227: Part 2: Mike Chavarria – The war on drugs isn’t fought in headlines, it's fought in the shadows

Game of Crimes

True Crime

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 23 December 2025

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this powerful continuation of Game of Crimes, Murph sits back down with Mike Chavarria, a true American patriot who dedicated more than 31 years to the DEA after serving in the U.S. Navy and NCIS. Mike’s career placed him at the heart of the global fight against drug trafficking, where intelligence, courage, and trust meant the difference between life and death. Mike takes listeners deep inside Operation Band of Brothers, a multi-agency, multi-national investigation that showcases both the complexity and necessity of cooperation between U.S. and international law enforcement partners.

Mike also discusses his book, “Junior: A Son of the Gulf Cartel,” offering deeper insight into the human stories behind the drug trade and the men and women who fight it every day.

Transcript

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0:00.0	One of the things that we learned in this case was that there are multiple players involved,
0:04.1	and I mean many.
0:05.3	One load of five tons, three tons, 10 tons, 20 tons could be owned by four or five different investors.
0:12.8	Some investors in Mexico, like the Wettos, were able to have an entire shipment of 12 to 20 tons.
0:23.4	They're on their own shipped into the country.
0:26.8	That's a lot of capital and a lot of credit with Colombian sources.
0:32.3	There's just no one size fits all.
1:03.0	Depended upon the cartel and dependent upon the moment and the relationships, they could combine, various investors could combine loads, multi, multi,000 kilo loads and then split it up once it got to Mexico. All right, everybody.
1:05.7	Welcome back to part two of this week's episode,
1:07.3	A Game of Crimes with Murph in the morning.
1:12.9	My guest this week is Mike Chavaria, retired DE agent, true patriot, true American patriot, dedicated his entire professional life to serving our country, worked in the U.S. Navy
1:19.2	for a number of years, worked at the NCIS for a couple of years, and then joined DEA and did
1:24.1	31 years, I'm sorry, there.
1:26.4	So here's a man who dedicated his entire professional
1:29.9	life to serving his fellow man here in the United States. That's what I call a hero and a patriot.
1:35.6	So, Mike, welcome back, brother. I'm so glad you came back for part two. Hey, totally my pleasure.
1:40.4	It's always an honor to be, you know, with you talking about stuff that we did and we
1:46.1	love doing for a career. So I appreciate that, Mr. Murph. Murph. Yeah, and I'm still not going to send
1:54.9	you any money. But we started yesterday and we covered his career.
2:01.7	Mike is a previous guest here from about a year and a half ago on the Game of Crimes.
2:05.6	And he's now written a book.
2:07.7	The name of his book and I'm just looking because I want to make sure I get it right.
	...

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