More Tea.
Censorship doesn’t always come dressed as a blackout. In the field, it rarely does. The most effective censorship is not the shutting down of speech but the stage-managing of perception. From an operational perspective, it’s a play in three acts.
First, you let someone else do the dangerous, messy, verifiable work. They gather evidence, build the networks, talk to the right people, get the documents, and take the risk. They are your unwitting field operatives. They’re the ones who show up in cartel territory without security, who meet station chiefs, who talk their way into Save the Children offices. They’re not “approved,” but they’re effective.
Second, once the work has been done and the ground cleared, you insert a “hero” asset. This is the public-facing character — the safe, photogenic, pre-cleared face who can present a pre-packaged version of the findings. Their role is not to discover but to deliver. They become the narrator of the story you want told, on your timetable, under your framing.
Third, you utilize institutional networks and media amplification to solidify their version as the prevailing one. The real operatives — the ones who did the work — are neutralized by omission, accusations, or whispers. You don’t have to destroy them; you have to erase their provenance and reissue their work under a different signature. The public still thinks they’re seeing the truth. What they’re actually watching is a managed performance.
That’s precisely what happened in Guatemala. My team and I went in first — armed with open-source DHS documents, real names, and the resolve to take real risks. We met with anti-trafficking and anti-cartel officials, and had the opportunity to sit down with Guatemala’s Attorney General herself. We mapped the routes, documented the networks, and triggered the raids that followed. That was the real work — quiet, dangerous, and done without announcement. There were no sponsors, no backers, no media machine behind us. Every ticket, every hotel, every cost came out of my own pocket — sustained only by the just over two hundred loyal subscribers who believed in what I was doing when no one else would. I use every dollar I get and pour it into action; you will probably never see my name on it. I have made peace with that. No networks, no protection, no security detail. Just faith, determination, and proof that when there is a will, there is a way. God is great!
Then, months later, the “heroes” appeared — polished, promoted, and pretending to break stories we had already lived. They arrived with fundraising campaigns, “exclusive” footage, and ready-made applause. The truth was stripped down and repackaged to look safe — marketable. But the danger, the sacrifice, the faith that made it possible? Never made the cut. They became the faces of a narrative that had already been written — only now it was sanitized, distorted, and safe for public consumption.
That is not a simple coincidence. It is a tactic. It’s the Red October Doctrine at work: controlling the origin of a narrative so that only a curated version reaches the crowd. It’s how you can expose trafficking without exposing the networks behind it. It’s how you can appear to break a story while actually running cover for the very people you claim to oppose. It’s not about silencing. It’s about custody. And custody over a story is custody over the public mind.
From an operational standpoint, censorship in Guatemala wasn’t a blackout—it was a precision play. The tactic followed a simple, familiar pattern: locate the real source of a disruptive truth, let them do the risky groundwork, quietly harvest their findings, then reissue the story under a controlled face. The originator becomes the ghostwriter of someone else’s revelation. The new “hero” arrives with media backing, polished packaging, and pre-approved talking points while the public is led to believe they’re witnessing discovery in real time. Behind the scenes, the narrative has already been sanitized, scripted, and redeployed to protect existing power structures. That’s not censorship by omission; it’s censorship by substitution. The truth is never deleted—it’s rebranded. And in Guatemala, as in every information war, that’s how control is maintained: not by silencing the story, but by owning its birth certificate.
A few months before I ever thought of setting foot in Guatemala, I called Joe Oltmann. Joe Oltmann told me he was limited on time as he was heading to Guatemala. The timing caught my attention immediately. At that moment, there was already a quiet panic in certain circles: USAID’s hidden operations were starting to bleed into the open, and a handful of private military contractors connected to those programs had been exposed during the Trump years. Guatemala wasn’t just another pin on the map—it was a pressure point.
Knowing Joe’s business and the players involved, I didn’t take the news lightly. I told him he should meet a station-chief friend of mine, someone who had the reach and eyes to evaluate what was really happening on the ground. At my request, my friend took him out to dinner. This wasn’t a social introduction; it was surveillance through civility. I wanted eyes on Joe. In this world, you don’t leave movement like that unmonitored.
My concern was simple: if Joe was aligning with David Clements—“Mr. Fast and Furious”—then we weren’t looking at a freelance patriot on a mission, but potentially a conduit for an operation. You don’t survive long in this world without vetting who’s moving where, why they’re driving, and whose money is behind them. This wasn’t paranoia—this was a procedure.
Meanwhile, I was poring over documented evidence — our own government filings, contracts, and reports — and what I found was staggering. Thousands of unaccompanied minors had been imported across the southern border and funneled through a shell “residential home” in Tennessee. On paper, this facility received federal funding under HHS and USAID-linked programs; however, the records showed that it had never housed a single child. The property owner had even filed a civil case against the organization for non-payment of rent, confirming the address was nothing more than an empty building with government money flowing through it.
Overlay that with the ongoing battle between Catholic Charities and Texas (to CORNYN (who is spending millions a week against Paxton – where is he getting the money, Ted Cruz?)), Attorney General Ken Paxton — litigation over child relocation and placement authority. It became impossible to ignore how the same networks were covering for Save the Children, whose board at the time included Jill Biden, precisely when these “transfers” were happening. The data was explicit: over 68 percent of the children listed in those transport manifests were from Guatemala. These weren’t assumptions or rumors. They were federal documents, contracts, and legal filings, all painting a picture of systemic trafficking hidden under the banner of humanitarian aid.
Faced with that kind of documented evidence, I didn’t sit on my hands. I tried to validate and cross-match everything I was seeing. I even reached out to Tara Rhodes, whose reporting and whistleblower claims paralleled some of my findings. My thought was simple: if we combined our data, we might finally make a meaningful impact. This wasn’t new for me. Back in 2016, I had already uncovered how Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) unaccompanied minors were going missing through a program in Fargo, North Dakota — a discovery later confirmed by an audit I personally pushed the new State Auditor of North Dakota to conduct. I had a track record of identifying gaps years before they were publicly acknowledged, and I believed that collaboration could accelerate their exposure.
But when I reached out — when I sent my pleas to General Flynn’s company, which I knew was aware of the same documents — there was nothing but silence. No response. Why? Maybe they didn’t want to be on record. Maybe it was too politically dangerous. Perhaps, as so many times before, the information was too sensitive to handle until it could be passed through a safer channel, even though it was open-source, or maybe they wanted that information to be released by someone they had chosen (PART IV for that). I don’t know why people who are supposedly fighting trafficking would dismiss valid, credible, and documented information unless it’s all for show and no substance. You decide. But that’s when it clicked for me: if DHS wouldn’t act, if Congress wouldn’t act, if even the “patriots” who claimed to care wouldn’t act, then I would. I would take the open-source evidence myself, go directly to Guatemala, and put it into the hands of the people who could actually do something about it.
Some wave banners for the lost while ignoring the brave hands that actually reached into the dark to pull them out.
~Tore Maras
By the time my plane touched down in Guatemala, the groundwork had already been laid. This wasn’t some impulsive trip; it was the culmination of months of research, document collection, and failed attempts to get my findings taken seriously in Washington. I had traced a pipeline built in plain sight. Catholic Charities had become the U.S.-based point of contact for nearly all child movement, operating through a labyrinth of subsidiary charities and NGOs beneath it. Each one takes a piece of the process, each one insulated enough to claim deniability. The picture was unmistakable: a federally funded trafficking relay masquerading as humanitarian aid.
From inside government filings and open-source data, I had already mapped the flow: unaccompanied minors crossing the border, funneled through phantom “homes” like the Tennessee site, routed by Catholic Charities’ network, and disappearing into a system with no meaningful oversight. It was a structure built to move children invisibly. When I discovered that over 68 percent of these kids were Guatemalan, it wasn’t just a statistic — it was a red flag screaming at me from the spreadsheets.
I also knew exactly who the gatekeeper was on the other end: Guatemala’s Attorney General. She had evidence not only of these child movements but of election fraud inside her own country — evidence so explosive that Samantha Power at the State Department had made it a personal mission to neutralize her. Power had already stripped the AG’s visa, blocking her from coming to the U.S. to present her case or work with our government to get to the bottom of it. That told me everything I needed to know. If the State Department wanted her silenced, she was exactly the person I needed to speak to.
So, when DHS shrugged, Congress ignored its own documents, and even the self-styled “patriots” wouldn’t lift a finger, I made the decision: I would take the open-source evidence myself, go directly to Guatemala, and present it to the people who could act. Within a week, I called Miguel — my lawyer friend — because, in situations like this, you always need a legal perspective. I called another friend who excels at collating intelligence. We assembled a small team: a Brit (hence my FISA warrants), a New Yorker, a Deep Southerner, and a “Texan Barbie.” Four regular people, no backing, no protection, heading into a country at the center of a trafficking corridor the world pretends doesn’t exist.
When we landed, we moved like journalists but operated like investigators. We met with anti-trafficking leaders, station chiefs from our own intelligence agencies, and even spoke to anti-cartel heads to understand the routes. The next day, with nothing but an Uber and nerve, we walked straight into Save the Children’s Guatemala offices. A lot transpired, but God had our back, and I managed to talk my way in. Two weeks later, the place was raided.
And while we were on the ground, I went straight to the Attorney General. She was everything I expected — determined, furious, and cut off by the very institutions claiming to care about children. She wanted her kidnapped children back. I told her to memorialize her findings, along with the evidence we had provided, into a Letter of Intent addressed to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — because the hub of the trafficking operation’s U.S. end ran through his state. A Letter of Intent was all she could legally do. She sent it. I sent it to the few brave reporters who would touch it — Laura Loomer and Emerald Robinson. They reported it. And yet the “champions” of anti-trafficking stayed silent. It was at that point that a new rumor popped up – I am now also a Guatemalan agent. The source of the rumor is where one can find a network – I wonder if they asked for receipts, or were they saying that because normal people don’t do that? Well, obviously, I am armed with a sidekick, LyAv.
Two weeks after we left Guatemala, the story that should have shaken the ground began to twist into something else. That’s when Joe Oltmann appeared. My contacts from my past life — people who still work within those quiet networks that don’t miss much — alerted me the moment his plane landed. I did raise flags; again, I watched the operation. When you do things that are good and selfless, no harm can come to you, so at that point, you watch to see what the outcome is. He turned up after the pieces were already in motion. Yet within days, he was suddenly reporting on the very raids we had triggered as though he had uncovered them himself.
Betrayal never comes from an enemy; it comes from someone who studied your light long enough to learn how to cast a shadow in it.
Tore Maras
That was my first glimpse of the operation turning. The pattern was textbook: let the people in the field do the dangerous, traceable work, then replace them with someone safer, louder, and better connected. Joe began discussing the trafficking routes, corruption, and the Guatemalan AG — but only in ways that stayed comfortably within the boundaries of what could be publicly stated. It was familiar, sanitized, and incomplete — the very definition of a controlled narrative with second or third-hand information.
I didn’t lash out publicly. I watched. Because betrayal always has a purpose. I suspected that Joe wasn’t working alone. Behind him, I could already see the familiar fingerprints of coordination — the same media circles that had ignored the story now suddenly amplifying his version of it. The timing wasn’t an accident. His reports came just as the smoke cleared, when the danger was gone, when the narrative could be repackaged without consequences.
And sure enough, a few months later, a new face appeared — Ryan Matta — a man with all the subtlety of a script and the emotional range of a teleprompter. Out of nowhere, he started raising money for “a mission” to do what we had already done months before. He claimed to be terrified, said he needed protection, and cast himself as the next crusader in a fight he hadn’t fought. He wasn’t there when we walked into Save the Children. He wasn’t there when ARMED MS-13 surrounded us and met the AG. But now he was the face — the curated voice, the “hero asset.”
Joe Oltmann passed off Ryan to my contacts and began promoting him as the face of the Guatemala operation — the very mission my team and I had executed months earlier. Almost overnight, Ryan was everywhere: interviews, headlines, podcasts, positioned as the one who “broke the story.” Because I hadn’t spoken publicly, many of my friends assumed I was okay with it, that I had somehow given my consent to the information being filtered through him. I hadn’t. I was watching. I wanted to understand why the shift happened, who benefited from it, and why the same media outlets that had ignored my work were now rolling out the red carpet for him. When I quietly asked reporters why they were promoting Ryan’s version, the answer was always the same: Joe Oltmann told us to.
The moment I confronted Ryan directly about the inaccuracies in his story — offering, in good faith, to help him correct his narrative — his mask slipped. I reached out to him on X (and signal), telling him his data was incorrect and offering to help him fix it — because if he was going to take credit for our work, the least he could do was ensure it was accurate. His reply was pure bravado: he told me to kiss his ass and claimed I had no idea who he was. My answer: “Wait for it,”. And later that day, he found out exactly who I was. I had the Guatemalan government shut down his access — cut off all communications. Hours later, his channel to Guatemala went dark.
You know who’s real by who runs to the cameras—and who walked into the danger long before they started rolling.
~Tore Maras
Ryan didn’t just step into a ready-made operation — he monetized it. With Joe’s blessing (a door that only existed because I had opened it), he came to Guatemala posing as a crusader, publicly claiming he needed “security” and protection to do the work that my team had already done months before. He begged for donations to cover this supposed danger, spinning himself as a target and a hero. But I know exactly where he stayed, what he ate, how he traveled, and how he posed. The reality bore no resemblance to the drama he sold to the public.
He then raised even more money to produce a “film” — a fictionalized version of actual events, cut and edited to tell a story that suited him, not the truth. Not once did he credit the legwork done by the four of us who went first, unarmed, unpaid, and without any safety net. In fact, he went further, speaking ill of us, calling us grifters, and erasing the record of what we had actually done on the ground.
This is what real censorship looks like. It’s not a takedown or a blackout — it’s the replacement of the authentic with the performative. It’s the laundering of truth through a safer face, a more profitable narrative, and an approved network. I can show you the receipts. I can show you the timestamps. Ultimately, it’s up to the public to take action on it. All I can do is expose how it works and remind you: you have the power to stop it.
For those still struggling to grasp this, understand: I’m not complaining. I’m laying out well-documented examples. My work has been praised, accepted, and valued by the people who actually matter. I’m not saying this for validation. I’m showing you because in an era of noise and engineered misinformation, simply telling you isn’t enough — you have to see it.
What happened in Guatemala wasn’t about stolen credit or a few bad actors trying to cash in. It was a living case study of an entirely new operating system of control — one that doesn’t call itself censorship but wears the mask of salvation. No black bags over journalists’ heads. No obvious gag orders. Instead, it comes with hashtags, documentaries, donation links, and “heroes” who brand themselves as liberators. In reality, they’re the new custodians of information, offering the public a polished, managed version of the truth while keeping them from ever touching its raw form.
This is the Red October Doctrine in its purest form. It allows genuine investigations to proceed just far enough to map the terrain, gather evidence, and establish credibility. Then, before the findings become uncontrollable, the work is intercepted, laundered, and reissued through approved channels. The original investigators are erased or smeared; the public is handed a packaged story told by someone who didn’t risk, didn’t bleed, and didn’t build. The appearance of exposure is maintained — the feeling of revelation is preserved — but the substance is neutralized. The real power structures stay hidden behind the curtain while their proxies stand in the spotlight.
In Guatemala, my team undertook the dangerous work: we traced the money, met with station chiefs and cartel leaders, infiltrated Save the Children, and delivered evidence to the Attorney General. We provided open-source government documents that confirmed the existence of the pipeline. And then, as if on cue, the machine inserted a new face to own the narrative — a face blessed by networks I had once helped open. That isn’t a coincidence. That’s protocol. It’s how you take a genuine threat to a system and turn it into a story you can sell.
This isn’t just about trafficking or USAID. It’s a model of control that will be repeated in every area where truth threatens profit or power. It’s a mechanism of a new order — not the old order of blunt censorship and visible gatekeepers, but a sleek, adaptive system that pretends to be on your side. It markets itself as grassroots. It performs outrage. It parades liberators across your screen. But its function is to capture, sanitize, and redirect the very movements that might free you. It’s not freedom. It’s a franchise of captivity.
I can’t force the public to care. I can’t force them to see the sleight of hand. All I can do is show it — receipts, timestamps, logs, and all — and trust that once you understand how it works, you’ll recognize it when it happens again. Because this isn’t about me losing credit or someone else gaining it, this is about whether you want your information raw and dangerous, or pre-chewed and safe. This is about whether you wish for truth or a story designed to make you feel like you’ve been told the truth.
That is the Red October Doctrine. And unless the public stops rewarding the counterfeit liberators and starts demanding direct access to the origin of information, this new order of control will continue to present itself as freedom while quietly tightening the cage.
Even today, Guatemala’s Attorney General — the same woman who opened her doors to us, took the evidence, and sent the Letter of Intent — is still barred from traveling to the United States. She holds in her possession evidence of child trafficking, government corruption, and election theft, but she cannot set foot on U.S. soil to present it to our Congress or agencies. That didn’t happen by accident. That was policy. And yet our so-called “patriots” look the other way. Where is Marco Rubio on this? Why is Todd Robinson, a man whose banking transactions I’ve personally reviewed and whose patterns look unmistakably “cartel-ish” and “movement-ish,” still sitting in a senior position paid for by our tax dollars? How many times do we let this happen while telling ourselves we’re fighting corruption overseas?
Is it power protecting itself while putting on a show of outrage or oversight? And it’s why I call this the Red October Doctrine — because it isn’t censorship as you’ve been taught to imagine it. It’s the active suppression of the real origin of information, paired with the elevation of “approved” voices, even when those voices are tied to the very systems being exposed. Big Mike’s cousin, Todd Robinson, the operative still in place, is not being challenged. He’s being catered to. And the one person who has the receipts — Guatemala’s AG — is still kept out.
DEFUND THE INL.
When the ones holding the evidence are locked out, and the ones funding the crimes are promoted, that isn’t foreign policy — that’s containment.
~Tore Maras
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