Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
If you were to write a whodunit murder mystery, this would be a perfect subject matter because it involves intrigue at the highest levels. The drug money controls the politicians and the politicians permit it.
So it really, really is a very evil, nasty, brilliant, symbiotic relationship. - Chapo posed a great threat to the United States. One is just destabilizing our neighbor, Mexico, and our good partner. - And he says, "Listen, I have a lot of contact with El Chapo. El Chapo sent me here to talk to you guys. He wants to talk just to you. He doesn't want to talk to the FBI, and he doesn't want to talk to the Mexican government. He wants to talk to DEA." - It's the early 1990s.
and in Mexico, the cartel wars have spiraled out of all control. Joaquin Guzman, the Sinaloan kingpin, is at war with his bitter rivals, the Arellano Felix brothers. In May 1993, the boys from Tijuana decide they've had enough. Backed up by a team of henchmen, Ramon and Javier descend on the city of Guadalajara. Their mission? To hunt down El Chapo once and for all. From Noiser Podcasts, this is part three of the El Chapo story. And this...
The Arellano brothers had hired some gang bangers in San Diego to come to Guadalajara specifically to search out and assassinate Chapo Guzman Loera. Ramon had received information that Chapo Guzman was coming to the airport in Guadalajara, in Jalisco, and was going to take a plane, and this is a particular car that he was going to be driving.
Their informant is convinced he's spotted Chapo sitting in his trademark Buick sedan in the parking lot at the airport, waiting for a flight. It's time for Tijuana to make their move. It's a baking hot summer's day in Guadalajara. Out of the glare of the midday sun, in the shadowy back street, two men exit a building and get into a car. Thirty minutes later, they arrive at the airport. They follow the signs to the short stay parking. Their vehicle crawls through the lot as slowly as possible.
engine growling, almost cutting out. Then, the man in the passenger seat raises a hand. His companion squeezes the brakes. The car stops. The passenger points across the way, a Buick sedan, and it's occupied. Without a word, the two men get out and stride purposely across the tarmac. - When they get to the Guadalajara airport, they see the car, they approach the car, and they open fire on the car. - The stationary Buick is riddled with bullet holes. The hit seems to have gone according to plan,
Smoke rises from the bonnet. The clip's empty. The would-be assassins move closer to get a look at their target. There's only one problem. Neither of the men sitting in this sedan is Chapo Guzman. It was Posada Ocampo, the cardinal, who was driving a car similar to Chapo's, allegedly to the one that he was going to be driving. And they mistook him for Chapo Guzman and killed him, his driver and him.
In a case of mistaken identity, the hitmen have murdered the highest ranking member of the Catholic Church in Mexico. Their real target is across the way, at the other side of the parking lot, watching the confusion unfold. El Chapo knows he's only narrowly escaped death, so he gets the hell out of there. The car swings around the front of the airport, driven by one of his guys. Chapo climbs in and they speed off into the afternoon.
He just killed the Cardinal. And Mexico being such a religious country, Catholic country, I mean, this is an uproar. So the government had to do something about this. They needed to do something immediately. There was a lot of groups protesting. How could this happen? The assassination of Cardinal Posadas causes outrage through Mexico. The official version of events, a hit gone wrong, a case of mistaken identity, fails to convince some in the DEA.
Agent Gilberto Gonzalez explains his own skepticism. - The whole incident involving the assassination of Cardinal Posadas is a very peculiar and a very interesting story that I believe has not been resolved.
There's too many unanswered questions. If you were to write a whodunit murder mystery, this would be a perfect subject matter because it involves intrigue at the highest levels. I have, through some of my sources, I've been told that the Cardinal left that day with a briefcase. And I was told that he carried the briefcase himself.
He didn't let the driver or anybody else carry the briefcase, which tells me must have been something of importance if he wants to handle the briefcase himself. Some believe that the Cardinal was in fact the target of the hit. The story goes that the cleric was on his way to deliver highly sensitive information to the Mexican president. Allegedly, he had prized intel from Colombian officials concerning Mexican drug pushers. He was a man who needed silencing. We don't know for sure. In any case,
Cardinal Posadas is dead, and thousands of Mexicans are heartbroken. Whether a target or an accidental victim, the Cardinal has been murdered in cold blood. This is a huge development in terms of public relations. It gives the Mexican government the political space to up their efforts against the cartel bigwigs.
Chapo and his Tijuana enemies are splashed all over the press. When he really became prominent and a name that I paid attention to was after the assassination of the Guadalajara airport. That's when I really took notice. And of course, the world and DEA
really focused in on when Forbes magazine named him one of the most powerful men in the world, indicating that 25% of the illegal drugs that entered the United States were his, that his estimated worth was about $3 billion a year. Now you're talking about a head of a major corporation anywhere in the world. So that's when basically he became known as public enemy number one for DEA and law enforcement entities across the U.S. and Mexico.
Stung into action, the government offers a $5 million bounty for each of the cartel leaders. But right at this moment, the cartel wars go quiet. Knowing the heat is on, Chapo and his rivals have pulled back from the fighting and are laying low. They could be anywhere. With the DEA agents in Mexico City and Guadalajara, it feels like Chapo and his cronies may never be tracked down. But then, barely two weeks later, an unexpected cable reaches the DEA office in the Mexican capital.
An informant has spotted El Chapo in a hotel. They couldn't believe their eyes, but it was definitely him. Not in Mexico, but in the neighboring country of Guatemala. The hunt is back on. El Chapo has millions at his fingertips, more than enough to pay his way out of any tight corner. Will the local police move to arrest him? And if they do, can they resist the inevitable bribe? Chapo's reasons for hiding out in Guatemala are two-fold.
Firstly, it's out of range of the Mexican cops on his tail. Secondly, it allows him to oversee a new business venture.
DEA Agent Mike Vigil remembers the situation. I used to coordinate a massive operation where we used to track suspect aircraft coming into Mexico and a lot of those aircraft that we intercepted and we were able to seize the drugs and arrest numerous individuals. As a matter of fact, we seized over 140 metric tons in a four year time frame through this operation.
So Chapo Guzman decided that he was going to stop short of Mexico and have his aircraft land in Guatemala, which had very little equipment. They didn't have the capabilities of responding to these clandestine airstrips. Here in Guatemala, Chapo picks up where he left off in Mexico, bribing local police officials to protect the flow of his drugs through their country.
With a high-profile assassination, in this case of the highest-ranking cleric, you become a must-arrest priority. So even if you slip into Guatemala, and if you're familiar with the border between Guatemala and Mexico, Tapachula, that's a very dangerous area. It's a very wild, very difficult area to be in.
And I'm sure that he had protection from Guatemalan traffickers for a while, but the protection or the money he was paying them at the time to protect them did not cover the cost of protecting such a high-level individual involved in such a, at the time, a very scandalous and very public type of incident.
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And with Bluehost Cloud, your sites can handle surges in traffic no matter how big. Plus, you automatically get daily backups and world-class security. Get started now at Bluehost.com. Every man has his price. And nine times out of ten, there's no one better than Chapo Guzman at guessing what someone's price is. But in Guatemala, perhaps for the first time in his life, Chapo underpays. The local authorities are under a lot of pressure from the Mexican government.
Harboring this high-profile gangster isn't worth the trouble, unless he pays top dollar. The Guatemalan cops feel their pockets have not been lined sufficiently, so they tip off the army. June 9th, 1993. A summer Wednesday like any other. At noon, the sun hangs high above a hotel in remote Guatemala, near the border with Mexico. Time drifts by. Then, the stillness of an early afternoon is suddenly ruptured.
A fleet of army vehicles pulls up on the side streets around the hotel. Within seconds, the troops enlarge their way through the doors and into the hotel foyer. On the street, sounds of commotion filter out from the building. Then, the noises stop. The soldiers reappear at the hotel front door with the fugitive in tow. That short, stocky frame. Those hunched shoulders. That thick, dark mustache. It's unmistakably Chapo Guzman.
The soldiers frogmarch Chapo to a waiting car. More troops emerge from the hotel, with five more captives, Chapo's henchmen. Half an hour later, the army convoy pulls up at Talisman Bridge, just over the border into Mexico. Mexican cops start to cross the bridge from the other side. They pull up a few meters away. The Guatemalan soldiers pull Chapo and his heavies from the car and push them towards the Mexicans.
So he was arrested at a hotel by Guatemalan authorities, attempted to bribe them, but they knew that he was a serious player and they considered him a plague and they knew that he would create a lot of issues if they allowed him to remain in Guatemala.
So the Mexican government requested his extradition to Mexico and they took him across the border. There was a big contingency of Mexican military there with one of the generals that I knew personally by the name of Cariola. And they thought that it was going to be all pomp and circumstance because, you know, it's always that way with the military. And they were
waiting there and all of a sudden there were two Guatemalan military soldiers in a beat up old truck and they had Chapo Guzman handcuffed in the back rolling around the bed of the truck. So they were kind of amazed and they saluted the Guatemalan soldiers and they took custody of Chapo Guzman who was interrogated. - The Mexican cops read Chapo's rights as they take him into custody.
His voice thick with sarcasm, Chapo protests his innocence. He's no drug trafficker, just a poor bean and corn farmer, an honest Joe sightseeing in Guatemala. He's not fooling anyone. The handcuffs lock around his wrists. Arresting El Chapo and extraditing him back to Mexico is a huge accomplishment for law enforcement. But it's one thing to take a drug lord into custody. It's another thing entirely keeping him there.
Joaquin Guzman Luera is sentenced to 20 years and nine months on charges of drug trafficking, criminal association, and bribery. And with that, the curtain should fall on El Chapo's story. But an actual fact, this is only the beginning. Chapo is taken to Almoloya Prison, where he stays for the next two years. Next, he's transferred to Puente Grande, a maximum security penitentiary in Mexico's Jalisco State. The moment he sets foot in Puente Grande,
Chapo starts to lay down his own law. It was not a bad life because within days, the prison guards were calling him boss, el patron. And they gave him anything that he wanted because he had the money to pay for anything that he desired. He was untouchable. The fear that he put on these people, it was obvious. So he had nothing to fear.
And the prison not only houses men, but they also have areas where they house female prisoners. And Chapo Guzman, being the womanizer that he is, you know, would see female prisoners and they would allow him to bring them into an area where he was at to have sex.
He had his brother coming in and he would convey orders to his brother. He had attorneys, he had whoever he wanted to see. They would allow him to receive these visitors within the penitentiary. Associates smuggle in suitcases stuffed with cash. Chapo uses them to bribe prison staff. Pretty soon, Puente Grande becomes more than just a jail. More than Chapo's business headquarters even.
It becomes his personal playground. There's a saying in Mexico, "Plata o plomo." It's either silver or lead, which means either you take our pay off or we'll kill you. And they come to the people and say, "Plata o plomo." What are you going to do? You got kids, you have a family.
Well, he was not in prison. I mean, he was in a prison, but, you know, he still had full reign in control of his organization. They allowed him to have women. They had allowed him to have liquor. He bought drugs.
gifts for the guards, he bought gifts for other inmates. He would send flowers and candy to whatever woman he admired that was also in prison. So he would court them. And at the same time, with the relationships, he would give money to their families, buy them cars, buy them houses, so that he would be able to have them anytime that he wanted.
So he would spend a lot of money and they liked that about him because these prison guards make very little money, you know, not enough to support their families. So he was a godsend to them in terms of being able to be better off financially.
Well, it was a party. It really was a party. And he also had parties within the penitentiary and would invite the guards and the inmate population. There would be liquor. He would bring in some high-priced prostitutes. And there were always gifts. And sometimes those parties went for days. And the thing is that he would give money to the prisoners so that they would be able to buy food.
because the food in these Mexican prisons is really abysmal, it's horrible. And at the same time, in these Mexican prisons, if you can't afford medicine, if you can't buy medicine,
you're going to go without because they don't have infirmaries or anything of that nature. So you better have money in order to be able to survive. And Chapo Guzman allowed them to survive. So they protected him. He became their benefactor. He became the Robin Hood. That benefited him because he ran the penitentiary. It wasn't the warden that controlled the penitentiary. It was Chapo Guzman. And whatever Chapo Guzman wanted, they did it for him.
And it was not only because of the money, but they also feared him because they knew that if they opposed him, he had the ability to have them killed within the penitentiary or outside the penitentiary. So he was pretty much an intimidating force. If you were his friend, he would take care of you. If you were his enemy, you were going to end up in a coffin rather quickly. Chapo Guzman is having a ball behind bars, but one thing still haunts him.
He lived like Pablo Escobar in the cathedral, which is a prison in Medellín that Pablo Escobar built to put himself in when he gave himself up so he wouldn't be extradited to the United States. Well, Pablo Escobar and Chapo have one thing in common: the biggest fear is to be extradited to the United States of America. Chapo is already married, with two divorces to his name before that. But in Puente Grande, he becomes infatuated with a female inmate. Her name is Ulema Hernandez.
She's in for robbery charges. At first, Zulema resists his charms. But soon, the couple start dating. Well, he was very likable. You know, he was like 5'6". He loved parties. He was considered to be like the Rudolph Valentino of the Guadalajara Cartel because he loved women. That was his big thing. He loved good-looking women. Chapo's personal and professional lives have arguably never been better.
From inside prison, he maintains complete control over his drug empire. Locking him up has done virtually nothing to arrest the drugs trade. In spite of this, Mexico refuses repeated requests to extradite Chapo to a maximum security prison in the US. As far as they're concerned, he's a Mexican criminal, and it's here he belongs. The fight against the Sinaloa cartel has drifted into stalemate. The main man himself is locked up, that's something, but his nefarious enterprises are ticking along quite nicely.
This is the state of play for the next few years. But then in January 1998, DEA agent Joe Bond gets a stunning call out of the blue. It's from El Chapo's brother-in-law. He says the drug lord wants to talk to the DEA. Bond agrees. Of course he does. This could be a big step forward. Maybe, just maybe, Chapo will decide to turn informant.
Our job was to see what kind of intelligence we can get from Chapo, what his demands were going to be, and get as much intel from him about the other organizations that were controlling the drug trade at the time. Whenever we made a big bust or the United States was a bust, it would disrupt the organization.
We would get some sales, but that was not dismantling the organizations. They would keep going. So our whole goal, we had to get to the key people in order to dismantle that organization, whether it was the Tijuana cartel, the Sinaloa cartel, the Gulf cartel, whichever one it was. And if we could get that information from this guy, who else? Who would be better than him to provide that intel? He knew everyone. He knew the moves. He knew what the other people were doing. Joe Bunn continues to liaise with Chapo's brother-in-law,
Then, after weeks of confidence building, they arranged to meet in Mexico City, in a side street near the U.S. Embassy.
I spoke to him outside the embassy for a minute or two, and based on what he was telling me, I couldn't believe who he was. We had to go through our intel later on to find out exactly if that is who he is. He was a brother-in-law to the first wife of El Chapo Guzman. And he says, "Listen, I have a lot of contact with El Chapo. El Chapo sent me here to talk to you guys. He wants to talk just to you. He doesn't want to talk to the FBI, and he doesn't want to talk to the Mexican government. He wants to talk to DEA."
I said, "Well, come on, let's sit down and talk." So for several months, we debriefed this guy. It took some time. We met, we discussed, we talked to the U.S. attorneys in the United States where Chapo had been indicted, and we told them of the possibility of us having a meeting with El Chapo. And to be honest with you, nobody believed that we were going to have a meeting with El Chapo. Nobody. They said, "This is impossible. It's not going to happen."
First of all, it's too risky. Secondly, I don't think El Chapo would meet with you. This is the U.S. attorneys. And then you would have to get approval from your own agency to let you go undercover and meet him in Puente Grande. I said, let me handle those areas. Let me handle DEA and the DOJ. So it took several months for us to coordinate this with our government and with the Mexican government. Finally, the mission is greenlit.
Agent Joe Bond prepares to head to Puente Grande Jail for a face-to-face with the most powerful drug trafficker in all of Mexico. - DA has his own fleet of planes. They were available there. There was agents there. The organized crime unit had people. There were people in the jail assigned by the organized crime unit to monitor us. - There's backup positioned around the perimeter of the jail in case things go south. But inside the building, Bond will be joined by just a single colleague.
his DEA partner, Larry Villalobos. The two men will have to rely on their own wits and their own judgment. In October 1998, the two DEA agents step into Puente Grande prison. It's vital that none of Chapo's colleagues or enemies get wind of this meeting. It'll spook them and jeopardize the informant. So Bond and Villalobos are undercover, opposing as human rights inspectors. The agents are taking a big risk. For all they know, El Chapo could be plotting to kidnap them.
There's only one way to find out. If Chappell really wanted to see us on goodwill, we were okay. But what if Chappell just wanted some kind of revenge? There was a lot of risk that we took. A lot of people in Washington did not approve of our meeting there. Guards lead the two men to a small empty room inside the jail. The room is empty, save for a desk and three chairs. Joe Bond does a quick sweep, confirming there are no microphones, hidden cameras, or explosives. They take a seat and wait.
For his part, El Chapo doesn't know when to expect the agent's arrival. All he's been told by his brother-in-law is that one of the men will introduce himself as Tito. But basically there were four concrete walls. There was nowhere that they could put something. We looked under the table, we looked at the chairs. We felt comfortable enough that we could talk to Chapo there, that we were not being monitored. We waited about 20 minutes and Chapo showed up, escorted by two officers. The man himself enters the room.
After years of profiling him, the agents are face to face with the Sinaloan kingpin. Well, my first impression was he was charismatic. He looked thin, he looked healthy, he looked young. Obviously, he had been in jail for five years, so I'm sure he was being fed well and he didn't have to be on the run. And very smart. Very, very smart. Street smart. He was a thinker. And we got that impression from him immediately. And I introduced, I said, Mr. Guzman Doera, I am Tito.
And honestly, he turned white. He could not believe that we were there. He looked at Larry and at me and he says, "Don't say anything else." And he got on his hands and knees and he looked under the door to make sure that nobody was standing there listening to what he was about to tell us. - With the ice broken, they start to talk, exchanging pleasantries. But the agents remain on their guard. They still don't know if this is a trap that could cost them their liberty or even their lives.
Suddenly, Chapo interjects. Out of nowhere, he wants to give up the names of officials he's bribed. And basically, he just started talking. He was mad. He was upset. He had been there five years. He just was ready to talk about everything. Corruption. He said, all my people that worked for me went to work for the Arellanos. And I don't blame them because I could not support the way they're accustomed to living. They have families. We understood that. However, if I get out, they will come back to me.
And we basically told him, well, that I don't believe. I know you're still controlling the Sinaloa cartel. I know they're still moving things. He says, yes, but not to the magnitude when I was out. I said, OK, well, then we know you're still controlling things. And we know you're controlling here, things in Puente Grande as well. And he just smiled. El Chapo is glowing. It's a boost to his ego to know that U.S. law enforcement view him as the beating heart of the drugs trade.
He loosens up and starts to talk more freely about his seniority in the Sinaloa cartel. The agents indulge this gloating. Behind their smiles, they're listening intently.
It took us time. We were there three hours with him and we developed a report. He knew we knew about him. We went there knowing everything about Echapo and he realized that. So every time we asked him out of a certain investigation or a certain arrest, he would kind of praise himself and he says, yeah, I handle that. And I did it well, didn't I? We just wanted to confirm a lot of the stuff that he had done.
and he openly told us that he had. We didn't have anything to lose and he mean it. He was gonna do 50 years in prison there. In his imagination, all his thoughts were, "I'm gonna spend time here in jail, lots of years, and I don't know what's gonna happen to me." So he was proud of what he had done. He says, "It took a smart person to do what I did. Not anybody can do it." - As the conversation continues, the penny drops. El Chapo wants to cut a deal with the DEA.
He says he can hand over priceless intel regarding the Arellano Felix brothers and their Tijuana cartel, but he wants something in return.
He wants the U.S. to drop its request to have him extradited. He told us how the organization was structured in the Arianna Felix organization. And his main reason was, "I want them out. I'll give you the Arianna Felix." And I said, "What do you expect from us? What do you want from us? You've got 50 years to do here in Mexico. Who knows if they're going to tag another more charges against you?" He says, "You let me handle Mexico and my time in Mexico."
I can handle that here. I might never get out of here. My biggest fear is having to go to the United States and get extradited. I want to do my time in Mexico, whatever it is. To him, it was best to stay there because he had control. He would see whomever he wanted to, whenever he wanted to, he was fed properly. It was like when Al Capone was in jail or one of those guys. The agents give no guarantees but agree to talk to their superiors. But Bond and Villalobos know all too well that the DEA will never play ball with Chapo Guzman.
There's no way they can trust him. And besides, he's far too high profile for them to be cutting underhand deals. He's wanted by prosecutors in state capitals all over America. To give up the chance of prosecuting Chapo in the United States would be to throw in the towel. What kind of message would that send to wannabe Chapos the world over?
He wasn't just going to respond to one charge in Arizona. He needed to respond to charges in New Mexico, California, New York, Chicago, Atlanta. All these places had charges against him. The two DEA agents thank Chapo for his time and take their leave of the jail. Outside Puente Grande, Joe Bond takes a deep breath of Jalisco air. It feels good to be out of the can. In the coming weeks and months, El Chapo waits to hear back from the DEA, but no word comes.
No deal. Chapo is furious. How can these gringos turn down his offer of cooperation? He's not asking for much. He just wants to carry on his business as normal. Without a deal, the threat of extradition still hangs over his head. And that makes Chapo furious and terrified in equal measure. The DEA have left him high and dry. At this point, you might think El Chapo has no other option but to serve out his term in Puente Grande. But you'd be sorely mistaken.
because El Chapo is about to begin plotting his most daring stunt yet. That's next time on Real Narcos. Real Narcos is a Noiser Podcast and World Media Rights co-production hosted by me, John Cuban. The series was created by Pascal Hughes, produced by Joel Duddle. It's been edited by Katrina Hughes, with music from Oliver Baines from Flight Brigade. The sound mixer is Tom Pink.
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