Episode 21 - Return of the Yellow Vests and Cartels Get Creative!

Yellow vest protests in France and Mexican Cartels diversifying their portfolios.  It's January 7th 2019, and we'll cover it all today on the Hot Zone.

 

HI everyone. For all you who have been kind enough to include the Hot Zone as a part of your new year's routine, I just want to say thank you.  Please give me your feedback - if you'd like the podcast to be longer or shorter, cover different topics or whatever, I want to hear from you.  You can get in touch with me through the Hot Zone Podcast facebook page, my personal page, or send me an email at HotZoneHolton at gmail

 

Also, if you are enjoying this podcast and would like to get involved - consider becoming a subscriber at patreon.com slash hotzone.  I will enable us to tell better stories and help more people.  Also, there's an option there to become a virtual foster parent.  I'm heading to Syria with my friend Dave Eubank in a couple of weeks, and I'm starting to raise some money now so we...you and me....can help some people there and really spread the love of Jesus in a very dark place.  So go contribute if you can, and watch what happens with your money.  It'll be fun!  you can send money to paypal if that's better for you - the address is hotzoneholton@gmail.com

 

Okay, On to the News.  The yellow vest protests have been going on for over six weeks now in France, and they flared back up over the weekend because one of the movement's leaders was arrested by French police and charged with "organizing an undeclared demonstration," whatever that means.  This is actually the second time this guy, named Éric Drouet, a 33-year-old truck driver from Paris and one of the chief organizers of the Yellow Vest protests.  French law says organizers of street demonstrations have to inform the local authorities about their plans. If you don't you can get six months in jail and a fine of about $8,500.  Drouet claims the event he was arrested for did not qualify as THAT kind of event under French Law.  Whatever.  Thing is, this could totally backfire on the government.  These protests have all but crippled the French economy over the past six weeks - they've affected tourism, logistics, the transport sector, and the unrest has kept spreading, even to other countries in the region.

 

There's a real undercurrent of free-floating anger across europe right now.  The tension stems from super high taxes, anger at the EU establishment and the rules they impose on member states.  People are really upset about the seemingly unending wave of third world migrants who seem to now occupy every street corner across europe.  There's rising violence, and, well, all of that is sort of bubbling over in France.  

 

What's weird about the Yellow Vest Movement is that both the far right and the far left are eager to claim it.  The protesters have marched to protest the high taxes French citizens pay, but have also agitated for more paid vacation days and other kind of left-leaning causes.  Then street thugs take advantage of the unrest to loot and pillage, and you've got a pretty sporting spectacle in the streets of Paris.  But this crisis has been building for some time.  Watch this.

 

[excerpt from Frontlines Paris]

 

We filmed that Frontlines episode in 2016.  So you can see that this angst that is today being represented by the Yellow Vest movement is actually the outgrowth of something much more fundamental - and like I said in that video, it won't be easily fixed.

 

 

 

Okay, lastly today is some interesting reporting out of Mexico about how Cartels have been raising upwards of a billion dollars a year by stealing petroleum from the country's pipelines.  The new President, they call him AMLO, has vowed to crack down on the problem and has deployed troops and police to guard petroleum pipelines in the areas where the problem is greatest.  But with almost 23,000 miles of petroleum pipelines across that country, you can imagine this is essentially impossible.  And the criminals know it.  Plus, they've bribed and bought so many employees on the inside of the petroleum industry, many times they just drive tankers full of gas out the front gates of the refinery, and nobody sees anything.  This is a monumental problem.  We're talking 26,000 barrels of gasoline being stolen...every single day.  And they are also now stealing propane, butane, equipment and pretty much anything else that isn't nailed down.  

 

Cartels are like any other big business.  They focus on their core competencies, but at the same time are always looking for ways to diversify their cash flow.  Narcotraffickers in Colombia do the same thing, only it's not with stolen oil.  No, in the case of Colombia, the criminals are big into illegal gold mining and extortion.

 

[Medellin gold mining piece]

 

All this theft affects us all - makes products more expensive, causes everyone to spend more money on security and insurance...just one of the reasons I absolutely loathe thieves of all kinds.  

 

Well that's all we have for you today folks.  Thanks for coming along with us.  This is crisis reporting evolved, and we're going to keep making it better and better, you and I.  Please help out by subscribing to the podcast and hitting like on our facebook page, etc.  And don't forget, there are bennies for those who subscribe on patreon.com/hotzone.

 

Have a great day, and I'll see you right back here tomorrow on the hot zone.

 

End Notes:

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nikitamalik/2018/08/31/how-criminals-and-terrorists-use-cryptocurrency-and-how-to-stop-it/#5ea20df63990

 

https://wolfstreet.com/2019/01/01/mexico-new-government-declares-war-on-black-market-for-oil/

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/cartels-mexico-oil-theft-pemex-2018-4