The cartel hit men, the dismembered son, the Delta Force vet with secret government contacts—all of it, investigators say, was part of a fake script for a yearslong con that stripped friends and neighbors of roughly $12 million in Texas. Matthew Bremner of Rolling Stone unravels the bizarre story of the man who went by "Kota Youngblood" in Austin. In one sense, he was a friendly hockey dad whose son played in a youth league. But Youngblood—real name: Dennis Schuler Jr.—soon began spinning tall tales of doing covert work for the government, and people seemed to like and trust him. After earning that trust, the warnings began: Youngblood started telling friends that Mexican cartels were targeting their families and that only he could save them—for a price.
According to the FBI, Youngblood wove together stories of fabricated cartel plots, fake assassination threats, and invented personal tragedies (including a murdered son), turning panicked parents and retirees into steady sources of cash he later fed into Las Vegas video poker machines. One real-estate developer alone says he lost about $900,000 as he slept with a gun by his bed, convinced that his ex-wife had hired cartel killers. The spell finally broke when one victim went to the FBI and secretly recorded conversations with Youngblood.
Federal investigators moved in, and the supposed commando who had terrified families with tales of cartel assassins turned out to be something far more ordinary: a used-car salesman who had never served in the military at all. Youngblood, now serving 40 years for wire fraud and money laundering, still insists he's innocent. Read the full story.
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