Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
Cartel Smuggler Makes Millions, Flips to Feds, & Get's Caught! | Dr Hal Bradley
Tue, 11 Mar 2025
Dr. Hal Bradley was a lieutenant in the Sinaloa Cartel during the 70s and 80s before his life took a wild turn. Dr. Hal's Linkshttps://www.hostingauthors.com/authors/DrHalF*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code COX15 at theperfectjean.nyc/COX15 #theperfectjeanpod Go to https://www.Qualialife.com/true for up to 50% off and use code true at checkout for an additional 15% off. For your convenience Qualia Senolytic is also available at select GNC locations near you.Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7Send me an email here: [email protected] you extra clips and behind the scenes content?Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime 📧Sign up to my newsletter to learn about Real Estate, Credit, and Growing a Youtube Channel: https://mattcoxcourses.com/news 🏦Raising & Building Credit Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/credit 📸Growing a YouTube Channel Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/yt🏠Make money with Real Estate Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/reFollow me on all socials!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrimeDo you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopartListen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCFBent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TMIt's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5GDevil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3KBailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WXIf you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69Cashapp: $coxcon69
Chapter 1: What was Dr. Hal Bradley's early life like in Mexico?
It was. It was an amazing time to be down there in the 60s. It was just starting to blossom into some of the criminality issues that we're confronted with down there today. But basically where I was at up in Walterio and then two clicks further to the mining camp, there was only a couple hundred people in the village.
They only had one power line running through the village and all of the housing there were adobe shacks.
and it was extremely primitive matt everybody bathed in a public pond a pond and the women washed the clothes in the stream that flowed into the pond and on the weekends they would get together and have festive activities you know with big cook-offs and the men would be drinking and the young kids like all of us would be out there swimming in the pond and it was just a great memory a great
time in my upbringing but the mining camp was not only producing zinc and silver the mining camp was a front operation for brown production and this was controlled by uh back then matt they didn't have cartels yet what they had were criminal organizations in mexico and you're you're probably aware of that history right
So this was probably within four to five years before the cartels actually started getting information. But anyway, when all my friends were still home riding their Schwinn bicycles with eight-panger handlebars and banana seats, I was down there riding a burro. And I was riding in the back country outside of the mine. And I would take the trails that would take me along the poppy fields.
And in the innocence of my youth, I never realized that that was opium production to manufacture. I just saw these massive fields of really beautiful flowers growing. And then we had the Chihuahua Indians, and they lived up in the mountains above the fields where the poppies were growing.
And they grew grass for the family that controlled that area, the crime family that I later became attached to. And it was just an amazing time in history. It was an amazing time to be 15 years old. The people that had the mine, they were organized criminals. And the man that took me down there was deeply connected. He was a Sicilian out of Northern California. That's where he was based.
But he had strong criminal ties all the way back to New York. And he had always seen something different in me from my brothers and my sister. All three of them, you know, have now been in marriages over 40 years. We're all in our 70s. They have never been lawbreakers. They lived really good, decent lives. And. I guess it was just my destiny to walk that path. And Mr. Siri saw that.
And so when we went down there, he had advised me that I was going to have a bodyguard that would be my protector for the entire time I was in country. And he also advised me to not discuss anything about what I may or may not observe. You know, like writing letters to mom and saying, oh, I just saw the poppy fields or, oh, the Indians are smoking pot, things like that. I was advised.
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Chapter 2: How did Dr. Hal Bradley get involved with the cartel?
What is that? Well, it's a sticker that shows that you were inside the interior of Mexico. They put it on your car. I don't know if they do that anymore, but they certainly did it back then because we used to have to do, uh, get rid of it and have somebody wash the car, you know, and, uh,
pick up a couple of little souvenir knickknacks and a gift shop there in Nogales or whereas, or wherever I was crossing that particular time. The first time was Nogales and throw them in the backseat of the car, spray deodorant on your face. So you don't sweat accidentally, uh, where the body will sometimes react and make responses that you're unaware of.
And this is what they schooled me on when I was down to get in the car loaded. And then they said, uh, You got to wear sunglasses that aren't too dark. They're not too light.
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And whatever you do, maintain focus and look that agent in the eye and don't break eye contact with him and just stay calm and you'll be fine. And after that first one, brother, I've never been caught. I've done probably close to 70 crossings in my lifetime. Never once had a problem, but it's all about attitude. It's all about following that discipline.
And brother, being in the army in my younger years, that's where the discipline was formed. It gave me that edge that maybe a lot of other people starting in that kind of thing would fail from. I knew how to take orders. I understood the chain of command. I understood discipline. And I understood the importance of being discreet, the discretionary warfare, so to speak. So I got through that.
That first time went up there. My God, we made just a ton of money. And some of my friends I was in college with said, God, man, can we get in on this thing you got going on? And I ended up hooking up two other cars, Matt, with guys like me. And we went down there and we started running three carloads up there at a time.
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Chapter 3: What were the early days of drug smuggling like?
I mean, after three years, I, I had some, but I didn't have a significant amount. I had enough to foothold myself and get my life started again, but that didn't matter because within months after my release, Matt, they found me up there. Uh, they sent a representative North and says, Hey, uh, you need to go to Las Vegas. Here's your money. Here's your plane tickets. Uh,
go on down so i took my new my new bride i'd gotten married who's this when you say they you mean the cartel yeah the actual sinaloa drug cartel okay and uh so i flew into las vegas and i hooked up with an old compadre of mine down there and he says look man you know you're not going to be able to walk away from this we know too much we've seen too much you have to understand the rules you're in this now you're in it until we either get killed or we go to prison for life
And, you know, he was as upset as I was. But what he was talking about were realities that we both knew based on what we had survived up to this point and what we had witnessed down there. This was an extremely dangerous time. We're talking 89, 90 years.
when I started to go back and at this point, Vancouver, Canada sent representatives down and instead of moving, you know, a hundred kilos a month, all of a sudden my order is 250 to 350 kilos at a time coming up. And we had some, uh, guys up there in Vancouver that were capable of putting together $15 million in an afternoon. They were, they were large. I dealt with the Russian element up there.
I dealt with, uh, an Asian element up there and I dealt with, uh, a motorcycle element up there at the time. And the business was instantaneous because I didn't have to come up with any front money or nothing. Once I got established in the Northwest, the loads were brought to me and delivered to my safe houses, which I had found and created for that purpose.
I laid them out on map routes, showing them different alternative routes to use because Interstate 5 was They had spotters that were specifically trained to look for something of suspicion. And a car full of Latinos certainly looked suspicious in Washington State back at that time. So I got them alternative routes. We got the safe houses established.
At that point, I've got probably more than 20 people working for me. So I had put three guys out in front of me and those were the ones that dealt with everything. So I was never seen by the buyers. I didn't deal with anybody other than say it was a new client. We certified their credentials by saying we knew people that knew these people and said, yeah, they're good to go.
I would sit down, I'd negotiate a deal and then I'd be the hell out of there. So aside from when a load came in and running up to a safe house and doing a quick count, quick inspection, that would be the only time that I was exposed to the actual kilos of blow were coming to me. And by that point, I had kingpin status. The feds were investigating me.
They were aware of an uptick, but they had no idea, Matt, how many kilos we were running at that time. I remember they took off 38 keys at Anthony's Restaurant parking lot in Seattle. And that was the largest amount of blow seized in Seattle during those years at that time. And the deal was going to be for 80 kilos. And I broke the deal in half just on a feeling.
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Chapter 4: What dangers did Dr. Hal Bradley face as a kingpin?
Chapter 5: How did the cartel become more violent over time?
They needed to know just exactly how far up the ladder that, uh, I, I had knowledge and awareness of the involvement of the people, because this general was getting these tons, ton quantity amounts of blow. directly from the president of Mexico's brother. And this is where, this is where the concern factor came in. Uh, and, uh, as a result of that, um, I was taken, I was tortured.
Uh, the two men that were captured with me, they were killed and I was rescued. I remember, uh, by that point I was, you know, severely beaten. I had been suspended in the air with my arms behind my back. And,
constantly pummeled they put a gun to the side of my head and repeatedly pulled the trigger and i started losing uh reality and awareness but this goes back to fort polk louisiana tiger lang training prisoner or war camp training and just how imprinted that training became later in my life because when i was uh in captivity and being tortured at this time for information
I slipped back into remembering that never give up nothing. Don't ever give up anything because the moment you do, you're no longer useful for the purpose of being kept alive. And that's what got me through that. And then agents found me. They came in and rushed the place. I was rescued. And I remember them pulling the bag off my head as they lowered me down onto the ground.
And guy had a picture of me in a plastic envelope. And he's saying, are you Hal Bradley? Are you Hal Bradley? And I couldn't even talk. I was so in shock at that point. All I could do is, yeah, yeah, I shook my head. Yes, I am Hal Bradley. And they extracted me, put me in a helicopter, took me to a medical facility that was highly secured, probably a CIA site.
I can't confirm that, but that's what I believe later that it was. And they cleaned me up and waited for the healings to heal, the bruises to go away before I was even allowed to go stateside. Because I was told at that point, if you ever let anybody know that you went through this, it becomes an instant security issue.
Our agreement with you stops right now and you're going to go face the judge and you're still looking at life. So naturally, I kept it to myself. And up until five or six years ago, I never even detailed this until I started writing my action adventure novels and doing that type of work.
Anyway, in 19 months came and then I was before the judge and then all of these agency people one by one stood up before the judge and said, look, he did everything and more than we ever possibly imagined. And we deserve that this man deserves his life. So the AUSA got my sentence taken down from a mandatory life all the way down to eight years.
So the judge actually allowed me 30 days before I self-surrendered to go to federal prison. And here I am a kingpin, which is just historic. And the 30 days I was able to get my family planted, everything together for them. And then I took a flight to Englewood, Colorado, well, Denver, and then took a taxi to Englewood and entered an FCI there, which is a medium security facility.
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Chapter 6: What led to Dr. Hal Bradley's decision to flip to the Feds?
Chapter 7: What were the consequences of Dr. Hal Bradley's cartel activities?
Chapter 8: How did Dr. Hal Bradley's past influence his later life?
What, what was the work you were doing with the, uh, CIA and, and the other agencies?
We were doing narcotic-related cases, weapons-related cases. I worked on human trafficking cases down in Panama and worked in El Salvador. As you know, I was actually captured in El Salvador. I was doing a case in Acapulco. I remember coming back to the embassy in Mexico City, and as I left the embassy, I got confronted by a couple of Salvadorian intelligence agents.
And they said, this is who we are. We'd like to buy you a meal and sit down. We'd like to make a deal with you, have you do something for us. We'll pay you $75,000, your expenses, and we only need you for a day. We just need you to do an intro. So I was naturally interested. I went to the cafe.
How did they know who you are?
Beautiful. I'm so glad you asked that. When I was in Leavenworth, one of the high-ranking officers of the MS-13 was getting ready to pull out and being deported back to El Salvador. Him and I became friends on the yard, and he had written my name, contact information, everything inside of a letter, and had mailed it down to El Salvador.
Well, naturally, they're flagging everything going in and out of a prison, and that information landed in the hands of the Salvadorian intelligence agencies. I don't know how they found out that I was a contractor, but obviously they did. And they waited for me to come out of the embassy. And that's when they approached me. So anyway, the deal was this.
In all 11 of my action adventure novels, I talk about my sidekick named Manny. And that's to honor the Salvadorian agent that my job was to introduce him to my associate that I knew in Leavenworth and be able to get him inserted into the MS-13 organization. And then I was to back away, go out on a diplomatic courier flight and take my 75,000 and walk away. And it didn't work that way.
We landed in San Salvador. We ended up at a safe house that night getting briefed and prepped for the meet. That's when I met Manny. That's when I got down there. And the following day, we drove north across the country up to the Guatemalan border, but still inside of El Salvador. We arranged to meet my associate at a restaurant up there. And we came in the restaurant and he wasn't there.
And the guy says, yeah, yeah, just come on out back here and we'll take you. We'll take you to him. No problem. We're just making sure no one's following you, that kind of stuff. And so we bought into it that I could tell that the agent was nervous. And what had happened is they recognized him. They knew who he was. And we walked out that back door. Both of us were knocked unconscious instantly.
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