“He Had a Lion He Fed People To”: This Cop Went Undercover and Saw the Real Depth of Cartel Violence

Retired FBI Special Agent Scott Payne spent nearly three decades in law enforcement, much of it working undercover against drug traffickers, gangs and violent extremist groups, but some of the most disturbing stories he carried with him came from cartel investigations along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Speaking with former Navy SEAL Shawn Ryan on the Shawn Ryan Show, Payne described kidnappings, torture, extortion and killings carried out by cartel members during the years he worked cases in South Texas, including one account involving a cartel figure who allegedly kept a lion and fed people to it.

Payne was careful to separate cartel violence from Mexican or Hispanic culture more broadly, stressing that his comments were about criminal organizations rather than ordinary people. That distinction matters, because the stories he told were extreme even by organized-crime standards.

Kidnappings Were Often About Missing Drugs Or Money

Payne said many kidnapping cases began the same way: someone involved in moving drugs or cartel money would disappear, and frightened family members would call the FBI for help.

His first task, he said, was often getting the family to admit what had really happened.

Payne recalled telling relatives that he was not trying to build a drug case against their loved one at that moment; he was trying to figure out why the cartel had taken them and how to get them back alive.

In one case, he said three young men, around 19 to 21 years old, were being used to drive vehicles from McAllen to Dallas.

The drivers would take a car north, leave it at a shopping center, and cartel members would remove hidden drugs and replace them with cash before sending the vehicle back south.

According to Payne, the drivers often did not know exactly how much money or narcotics were inside.

Then one shipment came back missing roughly $100,000.

The cartel kidnapped the young men.

That was when Payne and other officials became involved.

The FBI Sometimes Helped Broker Ransom Deals

Payne said those cases could become bizarre negotiations involving law enforcement, families, cartel intermediaries and officials across the border.

He described working through border liaison contacts in Mexico, who might communicate with police, military figures or political officials and then confirm which cartel faction had the victim.

Once that happened, Payne said, the ransom demands could start in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If the family could not afford the amount, negotiations followed.

“Do you got 300 grand?” Payne recalled asking one family. When the answer was no, the number came down, and sometimes vehicles were added to the deal.

He described one arrangement involving about $60,000 and a newer Chevrolet Tahoe being handed over in exchange for the kidnapped victims.

That kind of bargaining sounds unreal from the outside, but Payne said it was something investigators dealt with repeatedly.

The goal, in those moments, was not to win a clean legal argument. It was to get someone across the bridge alive.

One Cartel Theft Ended In A Particularly Brutal Killing

Payne then described what happened to two cartel members who were suspected of stealing from the organization.

He said one was an older man known as “El Águila,” or “the Eagle,” while the other was younger and less established.

After the missing money was discovered, people reportedly noticed the older man suddenly spending freely, buying cars and possibly a new apartment.

That drew attention.

The younger man eventually broke under pressure and allegedly admitted that the older man had wanted him involved in taking the money.

Payne said the older man was then tortured and killed in an especially horrific way.

The last information Payne received was that the man had either his hands or fingers cut off and was then cooked alive in a 55-gallon drum.

Payne said the method was known as “El Guiso,” which he translated loosely as turning someone into “soup.”

Ryan reacted with shock as Payne explained that, during that period, burning people alive was not unheard of among some criminal groups.

The account is difficult to hear, but it illustrates the kind of internal discipline cartels could impose when members were accused of stealing from them.

Payne Says One Cartel Boss Kept A Lion

The most surreal story involved what Payne said was a confirmed report about a cartel figure keeping a lion.

He said word came back through liaison contacts that people flying over a property had seen a large lion in a cage and noticed bones inside with it.

Payne joked grimly that the bones looked less like chicken bones and more like human femurs.

He said the story was confirmed to him through others, although he was not personally present when the cage was seen.

According to Payne, the cartel figure had people fed to the animal.

That allegation sounds almost too grotesque to be real, which is probably why Ryan paused on it, but Payne presented it as one of many stories that circulated through official channels during his time working cartel cases.

He also described another torture practice involving a small-statured man who was allegedly used to sexually assault captives.

Payne said investigators initially thought that story might be rumor or exaggeration until a kidnapping victim later came back across the border and confirmed that the man existed.

That victim, according to Payne, had been abducted after stealing a vehicle and trying to sell it to the cartel, only to discover there was an infant still inside.

The cartel reportedly became angry because the child brought unwanted attention, and Payne said the man narrowly avoided being subjected to the torture they had threatened.

Torture Was Used To Enforce Control

Payne said the methods varied, but the point was usually the same: intimidation, punishment and control.

He described captives being beaten with wrapped kilos, burned with cigars, electrocuted and threatened with sexual violence.

He also spoke about sources and targets who were kidnapped after failing to pay cartel “quotas,” saying trafficking groups expected regular payments from people moving drugs or migrants through territory they controlled.

If the money did not arrive, the consequences could be severe.

Payne told Ryan that some of his own sources had been held and tortured until payment was made.

In one case involving an older woman, he said cartel members threatened to sexually assault her with a large group of men.

She survived, but Payne used the story to show how casually these threats could become part of the business model.

The violence was not random in every case. It often functioned as enforcement.

That does not make it less brutal, but it helps explain why these organizations could maintain control over routes, smugglers and local communities.

Removing One Leader Created A Power Vacuum

Payne also reflected on what happened after federal authorities took down Gulf Cartel leader Osiel Cárdenas.

He said that while the organization was violent under Cárdenas, there had at least been some structure and predictability.

Investigators sometimes knew who to call, how to negotiate and what rules the cartel itself tended to follow.

Once Cárdenas was removed, Payne said, that structure began to fracture.

The enforcement wing, Los Zetas, wanted more power, while other groups and rival cartels began competing for territory.

Payne said that as the vacuum widened, kidnappings and extortion became less predictable and more lethal.

Instead of negotiations ending with payment and release, some victims were simply killed because rival factions were fighting over control.

He described innocent people being caught in that environment, including cases where someone driving a nice vehicle into the wrong territory could be viewed with suspicion simply because local gunmen assumed they must belong to another group.

In one case, Payne said a man connected to friends of his disappeared in Mexico, and later information suggested he had been killed after being unable to convince armed men that he was not affiliated with a rival cartel.

Ryan Calls The Stories “Sick”

Ryan mostly let Payne speak, but his reactions made clear how extreme the accounts were.

At one point, after hearing about people being burned alive and dismembered, Ryan simply called it “sick.”

Payne agreed.

He also said violent videos were becoming more common during the period he worked there, including recordings of beheadings and slow killings meant to send a message.

Those images, he said, reflected how cartel violence became not only punishment but propaganda.

The stories are graphic, and they should not be confused with a claim that all cartel activity looks like this all the time.

Payne himself repeatedly emphasized that distinction.

Still, his account offers a view of what investigators sometimes encountered behind the money, drugs and smuggling routes: a system where terror was used deliberately to keep people obedient.

Payne Says The Reality Was Worse Than The Rumors

What stands out most from Payne’s interview is how often the stories that sounded unbelievable turned out to have some basis in reality.

The lion, the torture methods, the bizarre sexual abuse and the improvised executions all sounded at first like underworld rumors.

Then victims, sources and liaison contacts began confirming pieces of them.

For Ryan, that was the point of bringing Payne on to describe the experience firsthand.

The public often sees cartel violence through headlines about seizures, border crossings and arrests, while the people working these cases may be dealing with kidnapped teenagers, terrified families and victims who return after being tortured.

Payne’s stories are not proof that every cartel operates the same way, and some of the most disturbing claims came to him through other investigators rather than direct observation.

But taken together, they show the environment he says he worked in: one where organized crime was backed not just by money and guns, but by calculated cruelty designed to make everyone around it afraid.