Matthew Cox

And so in...

1994, the DEA characterized a lab that was able to produce 10 pounds of material as a super lab.

That was a 1994 super lab.

You know, my case derived a lot of attention because in mine there was, you know, several transactions that were over 100 pounds at a time.

So it was 10 times bigger than their baseline.

Well, this concentrated effort by the authorities to undermine the domestic production resulted in creating a vacuum where the Mexicans were able to step in.

And so you had the Valencia organization, based out in Guadalajara, step in to fill the void.

They entered into a relationship with a guy named Emezcua.

His operation, also based in Guadalajara, they're producing the raw material.

And so Valencia needs to start developing his own independent source for the precursors.

Well, his operatives in L.A., in Orange County, knew a bunch of Chinese guys.

in Orange County.

And it just so happened that the guys in Orange County, that faction of the 14K, was the faction that took guys from the mainland.

And so now they were able to say, hey, do you guys have any connections to obtain precursors?

Well, in the Chinese culture, there's a concept called guanxi that's critical to understand, and it's a system of reciprocal obligations that are created through networking.

And so pretty soon word gets put out throughout the network.

Does anybody got any connections?

Well, maybe somebody's got a brother that works at a company or maybe somebody had a brother-in-law.

Eventually they were able to find enough business relationships where the Mexican faction of Sinaloa operating the millennial group, it was technically called.

The millennial group was able to begin purchasing precursors from China, sending the product materials into Mexico for them to take over the manufacturing.