Stefano Ritondale is a former Army Armor officer with extensive military intelligence experience. He is also the Chief Intelligence Officer of Artorias, specializing in Cartel violence in Mexico, Latin American affairs, and drug trade/organized crime. You can follow him on X: https://x.com/All_Source_News Artorias: https://www.artorias.com Today's Sponsors: Black Rifle Coffee: https://www.blackriflecoffee.com/ Fabric By Gerber Life: Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their families. Apply today in just minutes at https://meetfabric.com/CLEAREDHOT
Chapter 1: What are the implications of designating cartels as terrorist organizations?
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I hope you're ready for a deep dive this Monday morning. We're going to talk about the cartels, which if you paid any attention to the 2024 election, it was a part of the discussion for sure. And for a couple of years, people have asked the question, what happens if we designate the cartels as an FTO or foreign terrorist organization?
Well, that recently happened under President Trump. But what does that actually mean? Most of the conversations are around kinetic options. Are we going to send drones and Reapers and Preds to Mexican airspace? Are we going to drop bombs on people? Are we going to send our JSOC forces over there? It's a largely kinetic conversation.
Well, my guest today is Stefano Ritondale, and he specializes in cartels. He is the chief intelligence officer for a civilian company called Artorias. He does a good job of describing what they do, but imagine this.
Imagine an OSINT or open source intelligence platform that gathers information from left, right, brings in bias and declares bias, but allows an individual through an app to actually look at every piece of OSINT information available. and make their own decisions from there. That's what Artorias is working on from a commercial perspective that an app that can be released.
And again, Stefano does a really good job of describing that. But he specifically, he's got a Twitter account that focuses on the cartels. He's a former army armor officer with extensive military intelligence experience that has lateraled that in discussing, studying, observing the cartels.
It's a fascinating conversation because even myself, I focused very deeply on the kinetic options that I thought it might put to the table. There is so much more. And a lot of this has to do with things that we can do to clean up our own house north of the Mexican border with the United States due to the authorities and things that will change due to these organizations being declared as an FTO.
And it's more than just the cartels. It's Tren de Aragua, which we have 16 states in the United States to include Montana, the home state that I'm at right now. Fascinating conversation. He does a way better job. He actually specializes in this. So I'm going to shut up and let him talk. Episode 373 with Stefano Rittendale. But before we get into that, give me 90 seconds. Let me pay the bills.
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Chapter 2: How does OSINT influence understanding of cartel dynamics?
But no, that was not, you know, you know, my first duty, I mean, my first duty station was El Paso, um, Cav squadron, the, the platoon leader. And then I have spurs. No, I don't. Funny enough. Funny enough. Uh, I, the requirement to get a spur, uh, Was there was a certain exercise I had to do. And so by the time I did it and I was eligible to do my spur ride, I got picked to be an aide-de-camp.
Okay. And so I became an aide-de-camp, deployed as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, did that for a year.
Does that mean you had one of those weird things going underneath your arm? Yep. Yeah, yeah.
Actually, my wedding photos, I have that because I got it. I said I had the little gold stripe. And then you have like a weird insignia because you don't wear your branch anymore. You wear the aide-de-camp kind of one that indicates. Like I think you wear it and then it's like an eagle and it almost looks like the AG one, but it's a little bit different.
And are you just at that point literally an aide to a flag officer? I did that for actually two generals. I did one general deployed. Then when we came back, I had a separate general that kind of like a little bit in the transition. And then, you know, I decided, you know, just had my daughter kind of missed the whole means of my deployment. I missed it.
So I said, you know what, I can't do active duty, you know, long term and joined the reserves and then a contract and did that.
How was that being on a fly on the wall in some of those meetings in the flag officer air? I've always been curious, and I've said this many times, because people will ask me my opinion on either strategic or operational planning, and I'll raise my hand and be like, let me tell you who has never consulted on that. Me, because I don't know shit about that stuff.
I understand the bottom rung of the tactical ladder, maybe, but I've always been fascinated about... I'm so curious about the questions. If there is dissenting opinion, if there's room for dissenting opinion, is there back and forth? Because I bet they're used to just seeing aid to camp because they probably go, coffee, two creams.
So actually the first time I ever served my general coffee, I did that. He was like, oh, I'm going to be the aid. Like, hey, sir, you know, made some coffee. He grabbed it and he looked at me and he said, if you ever serve me coffee again, I'm firing you. I was like, got it. I already like this guy. Very well. He was Ranger. Yeah. Yeah, he did.
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Chapter 3: What is Stefano Ritondale's military background?
That makes sense. Yeah, and what I would say is there's also kind of a deliberate position within the Mexican government of not utilizing the tools they have to protect the soldier, and here's why. So the Mexican government has APCs, obviously. Armored personnel carriers. Armored personnel carriers. I got to get us out with the anchor.
It's all right.
I'll hop in when needed. I got you. But the problem that they, but it's an image perspective from the Mexican government. Like, do they want their citizens to see Mexican tanks and armored personnel carriers in the cities that are at high levels of violence? So they generally will travel in pickup trucks. You know the famous scene of Sicario, like the bridge scene where you've seen the Federales?
Yes.
That's their number one, 99.9% of the times when you see the Mexican military police, National Guard on patrol, that's what they have. They don't use their armored personnel carriers.
On a side note, I love the movie Sicario. That scene that you're talking about, I've watched it enough times now that I'll start watching other people than the main actors. Mm-hmm. Somebody, people listening, go back and watch Sicario. Whatever stuntmen that they had dressed up, they were hitting speed bumps at a high rate of speed.
And those stuntmen were getting their asses absolutely handed to them in the back of those trucks, those poor bastards. Yeah. They're just bouncing around inside of those cages.
I mean, you got to give it. It's a phenomenal movie.
I loved it. One huge tactical issue, though. God, this one drives me nuts. In that same border scene, you can pull this up, Michael. Sicario border scene. Do Sicario border scene bolt lock to the rear. Okay. I know exactly what you're talking about. The dude with the glasses, he's up on his M4 and you're looking at it. You need to see the other side of the rifle.
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