Matthew Cox

They speak Portuguese.

It's a colony of Portugal.

And you happen to be half Brazilian.

Well, yes, my family is Brazilian.

I'm American.

But I was raised in a Portuguese-speaking household.

Like, English isn't my native language.

I spoke Portuguese and Spanish before I ever spoke English.

And so one of the guys that I was involved in trafficking with was the individual who put up the product.

This was when I was 20.

And he had a relationship with an older businessman who happened to be a Mexican-American involved in the heavy industrial equipment space.

And that's actually how I ended up getting roped in because there wasn't enough business

with Brazil to justify having somebody on duty all the time.

But every month, once, twice, maybe three times a month, I get called into the office to essentially do translating services.

You know, Brazil is a very difficult country to do business in.

At the time in 1990, they had hyperinflation.

And so what you had were efforts by Brazilian nationals to circumvent

And so they'd go to Uruguay, open up a company, and then they'd order equipment from the United States.

So then, you know, like I said, a couple, two or three times a month, I'd get told, hey, go out to the office.

I'd go out there, I'd provide translation services.