Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
America’s First Drug Cartel: The Criminal Empire That Changed History
Sat, 15 Mar 2025
Seth Ferranti's "Dope Men" Explores America's Original International Drug Cartel. They got in the dope trade before prohibition even ended, about the same time that America's War on Drugs started. The mob and the government have been fighting this battle on opposite sides for the last 100 years. Dope Men explores this history.Seths IG https://www.instagram.com/sethferranti/?hl=enSeths Channel https://www.youtube.com/@sethferrantistruecrime/videosFollow me on all socials!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattcoxtruecrimeDo you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7Send me an email here: [email protected] you want a custom "con man" painting to shown up at your doorstep every month? Subscribe to my Patreon: https: //www.patreon.com/insidetruecrimeDo 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 historical context does the drug trade have in America?
Like I know that the mob became successful and really blew up during prohibition. What I didn't realize was the mob really pushed the, hey, we don't deal with drugs. We don't deal with anybody that does deal with drugs. We're against drugs. And then you started showing that that's just Hollywood.
Chapter 2: Who were the key players in the early drug cartel history?
El Chapo, you know, it was Pablo Escobar, you know, El Chapo, but they don't see like a guy like Lucky Luciano as the predecessor to all this. And really he was. You know, he was like the first, you know, big heroin kingpin. And and nobody kind of views it as this in history because of all the Hollywood movies and stuff.
So, you know, like people think this is recent, you know, all this, you know, racism and the drug war and stuff like this. It's not, you know, and it's even came out, you know, like they say Nixon was going after the blacks and the hippies. I mean, this doesn't it doesn't start in 1970. It goes all the way back to the 20s. So why do we have some of these substances like, you know, alcohol, drugs?
Chapter 3: How did the mob's involvement in drugs evolve over time?
nicotine, caffeine, even sugar. I mean, they're all basically, you know, like substances that, you know, can alter you in some way, you know, and it's just like, oh, well, these ones are okay. and we're gonna regulate them and make money on them. But these ones are not okay because the Italians, the blacks, the Mexicans, so the whole system is so racist on its face.
Like, oh, white people control these, well, it's all good. You could make the analogy that the drug war and law enforcement you know propped up you know these rich people so they can make money and kill all of us and pollute the pollute the world so it's just it's like it's like the dark side of capitalism
Hey, this is Matt Cox, and I'm here with Seth Ferrante. He is the writer-director of a new documentary that just came out called Dope Man, and we're going to be doing an interview and talking about the doc. Check it out. You know, I almost, I was going to throw in there the white boy Rick, you know, but I didn't know if you wanted, you know, I mean.
Yeah, I don't care.
I mean, that's my biggest credit, the white boy doc. I mean, it's still on Netflix right now. Right. Um, yeah, I saw, I saw it. I don't know. I probably saw it like a month or so ago. I was flipping through, you know, I'll flip through docs. Uh, when I'm doing stuff, I watch, you know, I'll watch documentaries and stuff.
I flipped it through and I saw it and I was like, Hey, so, um, but I also saw that you came out. So you came out with this, uh, with, uh, dope man. And what's the other doc? Don't you have another one that just came out? Cause you had another one or something, right?
Yeah, we've been screening that, so that's not going to probably be out until September, but we've been doing screening at events, like we did Bicycle Day. We screened it at the big MAPS psychedelic conference in Denver, and I just screened it in Grass Valley last weekend at a big psychedelic art gallery called The Chambers Project.
Okay, because I remember you sent me, I think you sent me the link to the trailer, maybe.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so really I... I got a bunch of things. The domain name is not actually out yet. It's in the aggregator's hands. Nowadays, it's even hard to get a release date because the aggregator, then they just kind of put it in the line at Amazon and iTunes.
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Chapter 4: What role did prohibition play in the rise of the drug trade?
I never really, you know, you followed the evolution of, from every single point throughout whatever, what, hundreds of, a couple hundred years.
Yeah, like, no, it's basically like a hundred years. So, you know, when prohibition, was still going on in this country in the twenties. You know, the mobsters, that's that's basically how the mobsters came up, you know, because before prohibition, the mobsters were just like street corner thugs, you know, extorting businesses in their neighborhoods and taking hits, beating people up, whatever.
So as soon as prohibition came and they started smuggling alcohol, That's when they started making real money, like money they had never seen before. That's when, you know, these big criminal organizations, you know, kind of came online because once you have the money, you know, then you can get the politicians, you know, then you can get, you know, the more businesses.
And it just really expanded, you know, what they were doing and made, you know, almost into like these big corporation type structures. So. You know, a lot of these guys were smart. And it's funny, too, because I think a lot of people know there were Jewish gangsters, there were Irish gangsters, there were Italian gangsters.
But, you know, at first they all kind of worked together, you know, and then it became, you know, as stuff went on and like when Lucky Luciano took over the Italian mafia.
you know, and formed the commission and all this, you know, famous historical stuff that we know, you know, he made it all the Italian and the Jewish guys kind of went into finance and the Irish guys, you know, started going into government and police. So, you know, I mean, I'm not privy to the conversation. It's like these guys like Arnold Rothstein, Jack Lake, Simon, you know, Lucky Luciano had.
But, you know, to me, it seems like They kind of planned all this. They said, okay, Irish, you guys take the police politics. Jewish, you guys do the finance, banks. We're going to keep the organized crime. They formed these foundations and set in motion all this stuff that made the mob a powerhouse probably up until the 80s. The mob was super powerful. I'm just kind of trying to set...
the foundation and kind of show, you know, how everything got to where it was. You know, and at the same time, they were smart enough to know that prohibition wasn't going to last. So they started looking, you know, what can we replace? You know, and that's how they kind of formed, you know, the first drug cartel.
Well, you know, that was like when it got to that point in the documentary, you know, it's like what happens is as I was watching, I was like, oh, I didn't know that. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, I didn't realize that. Like there's all these little things and you kind of start, it starts tying in together.
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Chapter 5: How did Seth Ferrante get involved in the drug scene?
You know, like people think this is recent, you know, all this, you know, racism and the drug war and stuff like this. It's not, you know, and it's even came out, you know, like they say Nixon was going after the blacks and the hippies. I mean, this doesn't it doesn't start in 1970. It goes all the way back to the 20s. So I'm trying to show, you know, this this parallel, you know, you got.
A hundred years of the good guys and a hundred years of the bad guys. And it's just, it's still going on today. So it's like, when is it going to stop? You know, this is a war that, you know, nobody's going to win. So, you know, I did 21 years in federal prison for the drug war. So, you know, I kind of see what it is.
You know, I didn't have I was sitting at 21 years in federal prison for the crimes that I committed as a first time nonviolent offender selling cannabis and LSD. So, you know, I'm just trying to show, you know, let's let's get the right history out there.
Let's show the real reasons, because everything that this dude, Harry Anslinger, you know, this dude like came up in in Pennsylvania with like kind of Quaker values. You know, he worked at the big railroad, you know, in, you know, the early 20th century, you know, when they were the big corporation. So he got these corporate values.
He got these, you know, kind of religious Quaker values and all the and he got like these, you know, racist, you know, racist values and stuff like this. So all this stuff that happened. you know, it was kind of like this dude's mindset. And, and we're still, we haven't evolved at all. Law enforcement hasn't evolved. The government hasn't evolved.
Everybody is still like what this dude kind of set in motion. And this dude was, was, you know, he, he was the head of the Bureau of Narcotics, a predecessor to the GEA for like, like 50 years, you know, like this dude was still around, like until like almost like the 60th, you know, I'm not even sure the exact date when he died, but this dude was around forever. And, and,
You know, people don't, you know, put this on him. You know, they put it on Nixon, they put it on Reagan, they put it on Bush. But this is the dude that formed the whole template for the war on drugs. And it's been like this hundred year thing, you know, where... Law enforcement is going after the so-called bad guys.
And obviously some of them are bad guys, but when you bring racism and stuff into that, they're just targeting groups of people because of the color of their skin or where they're from.
I was just thinking, I interviewed a sheriff the other day and he said that 80 to 85% of the people that are in his jail are there for drugs. And he was like, he's like in almost all of them, almost like 95% of them are users. So it's basically 80%. You locked up 80% of users or small time drug dealers. And some of those are selling drugs.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of the war on drugs today?
And so this is kind of looking at the history, you know, but I'm just showing it from the frame of mind, like through these infamous and notorious gangsters, because I know that's what people like. They want to, you know... see what these guys are about and what they did.
I'm just taking the story a little deeper because I think a lot of the stuff that's been done has been glamorized or romanticized to kind of show the surface. You know? And even like the government... I mean, why aren't these dudes, like, why is not Lucky Luciano considered, like, a Harold Kingpin? It's just, you know, it's crazy to me.
You know, so I look at it, so, you know, I'm just trying to expose it. Yeah, I'm trying to expose the truth, the real truth, so people can see. And it's just layers, you know what I'm saying? You've got what's on the surface, but it's just layers and layers and layers and layers.
and then when you tie it all together you can be like okay I can see it now so that's what you know that's what I'm trying to do but you know at the same time you know the viewer has to make their own decision I'm just putting the information out there you know they can form their own opinion they don't have to have my opinion so okay so you don't know when this will be really available it'll be six months or no no it's going to be in the next month oh in the next so
So when I get to the aggregator, it's going to be like on Amazon and iTunes.
Oh, okay.
Yeah. So I get to the aggregator, so they tell me like once in four weeks. You know, because everything's like digital now. So, you know, like my studio and my name is not big enough where Amazon's going to give me like a set release date. They just like put me in a line with all the other stuff that has been submitted. Right.
know through act through aggregators which aggregator is basically like a digital distributor you know because everything is digital out everything is streaming you know the old model for films you know where you make a film you get a advance for north american rights you maybe go to theaters and then you you know they sell the rights i mean that that model is pretty much dead
You know, now everything, it's all kind of, you know, online stream, you know, on demand. You know, most people are watching stuff now, like all their laptops. So, you know, so, um, and, and like I said, you know, I've only been out of prison eight years. So, you know, I, and I've been doing this film stuff, you know, or try to get into it.
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Chapter 7: How does the drug war reflect issues of racism and capitalism?
So me, I had a reputation as a writer, you know, but I didn't have a reputation as a filmmaker. So at first I was struggling, like nobody wanted to give what he would invest in, you know, and this was probably like, you know, from 2017 until, you know, the end of the pandemic.
So, you know, we're talking like, you know, three, four years, like I'm basically like struggling, you know, funding little projects by myself with money I got from my books and journalism. But then, you know, something extremely fortunate happened, you know, for my career, white boy, it blew up. on Netflix at the end of the pandemic.
It was like top 10, not top 10 documentary, top 10 on the whole Netflix for like two weeks. You know, it had like, I don't know the exact number because Netflix doesn't give out numbers, but I've heard people saying it had like 20 million views in like the first couple months. You know, it was on Netflix. And I wrote and produced that. So, you know, it wasn't my studio.
I didn't direct it, but I learned I was mentored by the guy whose studio it was and the guy who directed it. And he kind of took me under his wings and I worked with him hand on hand. And it was based, that whole thing was based on my writing. It was based on my work, all the stuff I wrote about White Boy Rick previously for like Vice News and all these other places about the injustice of his case.
So that kind of put a spotlight on me. you know, and that kind of brought some attention. And even some of the people that I had talked to about money before, you know, they kind of came back to me, you know, because for me, white boy was awesome because, uh,
You know, I mean, it's nice, like, when you can go, like, I can go, like, and sometimes I'll be in a restaurant or a store or something, and, you know, I can mention White Boy, or I can hear other people talking about it, and, you know, people know that film. They might not necessarily know Seth Barante as a writer-director, but they know that film, so then I can volunteer that information.
Oh, well, I wrote and directed that, or I wrote and produced that, you know, and then, you know what I'm saying? So then it's cool, man, when you especially... As a creator, a content creator, when people, like, recognize your stuff and you have something that a lot of people have seen. So, you know, once I got to that level, you know, then it was kind of easier.
People would actually listen to me. They would actually check out. I kind of equate that to, like, you know, when the New England Patriots win the Super Bowl. Everybody knows Tom Brady's a man. But all those people on the team, like in free agency and stuff, they'd get the big contracts because they were part of that winning culture.
So people, once you prove that you're part of something, because our country is obsessed with winning. Everybody loves a winner in this country. Everybody loves something that's popular. There could be something that's just as good somewhere, but nobody knows about it, so nobody cares. So once I was a part of that winning production, it just gave me
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Chapter 8: What future projects is Seth Ferrante working on?
And eventually, he said like two hours later, the DEA agent, one of the agents that busted him, walked in the front door and threw the Rolex on the counter and said, here, bro, I wasn't stealing your Rolex. We were just using it for some bling for another bust. He's like, You just pulled it out of my property thinking I wasn't going to get bond.
Because they were all telling him, you're never getting out. You're doing 20 years. And that's what they believed. And they believed you're getting 20 years. We'll be selling this stuff. So he just removed it and drove home. They had to call the guy at home. He wasn't on a bus. He was at home. He had to get in his car and drive down there and give him his watch back.
So that's, you know, like there are so many stories like that. And what happens to that cop? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
No, it's like the same thing. So look, You know, like I'm a cannabis psychedelic dude. So, you know, I believe, you know, like when I was 13, you know, like like I believed in cannabis and I thought cannabis was, you know, medical, spiritual, therapeutical and the same with psychedelics. You know, I thought, you know, that it was very spiritual.
It was like mind expanding, made you see stuff the different way, you know. So but, you know, with the drug war in my 25 year sentence, you know, oh, I'm wrong. I'm a drug addict. I'm a criminal. I never considered myself a criminal, though. I considered myself an outlaw because I broke laws that I thought were wrong. And now, lo and behold, 30-something years later, cannabis is legal.
It is on its way to federal legality eventually, but it is legal in a bunch of states. And now psychedelics are being looked at, again, for their therapeutic value. Because if you look at it, the same thing with this kind of 100-year thing with law enforcement, you know, and, and drug dealers. So there's, there's another thing too, which I touch on an endowment a little bit. All right.
The pharmaceutical companies, they came online in the twenties, bro. You know, all the pharmaceutical, there was no pharmaceutical stuff before, you know, people, people smoke weed or weed treated like 60 different symptoms for thousands of years, you know, and you know, like the herbalist or whatever, you know, the, the, the, you know,
doctor or healer or whatever that's what they would prescribe or even other psychedelics you know like like peyote mescal and stuff like that right so when these big these big pharmaceutical companies came out of line as a direct result of like the industrials you know because a lot of people made a lot of money like all the big names rockefellers all those names
Like the industrial age, the robber barons, they made all this money. But then in the early 1900s, they got shot down because they were exploiting people. People were getting their arms chopped off and they weren't getting any type of compensation. Child labor, long hours, and they were just using these people as human chattel.
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