YouTube Transcript:
SHOCKING! The Sinister Group Behind Your Grocery Items | Candace Ep 186

Well, the Diddy trial is prosecuting the
wrong case, and there's something fishy
going on with Red Lobster's bankruptcy.
Also, some of you might be wondering who
the hell I am. So, today we're going to
take you all the way back to the first
story I ever covered on TikTok where I
exposed that there's poison in the baby
food. We'll also respond to some of your
comments. Welcome back to
Candace.
Our first story today is about food. A
specific kind of food that most of you
probably eat, but you probably never
realize that this food has a serious
dark side. And I'm speaking obviously
about shrimp. Endless shrimp to be
exact. Last May, Red Lobster filed for
bankruptcy. And at the time, I had
mistakenly assumed that it was because
of mismanagement in some sort of private
equity buyout like all the other cool
kids these days. But it turns out that
that's old news. Private equity had
already been there and done that way
back in 2014 when Red Lobster had been
bought out by Golden Gate Capital. And
what did they immediately do? Well, if
you watched our show yesterday, you
would know that they sold off all of Red
Lobster's real estate in a lease back
scheme. Much like Toys R Us and all
sorts of other brands before then, they
actually used this lease back scheme to
finance their initial purchase of Red
Lobster, like a leverage buyout that we
already talked about. But color me
surprised when I looked up who owns
Golden Gate Capital. It was founded by
former professionals from private equity
firm Bane Capital and its affiliate Bane
and Company led by former Bane Capital
partner David Dominic. So you remember
how last time we talked about how Bane
Capital was the private equity arm and
Bane and Company was the consulting arm
and they would never work together,
right? But not only that, when you look
up the real estate company that they
partnered with in the deal, later that
same year, 2014, they got busted for a
little $23 million accounting
error. This is coming from a couple
different sources online as well as
Wikipedia to summarize it all for us.
The company was formerly known as
American Realy Capital Properties, Inc.
and it changed its name after an
accounting scandal. His name was derived
from the Latin word veritas, meaning
truth. In October 2014, the company
admitted to $23 million accounting error
and fired chief financial officer Brian
Block. Lawsuits alleged that insiders
received over $900 million in fees from
the company. In December 2014, Shorch
resigned as chairman. Remember 2014,
right around the time that they had just
bought back all these properties from
Red Lobster. That's when they were doing
this whole accounting error. In July
2015, the company changed his name to
Verit. Verate. Verite. In September
2019, certain defendants agreed to pay
$1.025
billion. So, that's a little bit of a
whoopsies. But anyways, we're getting
distracted. Back to Endless Shrimp.
Endless shrimp led to an 11 million
operating loss in Q4 of 2023. There was
also the fact that when parties arrived
at Red Lobster looking to pig out on a
barge full of endless shrimp, they
simply wouldn't leave. Burke's
experience serving a man who put away 16
servings over the course of 2 hours was
actually mild compared with some of the
other stories I've heard. Josie, 19, who
also asked to be anonymous, super
anonymous, worked at a now shuttered
Kansas City Red Lobster, where she
watched a solo diner take down 30 orders
of fried shrimp within 4 hours.
According to the nutritional information
on Red Lobster's website, that's
something like 14,000 calories, bulking
season.
But if you read enough headlines and you
you quickly start to realize there is a
shrimp spiracy of foot and that's
because Red Lobster was bought in its
entirety by a company named Thai Union.
Thai Union owned Red Lobster and is
actually under investigation for its
role in this whole debacle. That's
because Thai Union not only owns 100% of
Red Lobster, but was also historically a
large-scale supplier to the chain. Just
before this promotion, they eliminated
all other shrimp suppliers. Thai Union
is one of the world's largest shrimp
suppliers, as well as all sorts of other
seafood like canned tuna. And I can only
presume that their goal with Red Lobster
was never to run a successful restaurant
company, but instead to perform the
world's first shrimpbased bustout
scheme. Because remember, the Red
Lobster company had already been looted
by private equity before Taiun bought
it. So unless Taiun is dumb, when they
bought it, they already knew that Red
Lobster was in big trouble. And when
they owned it, what did they do? They
cut off all the other shrimp suppliers
and turned themselves into the sole
provider of shrimp and then offered this
crazy deal where Red Lobster tanked on
buying endless shrimp from Thai Union.
And when you dig into Thai Union's most
recent financial statements, they own 62
different seafood companies around the
world. Many of them specifically shrimp
farms, packing, and distribution
companies. But when you add up all the
companies they own more than 25% of,
that number jumps up to 76. Thai Union
Group is the world's largest seafood
company and ranked number one in the
food production industry on Dow Jones
sustainability index which might be true
as long as slavery isn't one of their
metrics because this report was produced
by sustainability incubator just last
year about the rampant human rights
abuses in the shrimp industry. Thai
Union is mentioned numerous times, often
referencing their subsidiary, Chicken of
the Sea, which is one of the US's
largest retail seafood suppliers. The
report points out that at the prices
paid per kilogram in these sourced
countries, it's literally impossible
that slave labor and exploitation aren't
involved in the supply chain. Based on
their analysis, average monthly earnings
for shrimp peelers are the lowest in
India.
Yeah, I'm not sure what happens to
Ecuador uh between where the shrimp are
cheap and where the wages are recorded.
Like maybe they're not even paying wages
in Ecuador. I don't know. But suffice to
say, it's probably not too good of an
industry to be dealing with shrimp in
Ecuador. This isn't just some hairbrain
theory that Sustainability Incubator
cooked up. You might not have noticed
the massive scandal that rocked the
shrimp industry a decade ago, but we're
going to dive all into it today. But
before we detail the modern shrimp slave
trade, I want to read to you a bit from
the book, The Secret Life of Groceries.
Because you see, shrimp were notoriously
hard to farm or domesticate. When put in
farming conditions, their sexual
development gets stunted by stress, and
females just don't develop ovaries for
reasons we don't entirely understand.
And the book goes into this in pretty
interesting detail. And then stuff gets
really wild. The single great
breakthrough came in a fittingly bizarre
and brutal manner. Then as now, those
trying to make aquaculture work raised
their shrimp in overcrowded tubs. And as
their shrimp swam around and around in
circles in these tubs, their outside eye
would rub against the side of the tank.
And slowly, after God knows how many
circles and god knows what type of
crowded environment, the outermost
eyeball of the outermost shrimp in these
tubs would eventually get rubbed right
off, erased by friction. And from this
misery, an industry was born. It turns
out that for as of yet biologically
unexplained reasons, a female shrimp who
loses a single eyeball gets fasttracked
through puberty. Her ocular loss
unleashing a cascade of hormones that
begets ovaries in as little as 3 days.
This was not predictable, nor does it
fit with some grand anatomical theory of
shrimp endocrinology. But it is very
real and some supremely attentive farmer
noticed it and began snipping eyeballs
off by hand in an attempt to replicate
it. Soon the process went mainstream. It
was studied and verified in the lab. And
although nobody could quite explain
itock ablation, the quirky stride of
science skipped merrily forward, pushing
shrimp aquaculture into a new
age. So as this practice was invented in
the 70s, Thailand was one of the world's
leading shrimping industries because of
the waters around Thailand. But now
there was surging demand and so they
needed laborers to fill it. Fortunately
for the Thai shrimping industry, Burma
is right next door. You might know it as
Myanmar or Burma depending on what time
period your history book was written.
There are no shortage of refugees trying
to escape to Thailand from Burma.
Myanmar for a better life. There has
been civil wars and coups and bloodshed
in Burma since before most of us were
born. And this book, The Secret Life of
Groceries, tells the story of a specific
person who became a fisherman, not by
choice, who came from Myanmar to
Thailand looking for a better life and
wound up as a slave to the shrimping
industry. Bit of reference on where he's
coming from. There's no simple frame of
reference for rural Myanmar at this
time. It's feudal and corrupt. Trapped
in time without electricity, running
water, or paved roads, yet bedcked with
assault rifles. Tunllin doesn't grow up
with a floor, but does remember his
father's N16, leaning against the walls
of their hut. Transportation to the
front is largely on oxdrawn carts. The
country at this time is in perpetual
civil war between the government and the
communists, between small mercenary
armies funded by industrialists and
rival tribes, between ethnicities and
religions in the different sub regions,
all of whom ally with each other and
disband and realign to create chaos.
He leaves his home village without
telling anyone, bringing three t-shirts,
three pairs of pants, one blanket, and
the shoes he is wearing. He doesn't have
a proper bag, so he uses a plastic one.
He crosses the border at the town of
Miati, and it's easy. He does it all by
himself without a broker or a snake
head, just a matter of hitching a ride
and dashing across a river a few meters
down from the official checkpoint. When
I visit Milwaukei 18 years later, I see
several people doing the exact same
thing. From there, he walks up the steep
bank and emerges on the Thai side of the
border into a town called Mes. He's all
alone. The reality of being in Thailand,
of the language being different, of
knowing absolutely no one hits home. And
as that reality hits, a broker waves to
him. Tonlin says it seemed like he was
waiting for him. The broker is about 40
years old, his eyes smart and handsome,
dressed in a blue long-sleeve shirt that
is clean. So Tunllin approaches and the
broker asks him in Burmese, "Where would
you like to go?" and Tunland says simply
Thailand. Not totally realizing he's
already in Thailand. The broker says
that doesn't matter and puts his arms
around him. The two of them walk back to
a two-story brick house in May. They
walk side by side like they are on a
date. The whole time they talk in
Burmese about Thailand. Tunin is very
excited. The broker is laying out a
future telling about the different
cities in Thailand, the resorts in the
south, the skyscrapers in Bangkok, the
factories in Samu Sakon, and of course,
he's telling him all about the jobs. The
first thing he's told when sitting on
the floor in this hut, he is very lucky.
One of the migrants near him explains
that Tunllin has come at a very good
time. It has been hard at the house.
Some people have been waiting on the
floor for over a week. But Tunllin
learns he should be very excited because
the next day they are set to leave.
Truer's word. The next morning, the
broker arrives. He tells them they are
going to Chiang Mai, a city in the
north. But he tells the group that the
police are looking for migrants. They
are making his job very difficult and
dangerous. He explains that the military
is pulling vehicles to the side and
checking papers. So to get to Chiang Mai
without being arrested, they will have
to go it by foot. It is a 210 mi trek
through a jungle over several mountains
during the heart of the rainy season.
Tunllin does not know this because the
broker does not say this. The broker
does not take any questions or explain
anything beyond how they are to leave
town without attracting attention. Tun
is just excited to start.
It rains continuously the first day of
the walk and quickly the group begins to
break down. Many were sick and starving
before leaving. Every night they sleep
outside, huddled in groups under trees
or in small caves and overhangs in the
mountain areas. The only food comes at
two checkpoints per day where the guide
has arranged for meals to be stashed.
Each of these meals is identical. Tinned
mackerel and tomato sauce. It is not one
man per can. Tun says they split cans
three, four, or five people per can. Tun
estimates that a group of 100 people
left the house. By the end of this trip,
he knows for a fact that he saw six
people die of hunger or disease. Once
they get onto a truck, they sit in rows,
so tightly packed it is hard to breathe.
Then the door is closed. It is dark. No
one speaks. Tunin is not on one of the
benches, but sitting on the floor with
his knees tucked to his chest. He closes
his eyes and tries not to think,
estimating from a map, driving with no
traffic, their trip lasts 12 hours. He
tells me there are no rest stops and
that people cannot control themselves
and they urinate and defecate in the
truck. When they arrive, the back of the
truck is open and they are told to get
out. One by one, they unfold. People are
crying. A woman near Tunllin has died.
She was suffocated or crushed. Tunlin
does not know which only that he sat so
close to her the entire trip and that he
had not thought about her. Once he gets
put onto a boat, which he did not ask to
be on, he cannot eat because he is
seasick and throws everything up and he
is not allowed to sleep. This continues
for 3 days. It is at this point the
captain puts out the big canisters of
instant coffee for the crew to eat. Yes,
to eat, not to drink. On the fourth day,
doing work he does not understand among
men who speak languages like Camar and
Lao, he can only partially communicate
with. Nauseated, starving, exhausted,
Tunlin says he becomes physically unable
to continue working, and so he stops and
goes to the crawl space to take a nap.
This is his first beating. The captain
finds him asleep. He then wakes Tunllin
up with a weapon. My translator insists
on calling a yo-yo. It is a steel ball
on an elastic cord, and he swings it at
Tunlin, catching him across the face,
then repeatedly on the shoulders.
Tunllin shows me his scars. He says he
has beaten many times over the years,
but he will always remember this first
one. Tunllin says he is not beaten again
after this. The captain merely has to
point at this yo-yo for Tunlin to
increase the speed of his work until
after waiting six months, he makes the
mistake of asking for the salary he was
promised because that's how they got him
onto the boat, saying that he was going
to have a job. For this, he is beaten
even harder than before. He learns now
the captain owns him, that he bought him
when he acquired his debt. His friend
Tulle simply can't handle it. He is only
a teenager and is weak, which means he
is beaten more frequently. As the
captain whips him, Tulle slowly loses
his mind. After a particularly bad
beating, Tulle gets very sick. He can't
walk and he is allowed to
rest. But Tunllin knows things are
wrong. Whenever he asks Tulle questions,
the boy will only laugh or cry. Soon
after, Tulle refuses to work. It is now
that he is beaten until he is
unconscious and kicked into the sea.
Months at sea pass into years. Tunin
adjusts. He never enjoys life on the
boat, but he learns it. He becomes good
at it. He comes to do every job, sorting
the fish, carrying them to the freezer
on trays, patching, folding, pressing
the net, and looking for rips, and more.
This is Tunllin's second year on the
boat out of what will eventually be 14
years at sea. At this point, he's a
slave in the only meaningful sense of
the word. He cannot leave. He is not
paid. He was brought here a prisoner. He
was sold in a cash exchange. He works
under the threat of violence and he has
seen those who fought back against that
violence killed. His best friend on the
boat, the only person he knew before
boarding, was slowly driven mad and
eventually he was killed too. Although
they don't get a lot of sleep, this is
where they sleep. Tun shares a crawl
space with Tulac and the rest of the
crew before Tulle dies. Some closer to
indentured servants, some free men who
signed off on their own valition, some
who enforce the captain's orders, many
in more than one role, depending on the
precise time you look, all sleeping
together in a space less than a meter
high. To get to the bed, they crawl on
their hands and knees for about 12 ft
into the darkness through an opening
that can fit at most one person at a
time. This is where Tulin sleeps when
not working his 20our days. When I visit
a similar sleeping hole on the Thai
docks, the opening comes up just above
my knee and it is warm, exhaling the
dark yeasty manure smell of the unwashed
human body. Tunin and all the rest of
these workers are working in the fishing
industry, pulling up all sorts of fish.
But the waters of Thailand were getting
overfished. And as they got overfished,
more and more of that Thai fishing
industry was actually based on the trash
fish, the small fish, the guts, the
things that actually can't sell as fish,
but instead become fish meal. And they
never actually go back to port. They
stay out at sea for years at a time. And
they get other boats to come and
resupply them and take their catch into
port for them. And this describes how
fishers like Tunlin never see these
small unsailable fish make it to port.
They are passed to a sister boat at a
rendevous at sea. Traded along with
food, cigarettes, taibot, and fuel. This
is called trans shshipment at sea. It
saves fuel for the larger refrigerated
fishing vessels and it allows some boats
to stay out almost indefinitely,
resupplied by others. They turn into
floating prisons for trafficked workers.
So once all this trash fish makes it
into port after being out in the sun on
a boat all day, then it gets rolled into
the docks where it gets dumped out onto
the ground into the sun all day to rot.
But within a day, a man with a rake and
wearing dark rubber boots will push this
pile of fish and fish pieces towards a
growling mouth in the cement docks. It
looks like a hole in the ground with two
grinders in it for teeth. And it takes
the rotting fish and pulverizes them
further. The scent near the hole is
deafening. If you really want to know
what you're feeding your pets when it
says fish on the label, this is what it
is. It is the smell of thousands of tiny
rotting fish piled ankle high in the
90°ree Tai sun on a space that has held
ankle-high levels of tiny rotting fish
for years. It is a hot smell, not just
from the climate and the decomposition,
but because there are furnaces just
beyond. You can see them glowing behind
the man with the rake. The pulverized
fish will pass on a conveyor belt toward
those furnaces, getting cooked into a
paste, then baked into meal. This will
then be sold to yet another broker,
bought by a feed mill, and blended with
inputs from dozens of other facilities.
All to create the protein base in pet
food, food for fish farms, and the feed
for hungry little shrimp. But that is
just the industry responsible for making
shrimp food, as well as cat and dog
food. The rest of the shrimp supply
chain is brutal, too. For example,
here's another story from the shrimp
industry. Every morning at 2 a.m., they
heard a kick on the door and a threat.
Get up or get beaten. For the next 16
hours, number 31 and his wife stood in
the factory with their aching hands in
ice water. They ripped the guts, heads,
and tails, and shells off of shrimp
bound for overseas markets, including
grocery stores and all you can eat
buffets across in the US. After being
sold to the gig peeling factory, the
couple were at the mercy of their Thai
bosses, trapped with nearly 100 other
Burmese migrants. Children worked
alongside them, including a girl so tiny
she had to stand on a stool to reach the
peeling table. Some had been there for
months, even years, getting little or no
pay. At all times, someone was watching.
Benjamin Lore points out that this issue
is multiaceted and ultimately it stems
from the modern world's globalized
insatiable demand for more for cheaper.
It's a trend that permeates every aspect
of our modern brand of consumerism. And
there's no easy fix because when
Thailand was exposed, new standards were
imposed and the Thai shrimping industry
collapsed only to move to countries like
India and Vietnam. And now Thailand is
at it again. News misses this crucial
distinction that the slavery never
ended. It just moved into a new shadow
somewhere else where American and
Western consumers could shield their
eyes from it and pretend that it wasn't
happening. Thailand is now proposing
repealing the legal standards that had
previously cracked down on shrimp
slavery and force business abroad. The
Thai government has been insistent that
trade would not be affected by new
guidelines, stressing that the EU, with
whom it currently is negotiating a free
trade agreement, makes up only around 6%
of seafood exports. These practices go
wherever the shrimp industry goes and
lately that's been India because right
now India is our largest supplier. It's
no coincidence that Sustainability
Incubator found wages to be the lowest
on average in India and the price is the
cheapest. Who knows what's happening in
Ecuador. The market will find the
cheapest supply wherever it can be
produced and that will always be a race
to the bottom and the bottom will always
be
slavery. India became America's leading
shrimp supplier accounting for about 40%
of the shrimp consumed in the US in part
because media reports including the AP
investigation that exposed modern-day
slavery in Thailand and their seafood
industry. AP's 2015 reporting led to the
freedom of some 2,000 enslaved fishermen
and prompted calls for bans of Thai
shrimp, which had been dominating the
market. But unfortunately, that just
moved it to India. Stories from India
sound like this. She said she works in
brutal conditions, peeling, cutting, and
grading shrimp in a factory for less
than $4 a day, which is $2 less than
minimum wage. The working conditions are
tough, she said, wiping away tears with
the corner of her red sorry, standing
for long hours in the cold while peeling
and cutting shrimp takes a toll on my
body. This woman is a 51-year-old widow,
by the way. Baby, her last name, and
other workers said they pay recruiters
about 25 cents a day out of their
salaries just to set foot inside the
processing shed. Transportation and
company buses is also deducted from some
workers salaries along with the cost of
lunch from company cantens. Many workers
have no contracts and no recourse if
they are hurt on the job. Another peeler
said she suffers back pain all the time
from the arduous work for which she's
paid about $3 a day. Some have nail
fungus caused by small cracks that allow
germs to cause infections. Other women
have fingers or even their entire hands
darkening with frostbite. Ma said that
sometimes she has to amputate. AP
journalists observed dozens of women
working in unsanitary and dangerous
conditions. The shrimp pulled from
outdoor ponds in barrels were swished
around by hand in grimy water. Once
rinsed, they were dumped onto ice
covered tables where women stood peeling
them one shrimp at a time. Many handled
shrimp with bare hands. Some women had
bandages on injured fingers. Some
women's long hair dangled into the
shrimp. And you kind of expect that kind
of conditions maybe in, you know, third
world countries processing your food
like India or Thailand. But the point of
this is that Nikanti, the company that
they were apparently peeling shrimp for,
they present a very different image. In
the bottom section here, a marketing
video produced by Nikanti, which is
projecting $150 million in revenues this
year, shows shrimp peelers in a spotless
room with shiny tables, and workers
wearing gloves, head coverings, face
masks, rubber boots, and waterproof
aprons. By the way, Nikanti is a
subsidiary of guess who? Thai Union
Group. They of course denied the
allegations, said the company had
nothing to do with the peeling shed that
AP had visited, and said that their
branded truck was there only because it
was being leased to another company. He
provided a document that said that
Nikanti was paid
$3,600 for the four-month lease of a
truck with a license plate number the AP
observed. Sure, that document is a-ok.
Okay, but you have to imagine what's
going on out there when that's the image
they're presenting and the actual
conditions in these countries are like
the stories that you're hearing. And I
just wanted to give you a little image,
a little visual of where all the shrimp
in the world is coming from right now.
But just to be clear, the shrimp
industry works the way that the shrimp
industry works. And if you want to sell
shrimp for the prices that these
countries are selling shrimp for, you
have to compete with countries that are
using slave labor.
So your bottomless shrimp is another
man's or child slave laborers bottomless
despair. This year in 2025, New Orleans
hosted the Super Bowl. And someone had
the bright idea of going there and doing
a little testy testy on the shrimp that
they were selling in New Orleans and
other Gulf Coast cities. Turns out
everyone lies. The testing was done by
CD Consulting, made possible by a new
testing technology that could turn
results around in less than an hour
instead of sending to labs and taking
days. And what did those test results
show? Well, the cities with the highest
shrimp fraud rate were Tampa Bay and St.
Petersburg, Florida at
96%. According to CD Consulting, only
two of the 44 restaurants sampled were
serving authentic shrimp from the Gulf
of Mexico. A study found in Baton Rouge,
researchers sampled menu items at 24
restaurants and found nearly 30%, more
than one in four, were misrepresented.
family-owned shrimp business operating
out of the port of Tampa are struggling
to survive. While local restaurants
bamboozle customers into thinking
locally caught shrimp are being served,
family-owned and American businesses are
the ones bearing the brunt of our desire
for the most, the best, and also somehow
the cheapest. America and the Western
world has this obsession with optics and
ethics. We want to feel good about the
products we're buying. We want to be
absolved of our sins. But ignorance is
not bliss. And many, not all, but many
of these marks that are here to tell us
that we're making ethical choices are
essentially madeup stickers and rackets.
Inspections are often halfbaked, audits,
ineffective, loopholes are pretty much
endless. This is another thing that lore
covers extensively and with great nuance
in his book. It's a pretty rough story
when you really get into it. And these
types of stories are all over the place.
You can't pay attention to everything
and you can't be ethical with every
decision. You'll get decision paralysis.
You'll never buy anything. You'll never
eat anything. But it is important to
think about where your stuff is coming
from, who's responsible for it, and what
are the costs of low costs down the
line.
We've got trade wars, inflation, global
chaos, and a skyrocketing national debt.
It's no wonder that gold keeps hitting
record highs. With everything going on
in the world, thousands of people are
diversifying their savings with gold and
silver. And they're turning to my gold
partner, which is Gold Co. Right now,
Gold Co is offering you a free 2025 gold
and silver kit. Plus, you can get
unlimited silver if you qualify. Find
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savings tax and penalty-free. Visit
candislikesgold.com or call
855222 gold. I'm sure you know that P.
Diddy is on trial and it's ongoing.
Details are coming out slowly. A lot of
people are following along with the live
court updates. There's no video coming
out of the courtrooms. Unfortunately,
we're not going to get an Amber Herd
talking about doing things on the bed or
anything like that, but we are getting
some funny court sketches and a lot of
really, really awful stories from Cassie
Ventura that really we're not going to
talk about. I don't want to talk about
them. you don't want to hear about them.
If you really care about all the
horrible things that Cassie alleges that
Diddy did to her while they were dating
and not dating and whatever else, you
can read all about it on the internet.
You can look up her original lawsuit
because that is not the story. And I
don't mean to say that Cassy's
accusations are not important because
they very much are. What I mean to say
is that so far everything that's being
discussed in the courtroom is super not
the story that we were all here to see.
The actual story that I want to talk
about that I assume that most of you
want to talk about is the kind of story
where Suge Knight famously accused Diddy
of being a longtime FBI informant. In
April of this year, Whitney Webb
released an excellent report about
Diddy's early life, outlining how he
attended a boy school that was marred in
numerous sex scandals and how his father
was very likely a rat, an informant that
was eventually caught and killed. All of
this was even before Diddy even got into
the music industry, where his early
mentors were linked to the mob and all
sorts of other scandals. The real story
is Lil Rod's lawsuit, which we've all
seen and talked about before. Lucian
Grange, the CEO of Universal Music
Group, was originally named in that
lawsuit, and so was Universal Music
Group and Mottown, as well as many other
people, but their names all mysteriously
vanished. But the lawsuit directly
alleges that Graange was at the parties
and presumably partially or entirely
funding them at times. The lawsuit
included what appeared to be screenshots
from videos of famous people and told of
coercion based on performing sexual acts
on camera. It included many specific
allegations about drugs, guns,
prostitutes, even minors. But the
biggest bombshell in the lawsuit, as far
as I'm concerned, and the thing that no
mainstream outlet wants to touch is the
allegations of hidden cameras. Quote,
"While living and traveling with Mr.
Combmes, Mr. Jones discovered that Mr.
Combmes has hidden cameras in every room
of his homes. Mr. Jones believes that
Mr. Combmes has recordings of defendants
Lucy and Charles Graange, Ethiopia
Habermarium, as well as other
celebrities, music label executives,
politicians, and athletes. Upon
information and belief, these
individuals were recorded without their
knowledge and consent. And as is the
case with the homosexual sex tape of
Stevie Jay that Mr. Combmes provided to
Mr. Jones, Mr. Combmes possesses
compromising footage of every person
that has attended his freakoff parties
and his house parties. I don't think
that all of those videos are the ones
being shown in court. Just my
suspicions. Upon information and belief,
due to this treasure trove of evidence
he has in his possession, Mr. Combmes
believes that he is above the law and is
untouchable. Upon information and
belief, Mr. Combmes employs Joseé Cruz
as his IT director. This writer has
spoken to several former employees of
Mr. Combmes who confirmed that Joseé
Cruz is the gatekeeper to all of Mr.
Comb's recordings. And I want to point
out here this document was prepared by a
lawyer and that lawyer has a legal duty
to believe that all the statements in
this document are true at least to a
certain like he he cannot just lie
openly. He cannot say that he spoke to
all these other employees of Mr. Combmes
if he never did. That would be a
disbarable offense. And so this lawsuit
has to at least have merit in the
lawyer's eyes. And maybe it wouldn't all
prove out in court, but it's not just
made up out of nowhere, right? And there
are very specific claims and there are
screenshots that seem to show
screenshots of video evidence. There's
all sorts of stuff in there. Okay, pair
all that with the fact that Diddy's head
of security was Fahhem Muhammad.
Quote, "In 2008, Fahhem graduated from
Sacramento State University with a
Bachelor of Science degree in business
administration with a concentration in
real estate and
marketing." Michael Jackson died just
one year after Fahhem apparently
graduated from college. Fahhem was
Michael Jackson's head of security and
apparently second on the scene when
Michael died. Then Fahheim winds up as
Diddy's head of
security. Kind of
weird. By the way, before we get off of
Fahheim Muhammad, remember his specialty
in real estate from college? Well, he
owns a real estate company, and he
apparently has land right on the Mexico
border. Check this out. 40 acres of land
in San Diego County. That's what one dad
gave his son for his 13th birthday. He
posted about it on social media, and
their story went viral. Rapper Shawn
Combmes even posted about it. Fahheim
Muhammad bought 198 acres out here in
Boulevard to get away. It's real quiet.
The wall is right there. This is not
like Chicago. It's not like LA. He lives
in Los Angeles and runs a real estate
business that buys and rebuilds
properties in the south side of Chicago.
He says to create a better living
situation for the black community there.
Fahhem says his mom taught he and his
siblings how important it is to own your
own property and to help their
community. So when his son Fahhem
recently turned 13, he gave him 40
acres. I thought it would be a great
opportunity to to teach him a life
lesson about the value of land. And
they're teaching other kids from LA
these lessons, too. So all them regular
rocks you picked, they bring inner city
kids out here to hike, ride ATVs, and
build campfires. And even though they're
right beside the border wall, they've
had no problems out here. These city
kids enjoy their own
private open space. They've had no
problems out here. Remember that's from
back during Biden's term
when there was all kinds of problems at
the border. If you owned land on the
border where no one was there, I have a
feeling there were people jumping over a
fence, dropping babies over a fence, and
running through your land. That's a
whole other dig though. But just suffice
it to say that I have questions about
why exactly did you choose to buy all
that land right on the border wall,
Fahhem, while you're simultaneously the
head of security of this sort of
trafficking operation that's having
these freakoffs where there's
allegations that there were party favors
and stuff like
that. Yeah. I can't help but feel like
they they're trying the wrong case in
court. But ultimately, this stuff isn't
new. If you're in the music industry,
people have been whispering about Diddy
ever since Biggie and Tupac were
murdered, making way for Diddy's rise to
superstardom alongside Biggie Smalls's
ex sidekick, Jay-Z.
And I just want to remind us all too of
some of the more recent allegations that
people have made against Diddy. But as
far as Meek Mills, Puff Daddy, whoever,
none of these, all you fake hard you
hold, hold on. All you fake hard you.
You know what I'm saying? I don't give
cuz you can't shoot nobody anyway. And
the reason why you got talk is cuz you
did a deal. You fed. You know what I'm
saying? That's why you got to come at me
cuz part of the deal for you to be a do
all that and get out of jail is that you
promise that you going to go pull my
coat card. So y'all [ __ ] shut the [ __ ]
up about me. Um PS today while we were
sourcing this clip, we accidentally
noticed that the original Drink Champs
video on their like on their YouTube
channel no longer has that little
section about Diddy being a fed. It
appears to have been edited to cut that
clip out. And we went back through it
and rewatched it and tried to confirm
and check out what is now on the drink
champ's website as of I think a year
ago. But as far as Meek Mills, Puff
Daddy, whoever, none of these, all you
fake hard, [ __ ] you. No, hold on. Hold
on. All you fake hard, [ __ ] you. You
know what I'm saying? So y'all [ __ ]
shut the [ __ ] up about me. You see where
it cut to a different clip and then it
came back to Kanye and you never got
to kind of weird. And as best as we
could tell that happened somewhere like
a year ago is when that video was
uploaded. And my presumption would be
that that has something to do with Diddy
applying pressure in approach to his
court appearance. But we don't know.
We're just we're just noticing things.
Just noticing. But anyways, none of that
is being mentioned in court right now.
It almost reminds me of a certain other
sex trafficker who didn't kill himself.
So, just don't forget the real story
because the real story is part of a much
bigger picture. And I'm sure we'll be
talking about that picture in stories
coming up. I want to take a second to
tell you about pure talk. What if I told
you that you could cut your cell phone
bill in half and support a US company
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supporting our veterans and creating
American jobs. What if I told you that
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Americans. I realized that a lot of you
guys might have no idea who the heck I
am. And I also realized that based upon
talking about the shrimp industry,
there's a whole lot of other stuff that
I kind of came up on, stories that I
used to cover all the time that we
should probably revisit. Teach you a
little bit about where I come from and
teach you a little bit about what's in
your baby food as well as all the other
products in your grocery store aisles.
So, here's one of the first Tik Tok
videos I ever made that summed up the
whole first dig I did into grocery store
aisles and into what's who really owns
everything and what are they putting in
everything. After we discovered that
Target has entire shelves of shampoo
that are all owned by the same mega
corporations, I decided to go look at a
bunch of other products that we put on
our bodies and into our various holes.
Cuz we all get the scent that this is
just the illusion of choice. But it's
different when you actually see it like
this. Like the whole shelf of deodorant
at Raid that has like three options that
are not mega corporations, but several
that are specifically branded to look
like they're natural and legit. like
Schmidz or Tomms of Maine. By the way,
the women's deodorant was the exact same
story. One option hiding down there in
the bottom. I went to the skincare
aisles of several stores. They purposely
brand it to look like it's medical and
like doctor formulated. They advertise
all over the place that it's trusted by
experts, you know, formulated by doctors
that work for Proctor and Gamble and
trusted by experts that work at
Unilever. Even at high-end beauty stores
like Ulta, I only found two types of
shampoo that were female or founder or
family-owned. Rest are owned by mega
corporations and billionaire private
equity, who I'm sure care a lot about
your hair care and your health. They
would never include carcinogens and
toxic chemicals in their products.
Obviously, all the class action lawsuits
you can find on Google are just fear.
But in some aisles, there are founder
and family-owned brands made by real
people that actually care about you
hiding amongst all of these other mega
corporations designed to blend in. And
so what I did is I started making
spreadsheets and giving them out for
free on my website with all the
different types of, you know, health and
with all the different types of skin
care, personal care products, shampoos,
with lists of the different brands that
we all consume on a daily basis and
whatever mega corporations or businesses
own those brands. Because I'm not trying
to say that all of these brands are
necessarily horrible for you. I'm just
trying to say that when you buy these
brands, your money is going to these
mega corporations. And mega corporations
pretty much all play by the same
corporate playbook. Target's top
shareholders are Vanguard, State Street,
and Black Rockck along with a bunch of
like investment banks and private equity
funds. In about four hours of work,
their CEO makes as much as the average
Target worker makes in an entire year,
which only totals up to like $17.5
million in 2023. I mean, poor guy got a
pay cut. How is he going to afford the
mortgage on his extra condo in the
Caribbean? He might even have to sell
one of the yachts. To be clear, that was
a joke. I don't know if Brian owns any
yachts. Not trying to spread
misinformation, Tik Tok, just pure
facts. I'm sure Brian is a great guy.
And a lot of people misunderstand my
message as being like capitalism is evil
and capitalism is the devil. And that's
not really what I'm trying to say. What
I'm trying to say is that capitalism is
what we make it with our capital. And
when we all support giant monopoly mega
corporations, we help to prop up this
version of capitalism that is actually
much more like corporate oligarchy. And
we inherently have the power to change
it or at least to push on it. If we stop
spending our money on this and start
giving more of our money to companies
like this, we can very much change the
world. Which I know sounds corny, but
it's true. The reason why mega
corporations do this is so that they can
maximize the chances of the most of our
money being spent on their products. But
we all have the power to go into this
aisle and to find that one little spot
where the real companies owned by real
people are hiding and to spend our money
on those products because that money
does not go to multi-million dollar CEO
bonuses. It goes to employees at real
companies that actually take care of
their people. It goes to voting for
products that are not filled with
chemical. Chemicals that cause hair loss
that then let those same companies turn
around and sell you products to prevent
hair loss. I'm not making that up. The
aisle at Target has both those products
both owned by the same companies, both
on the same shelf, right next to each
other. I can't imagine why. So, I know
times are tight for a lot of people. I
know the economy is horrible and it's
probably going to get worse. But
personal care products are a great place
to start changing your spending habits
because it's not like food that you have
to consume every day and you have to
spend tons and tons and tons of extra
money to buy better brands. You just
have to buy, you know, a better brand
once a month, you know, once a every
couple weeks. This is a multibillion
dollar industry. It's massive. And if we
all start voting in it with our dollars,
we stand to change everything. 2023 was
pretty depressing and I guarantee you
2024 is going to be just as or more
depressing. But my 2024 is going to be
all about things that we can do to
change to make the world a better place.
And we all know the world is run by
money. So start using yours to promote
businesses that make the world better,
not worse. What a throwback. That is
where your boy comes from. And that's
what I really got started on when I made
my first Tik Tok video is how does this
world work and who owns all the stuff
that we use? And over time, as I looked
at more and more products and more and
more industries and just started
learning about where all this money
goes, I started to notice the patterns
and notice how it works and notice
solutions. One of my favorite places to
start this dig that wasn't quite
mentioned in that one is Hidden Valley
Ranch.
Who do you think owns Hidden Valley
Ranch? And I want to invite you to
search that on the internet because all
of you can do this research, too. And
it's not hard. You can do it in the
grocery store on your phone. You can do
it right now on your computer. But when
you look up who owns Hidden Valley
Ranch, you'll get a screen something
like this, and you'll find out that it's
owned by Clorox, the bleach company. But
that's not the top of the chain. You
look up who owns Clorox and you'll find
out that it is a public company. Like
the kind of company you can buy stock
in, right? And the word you need to look
up in order to figure out who owns a
public company is you need to look up
Clorox Institutional Ownership. And when
you do that, you get to screens like
this. Or you can go to a website that'll
actually give you the full list. And
it's not hard to find. And when you go
to a website like Yahoo Finance and you
find the full list, you're gonna notice
something pretty quick. The top
shareholders of basically every company
in America are Vanguard, Black Rockck,
and State Street. But Black Rockck
actually owns State Street. So, it's
just Vanguard and Black Rockck. And then
below that is always all the banks, fund
managers, private equity, etc. And all
of them are nothing like any of us. And
the more you do this and look around,
the more you'll realize that these same
financial institutions are at the top of
basically every public corporation in
America, right? Even ones that you think
were natural and family or founder
owned, like Dave's Killer Bread, nope.
Got bought out a long time ago by
Flowers Foods. And when you look at
Flowers Foods, Vanguard and BlackRock
are the top shareholders. You keep doing
this over and over for different
industries and pretty soon you notice
that all kinds of different companies,
food and beverage, banks, big tech,
every single one of these little squares
inside of these bigger squares are big
companies that you will recognize the
names of and you can probably zoom in on
some of them. And the red highlights are
Vanguard, Black Rockck, State Street,
and all the other names on those lists
are their buddies. Notice there's even
funeral and hospice care. They have
water and utilities. They've got just
about every aspect of our lives locked
down in a big way. The entire market is
kind of just one big
conglomerated game where they all play
their parts and they all have their
different corporations, but they all are
owned by the same financial institutions
and all of them have a fiduciary duty to
make their shareholders money. That's a
legal thing. They are required by law at
all of those public corporations to
maximize shareholder value. And
everything you're looking at on those
lists are their top shareholders. So,
they are legally required to do what's
best for all of those financial
institutions, not for you. Once you take
this into the grocery store and actually
look at the products on the shelves,
stuff gets pretty bleak pretty quick
because what I started doing is just
coloring it in. Anything that's owned by
a mega corporation. Oopsies. There's not
a lot of options left. Notice the baby
food aisle over there. That's not a
single non-corporate option of baby food
in that store. That's a WCO. We're going
to come back to baby food. But it
doesn't stop there. You can do
detergent. Actually, the first one I
ever did was tampons and feminine
products. The cereal aisle, big money
maker in grocery stores. And you could
just go on forever. It never ends. And I
did this for a whole year. Trust me. But
I said I wanted to come back to baby
food because this is not just about who
owns it, but it's about when their
fiduciary duty is to financial
institutions like the banks, their job
is just to make the cheapest product
that will profit the most, that will
sell to the masses in whatever way they
can. And when you're talking about
something like baby food, there are
serious ramifications for doing so.
This report is an official report
published by the US House of
Representatives where they ordered a
study into what is in our baby foods.
And they found that baby food was wildly
tainted with arsenic, lead, cadmium, and
mercury. And I want you to notice the
brands that are at the bottom of the
screen where the logo of the House of
Representatives is. That's Gerber, Happy
Baby, Plum, all these different brands
that you might think. I thought that
Plum was organic. Yeah, it's owned by a
mega corporation. And when they tested
what was in these baby
foods, it was appalling. The test
results of baby foods and their
ingredients eclipse those levels,
meaning the levels that are accepted as
safe, including results up to 91 times
the arsenic level, up to 177 times the
lead level, up to 69 times the cadmium
level, and up to five times the mercury
level that is supposed to be allowable
in our baby food, which should be
zero. But even
so, that's pretty dark. And if you
didn't know that, if you didn't know who
is making your baby food and how little
they care about your baby's health, you
would probably feed that to your baby.
And a lot of you probably have. And I
want to stress that you should not feel
guilty about that. A lot of people can't
afford other things. And most of your
babies will be okay. But it is scary to
know about and it's important to look
for solutions. And unfortunately, those
solutions are not readily available or
easy. Right? You could make your own
baby food at home by cooking all your
food, but a lot of parents have to work
all day, right? That's the whole point
of having this convenient baby food. And
we didn't even mention the formula,
which is super messed up. But one
solution that I kept finding over and
over again in every aisle everywhere
that I went is that when you find brands
that are owned by families, owned by
their founders, owned by real people,
more often than not, those brands have
more of a commitment to humans, to you,
the customer. Because if they don't,
they're going to get gobbled up. They're
going to get crushed by the big
competition. They need to do something
outstanding. And usually they're real
people, too, that have kids that are in
this business for a reason. And so I
started to notice that the family and
founder owned brands for many obvious
reasons are on balance a far better
option. And it's not hard to buy
family-owned. Often they're the same
price. Sometimes they cost a little
more, but really the hard part is just
finding them because shelf space is for
sale in the grocery store. And if you
want to know about that, buy this book.
Not sponsored. It's just amazing. Shelf
space is purposely for sale so that they
can monopolize the entire aisle and make
it very hard to find all the little
brands that compete with this giant
corporate scheme. But if you know what
brands you're looking for, you can just
go find them and buy those and suddenly
you can boycott the entire evil
financial cabal all at once. So what I
started doing years ago when I first
well two years ago really look I'm real
old. I'm like an oldtimer guys. I've
been in this for forever. But all of
2023 and part of 2024, I made these
spreadsheets and I put them online on my
website for free. And even though I have
closed down that old store because I
sucked at running a clothing store, I
still have those spreadsheets available
on that website. The website is cancel
company.com/resources and we'll have a
link below. Um, and the spreadsheets are
up still to this day. It's Google Docs,
so you know, practice safe docs. Um, but
I should warn you that they're going to
be coming down soon because not because
we hate the project or anything like
that, but because we have something way
cooler in the works. And I don't want to
say too much yet, but let's just say
that all along people have been asking
me if you could use your phone in order
to scan products and find out who owns
them and all this stuff that was on
those sheets and more, that would be a
gamecher. And at a certain point, I
received an email from two people out
there that were like, "Yo, we took your
spreadsheets and we made them into an
app and we want to show you." And
they're awesome and they're total
wizards and there is an app coming. I
can't say too much just now, but it's
definitely on the way and it's going to
be sick. And we're going to put a link
down below in the description of where
you can go follow along in order to get
the updates when that's ready because
it's and by by the way, it's not going
to be like some crazy profit scheme.
We're not going to like make a bunch of
money off you. We're going to make a
dope product that I'm going to use every
day because we want you to be able to is
I mean, it's not about boycotting this
or that or shutting down this company or
that company. We're not here to tell you
what's ethically right or what's healthy
for you. We're just here to give you the
information so that if you personally
don't want to buy from Nestle for
reasons, you can figure out what's owned
by them because they own hundreds of
brands. If you don't want to buy from
Bud Light or from any old company, it's
up to you. This will help you do it
right. For me, it'll be to help find
family and found your own businesses.
For you, it can be whatever you want.
And now I want to tell you about
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8007951210. That's
8007951210 or visit
americanfinancing.net/owens. We've been
loving the comments that you guys have
been sending in. It's been so humbling
to receive so much support and so much
good belly laughter from all the things
that you guys have been saying. So, to
close out today, we're going to check in
with some of your comments at Chrismaz
75 said, "I am so impressed with
Candace's choice, not only because Ian
is fully capable of doing a good job,
but because he has different political
ideas than Candace does, and these two
are teaching people how to disagree
respectfully and still work together."
Yes, that is what we need more of in
this world and I couldn't agree more.
Candace, I love and respect her in every
way. Even though we disagree on things
that does not matter. You can be friends
with people regardless. At Kenny Seer
2719 said, we got Ian Carol filling in
for Candace before GTA 6. Let that sink
in. Classic at wearing light being said,
Ian being so respectful of Candace's
show to the point he was afraid to say
hell. I genuinely didn't know and I
didn't want to make a mistake and I kind
of like I used to teach a lot and so I
kind of like getting back to my roots
where you you know you're just making
family-friendly content. It's a good
feeling at
NCD48 all this and more on Candace then
I was kind of hoping for a baby Ian
Carol montage don't hold your breath but
maybe we'll do something like that at
the end of the at the end of the time
I'm here. I don't know. At faith-based
living 939 says, "As a mother of four,
thank you, Ian, for exposing these types
of mafias, I mean businesses." Yeah, if
you haven't seen the episode that we did
about Urban Air yet, both of the last
episodes this week were about this crazy
breaking story at Urban Air. And don't
worry, we will be doing a whole bunch
more about that whole debacle next week.
We're just taking our time to get the
story straight, to compile all the
documents that we have, and to really
put together a great story because we
don't we want to do the best we can for
Tiffany, for all the other children and
families that have been affected by
this, and hopefully to make a change.
So, at Cheryl Lynn 101 says, "My husband
strapped the harness for our 9-year-old
and tested the clip system at a couple
of these places. He was more aware of
the risk than me. We've even gone to
indoor rock climbing loces, too, where
he insisted on checking everything. He
didn't care about offending people or
pissing someone off, just measured
insistence. Hearing this story makes me
love him even more. Thanks, Ian. You did
great. That is a good man. More healthy
masculinity where you're taking care of
your family, making sure your kids are
safe. Do not outsource your children's
safety to an underpaid 16-year-old at a
private equityowned trampoline park.
That is never a good idea. At Alle de
Laquva said, "My daughter worked at
Urban Air. She was 16. She complained
she received no training and had to
harness the children. She quit because
she said management was irresponsible.
The place was a mess. Parents need to be
aware of this place and that we are
seeing at these places. Thank you for
bringing awareness to this. Yes, I'm
glad your daughter got out and is safe
and no horrible scandals happened right
on her watch at Gematic. Leon said,
"Tiffany is almost single-handedly
raising awareness of how private equity
is destroying small family-owned
businesses. You are so right. Tiffany is
an absolute rock star, a legend. And her
story has been she's been working so
hard to get her story out. And it's just
an honor to be able to help tell that
story and to help spread awareness of
not only what she went through, but what
all these other families went through in
secret arbitration that they were not
able to speak about until now. And I
just I cannot but hope the best for all
of these people that have been so harmed
by it. Um it's a real tragedy. So, on a
positive note, it's been really humbling
to see your response to me. Thanks for
all the wonderful comments. It's really
fun to read through them and giggle,
share them with the crew, um, and just
generally, uh, have a good time with you
guys and with everyone here at the
Candace Show. Um, this is just the first
week getting my bearings, getting our
stories straight. Um, next week we got a
whole bunch of bangers coming at you,
too. But for now, that's all for this
week. Be sure to like this video, share
it with all your friends, subscribe to
Candace's channel. Mine is linked
below. Go off and have a great weekend.
Stay healthy, be happy, and we'll see
you next week.