would that affect your way of your doing
business? The way of doing business I mean
it wouldn't have a huge effect because when you're standing
there with a package you're just you're strategically placing
yourself away from police. It's it's quite rare that you
actually get stopped by a beat cop and searched and they find a
big package on you because every third guy standing your man in
Hastings has way more than the legal limit on them.
Right. OK, I I actually, I mean, that's
a good question because I've never actually, it's not even
like a disgusting, like when that legal limit came into into
play, like in the downturn, you say like nobody fucking cares.
Like they're just kidding. At any point.
Like it's yeah, so. Yeah, that, that's interesting
prescription and you're given like say 16 pills a day.
Yeah, majority with, in your experience in majority the
persons they use them themselves or they sell them or like high,
high what, what's, what's been your kind of common knowledge of
what happens to what majority of those pills?
So I mean, there's a, there's a market to, to sell those pills
that's quite prevalent down there.
And, and I mean, no, these pills are beginning this hydromorphone
pills are beginning being given to fentanyl addicts as a PRN
style prescription. So they, they go to the the the
pharmacy in the morning and they, they take their witness
dose of methadone and then they get a bottle of Dilaudid, which
is what the brand name of that is.
And they take those 16 pills. Then they go to the down,
they're in the Downtown East Side and they will trade all
those, all of those pills for, you know, a point of fentanyl or
$20. Like that's kind of the Golden
Gate. Yeah.
And then in turn, those pills, I mean, from what I understand,
I've, I've never been involved in the trafficking of those.
But from what I understand, those pills are either cooked
back into the drug supply to make it more potent, or they're
sent across country. Whereas like in PC, it's those
are are less than a dollar a pill.
Whereas if you go to Ontario, someone is probably going to pay
you 10 to $20 a pill. So this is sort of markup.
And then at the same time, they're sending these to places
where they're sedating people to work in the sex trade, including
children. And I Oh my God.
Yeah, I've heard this from from a doctor and a police officer
and that's going on. They're going to, you know,
indigenous areas of Canada and they're used being used to
sedate kids, which is just, and then also being used to sedate,
you know, adults too. But that's that's a big problem.
And that's why these doctors are are not really, you know, I
mean, they're they're making their cut off that prescription.
But a lot of these doctors have morals and will mention that
this is what's going on to the addict that is asking for a
prescription now. But I mean, it's not stopping an
addict who's addicted to drugs and just wants to no.
No, you're giving them more fuel for the fire.
That's how I look at. Or are you like, you know,
another metaphor? Bullets and their gun, right?
Simple, right? When you go to Maine and
Hastings, like, you know, just just sell the Hastings on Maine
is, you know, there's a mixture of of drugs you can buy and
sell, you know, but just right around the corner from Carnegie
is where all these guys stand. And then people go and sell
their hydromorphone to these guys.
It's like a certain part of the corner there and there's.
All they. There'll be someone, yeah.
So that's where they're going. He just said something that that
actually made me woah like I never even thought of that.
He said something very interesting there.
They take the hydromorphone pills and then they re cut it
because they had that makes perfect fucking sense.
I get AI have a pure hydromorphone pill.
I cut it for a bunch of stuff. I take that one pill now.
I now I have like 1/4 gram or like five points right to, you
know what I mean? That that totally makes sense.
So a business boom for, you know, for addicts, really, you
know, gives them it gives them the ability to, to have
something to barter with something to trade with.
Those pills, in my opinion, are, are, are just as equal to to
money. I'm sure you can buy and sell
and trade them just like currency down there.
Absolutely. Yeah, they.
Have a government stamp and dah dah dah dah.
They're almost like a Bitcoin so to.
Speak right? Absolutely.
Yeah. Wow.
Unbelievable. Well, again, every time I talk
to you, I could talk to you for like 10 hours, right?
You have to go so many, there's so many nuances and variations
and perspectives and cuz again, I've lived in Vancouver majority
of my life, I've lived around in different parts of the world.
So have you and I understand especially now in a lot of inner
cities are now having this addiction issue that we've seen
in the Downtown Eastside for the last 30 years, right?
The phenomena of addiction is becoming more widespread.
That's a whole different conversation because that's
more, I personally believe that I think that society has become
so hard and so complex and so difficult for the average
person. It's easy just to, oh, get
wasted, get drunk, get you know what I mean, escapism.
And the next thing you know, someone passes you a pill or you
get injured or something. And holy fuck, this makes this
makes everything kind of takes the edge off right, takes rounds
of corners off right. And then, you know the nature of
addiction, right? Vancouver to me is a very unique
place for for a variety of reasons, It was always promoted
as a a beautiful, safe, healthy lifestyle type of city outdoors.
You know what I mean? Lululemon, that kind of shit.
And then you have a neighborhood that's the polar opposite of
everything that the city promotes, right?
And, and it has never been adequately fixed, right.
I personally believe that they should bring back a Riverview
type of environment, you know, some kind of place where people
can regain their ability to integrate with life lifestyle
skills. Because it's sure you can take
the attics out of that neighborhood, but you have to
fix what put them there in the first place in my opinion,
right? So anyways, so let's talk about
the human trafficking, because again, like you said, these
people down there, they're cutthroat, they're psychopaths.
And human trafficking is a massive, massive, massive
industry, bigger than drugs. You, you sell one of those, you
get one of those hydromorphone pills, you can sell it once or
right? Yeah, a girl passed out in a
hotel room. You could send dudes in there
all day long, right? Yeah, I mean, I absolutely it's,
I mean as long as the the person exists, they can keep on being
the commodity, right. So.
And, and how, how widespread do you believe that from your
experience that you, you, you think this is happening down
there as far as like as a, as an epidemic of, of human?
The thing is, is okay, like the, the Downtown East side itself is
absolutely like a major source point to facilitate exploitation
of these interprovincial corridors that exist across
Canada because it's where addicts go to use drugs and sell
their bodies to gain drugs. So I mean, if you're an addicted
male or female, I mean, it's, it's, it's horrible, but it's
more prevalent than females, obviously.
But the majority of females are going to be involved in the sex
trade just to facilitate their drug use.
And if they spend long enough down there, they will often get
themselves in a situation where they are being trafficked
because there's, there. Would you want, I don't want to
call them scouts, but you know, they're, they're, they're,
they've always got their eyes open and they're looking for
people that look a certain way or people that maybe don't have
people that, you know, love them and are looking for them.
There's no, they don't have anyone.
They're accountable to their. Bridges back home.
Or burnt their bridges. Yeah.
So they they get down and out enough down there.
And then sooner or later, sometimes you know, you'll be
offered a different type of different type of deal where or
you'll be forced into it where you're being trafficked across
the province or across the country.
But often it does start in the Downtown East Side because it's
the biggest source of vulnerable addicts already involved in the
sex trade just to facilitate their own drug use.
So. We've talked like off air and
stuff like that, you know, to keep people safe and stuff.
I don't like naming organizations and stuff because
one, they're still around and the police really have proven
they have no ability to protect one from these people if they
want to get you. But I've been hearing about more
like crews that are like from like back east, especially that
that's is what they specialize in.
There was some crews from Eastern Canada and and that is
like that is their main source of income.
It's human trafficking first, then drug 2nd.
And which is scary because what that tells me is, is that cruise
from from afar are saying, Oh, this is this is the place to go,
right? We got cover the the law
enforcement is so overwhelmed by daily St. crime and this and
that. This is the place, right?
Which is scary, Yeah. I mean, it's terrifying.
There's just such a high concentration of vulnerable
people and potential, you know, ways to make money through these
people. So yeah, I mean, people are
going to flock because of the relaxed drug laws.
And you're right, the the police are overwhelmed, you know,
resources to stop it are completely overwhelmed.
And so a lot of it just just happens with with no, with no
accountability, so. That's scary, man.
Well, let's leave it here. I really truly appreciate your
time. I will obviously continue the
conversation and stuff and and, you know, hope everything else
your day is going goes well. Enjoy the summer and.
Yeah, yeah. No, have a great day and we'll
keep in touch and we'll get back on.
Welcome and thank you for tuning into this podcast wherever it's
morning, afternoon or evening, wherever you are, I appreciate
you taking the time to listen. In 2024, I took a break from
podcasting after consistently producing content since 2019.
What began as a personal challenge to overcome
procrastination quickly evolved into something more substantial.
Early on, I was recording on my iPhone 7.
While the quality wasn't the best, my focus was on learning
and improving. Over the years, I refined my
skills and broaden my scope. The purpose of this podcast?
This broadcast serves 3 primary purposes showcasing research.
I'll be sharing in depth investigations that I've been
working on for years, including the mysterious disappearances of
young men across Western Canada, British Columbia, and the United
States. I'll also dive into the chilling
case of Robert Picton, which I've been researching
extensively for the past few years.
Additionally, I'll be highlighting cold cases from
British Columbia that remain puzzling and mysterious #2
personal insights. I'll take you behind the scenes,
offering insights into my creative process and challenges
I faced over the past five years.
The landscape of social media, and media in general, has
changed dramatically since I began.
I'll share my experiences navigating these changes and #3
discussing broader issues beyond true crime.
I believe it's crucial to address the unprecedented social
and political changes we're witnessing today.
We live in strange times, and it's important to have honest,
open conversations about these issues without resorting to name
calling or rhetoric. I aim to provide a platform
where we can discuss these topics thoughtfully and
respectfully. My reflections on social media.
When I started, the platforms like Instagram were more focused
on connecting people with similar interests.
However, as my follower count grew, so did the toxicity.
At one point, my platform reached nearly 50,000 followers
and then across multiple platforms, about 100,000.
But the increase in numbers brought me more negativity.
I found myself spending more time moderating comments than
focusing on my work. This experience has led me to
prioritize quality over quantity when it comes to my followers.
I've become more selective about where I invest my energy.
The current challenges I have spoken with many people from
different walks of life and there's a common thread of
stress that concerns about the state of our society.
From job losses to the high cost of living, people are
struggling. I believe these are important
issues to discuss as they impact all of us and looking ahead
through this series, I combine storytelling with in depth
research to explore complex issues in an accessible and
engaging way. My goal is to make you think, to
challenge you, and to encourage deeper conversations about the
problems we face. I believe that by getting more
people on the same page, we can begin to address the challenges
and work together towards creating a better, safer society
for everyone. Thank you for joining me on this
journey. Thank you so much, Mark.