Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
After 9/11, there's no question that bin Laden was the most wanted man in the world. Following his capture and his death, the cartel leaders that were controlling and influencing drugs on multiple different continents and multiple different countries around the globe really became significant targets. You know, a lot of people don't realize that, you know, these criminal organizations function like terrorist networks, and they are terrorist networks.
Because when you take a look at the Sinaloa cartel, Chapo Guzman and other cartels around the world, they generate more violence than Osama bin Laden ever dreamed of generating. And I would say that of all criminals globally, following the death of bin Laden, El Chapo became one of the most wanted men in the world. It's 2013. It's been 12 years since El Chapo escaped from a top security Mexican penitentiary.
Since then, the manhunt has continued, albeit with few leads. This is a case that gets more high profile by the day. This is a case that could ultimately result in the capture of one of the most wanted men in the world.
So the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., really stepped up and assigned a lead prosecutor out of their office that gives that case the power and swiftness needed to cut through any red tape, to turn over paperwork as fast as possible. The level of approvals could happen very swiftly, and action for our officers, what they needed to get done instead of days and weeks, could happen in hours and days. Even with the support of the U.S. Justice Department,
The odds are stacked against the DEA, and they know it. From Noiser Podcasts, this is Real Narcos. He had escaped from prison. He had escaped arrest and capture many, many times before. He had an entire community willing to look out for him and advise him when law enforcement were coming. And he was heavily armed. And behind that, he had a network of tunnels. So the odds against capturing him was difficult. For years, El Chapo buried himself deep in the Sierra Madre.
From this vantage point, Chapo was able to manage his drug empire with minimal interference from the authorities. But one thing he couldn't do was have a good time. And as the years have dragged on, he's gotten pretty tired of being a recluse. That's why recently, he buckled to the pressure from his wife, beauty pageant queen Emma Coronel. They decided to spend more time with their kids in the beach resorts of the Sinaloa Riviera. That's where he is right now, sunning himself on the Pacific coast.
The DEA aren't resting on their laurels. The agency continues to action surveillance on individuals across Mexico and the United States. Then, a routine wiretap in the state of Arizona unexpectedly leads the agents to a subordinate in the Sinaloa cartel.
The first breakthrough was a wiretap investigation that was conducted in Arizona, in the southern part of Arizona. And as with most wiretap investigations, they lead to additional numbers because you're tracking the numbers that are incoming to the target telephone that you're intercepting and the calls that are being made from that telephone.
So what you do is you start identifying the subscribers to those telephones. Who are they calling? The DEA traced the line of communication from number to number. A month later, they realized they've hit the jackpot. The chain of numbers leads all the way to El Chapo's personal cell.
It was a very slow process and, you know, it just didn't happen overnight. So I was tracking phone number to phone number to phone number to phone number, and it was very painstaking, very meticulous work. They were eventually able to track the cell phone, the BlackBerry of Chapo Guzman. It's a major breakthrough in the investigation. At this point, they are unable to trace Chapo's whereabouts through the cell. But on the plus side,
They're able to monitor his personal communications and get to know their target intimately. He likes popsicles, that he likes peanuts, that he's very much connected to electronics in terms of every safe house that he has. He has a television screen where he's monitoring, that he's very careful in terms of what he eats, that it got to the point where he had people tasting his food before he would.
that he had only a trusted group of four individuals around him, that he's a womanizer, he has several dozen children from different women. - By listening in on his calls, the agents get a read on what really makes Chapo tick and what he truly fears. - This fear of isolation and incarceration. That is something that frightens him. - Now the DEA has a front row seat at the Chapo show. From this position,
They take in the terrifying might of his trafficking operation. - They would be in the New York Stock Exchange. This is how smart they were. They had a company, they had an organization. Buyers, distribution, financing, moving the money through different banks and countries. Very sophisticated group of people. - The DEA start to plot out the hierarchy of the Sinaloa cartel. They start to understand the communication structures that underpin the whole operation.
U.S. Homeland Security joined forces with the DEA, adding their heft to the investigation effort. They started identifying not the people necessarily, but focusing it on the communication structure. So for example, somebody would get arrested at a port of entry with a seizure of narcotics.
they would have never had the opportunity most likely to ever talk to or met with Chapo. But they were receiving directions and orders from somebody. And that really took off in 2013 with just some good old-passion police work, people sitting down, going through telephone tolls and communication logs to pull together a clear picture of what Chapo's communication structure looked like and then ultimately
what devices he was using to communicate and what devices were intimately involved with his communications. Having mapped out his organization's communication structure, the picture started coming together. We were constantly concerned that something inadvertently would spook him, cause him to go underground for long periods of time. - He's not America's most wanted man for nothing.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Chapo pulls the rug from under the U.S. operation. Maybe he got wind of the intelligence gathering, or maybe he's just being super careful. Either way, Chapo opts to add another layer to his security blanket. He gives up his personal BlackBerry, the one the DEA had been following. All the messages to the boss are now relayed through a small group of loyal subordinates. To avoid detection, they spend their time traveling between wireless hotspots to carry out communications.
He would have secretariat type of offices that were being held by people that would come and work in that office for a period of time with that responsibility, and then would rotate off and go be with their family, come back and work for him 24 hours a day for several days, rotate off. And those were people that were given command and control. So as CHAPA would say he wanted something done, it was their job to make sure it got done. If somebody was in the lower levels and ranks, needed a question answered, needed permission to do something,
and it was above their leadership's authorities to grant that permission, then they would have to communicate up ultimately through a series of people to get to Chapo's inner circle, and then Chapo would get the request and give the direct order. So he had this inner circle of people that were basically his communications center, and he gave his orders through and to them to the rest of his organization globally. Chapo was drawing the curtains over his drug empire.
But this cunning new strategy inadvertently leads the authorities to a new approach: targeting the inner circle to get to the man himself. We looked at his inner circle of people that were coming in from people cooking for him, to cleaning the house, to bringing him gifts. So we are identified as real personal inner circle network. After two years building the case, Homeland Security and the DEA have finished mapping out Chapo's team in close detail.
Less than six people at any given time knew where he was at and were in lips to ears communication with him to communicate command and control for the organization. So his organization and communication structure was the key to the whole entire Sinaloa cartel. But it was also his weakness because once we figured it all out, it painted the perfect picture on how to actually capture him. They've got the key players on a chart. Now it's going to be a case of cycling through them in search of a break.
The advent of electronic communication has greased the wheels of the cartels in so many ways. But it also creates opportunities to take them down. They've got to be constantly on their toes. We are now, as a society, cannot function on a day-to-day basis without using some type of electronic communication. So the criminal elements, in particular drug traffickers, are part of societal evolution
in terms of utilizing electronics. The days of using public phones or sending messengers out, you know, are over. Now you're looking at communication, wireless communication. I mean, I can't tell you how many investigations I've been involved in where we're able to identify drug traffickers because of information their girlfriends put up in Facebook. It's been their demise.
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He feels safe inside his ring of steel, his hideouts and safe houses rigged with the latest high-tech security systems. He's having such a good time, Chapo doesn't realize that he's more exposed than ever. The agents know they need to stay under the radar as long as possible while they build this investigation. When pursuing someone like El Chapo, retaining the element of surprise is invaluable. The DEA are acquiring plenty of dirt on Chapo's advisors.
One of them is a 23-year-old man called Seraphim Zambada. His father is Chapo's right-hand man, and young Seraphim is following in his father's footsteps. Seraphim was born in the United States. He has a legal right to traverse the border between Mexico and the US as much as he likes. He takes full advantage of this. He has no idea the DEA are onto him. On November 20th, 2013, Seraphim and his wife wait in line at the border crossing at Nogales, Arizona.
They're on their way to Tucson for some Christmas shopping. It's only November, but the early bird catches the worm. Seraphim is surprised by a knock on the driver's window. His heart sinks when he sees the DEA tag on the men's bulletproof vests. Seraphim is arrested on drug charges. He will make it to Tucson after all, but to jail rather than a shopping mall. Zambada is something of a unique case. As a US citizen, he's been crossing the border regularly. The DEA could lay in wait and pick their moment to grab him,
But most of El Chapo's lieutenants are not this visible. Many of them are in hiding, deep in the rural wilderness of Sinaloa. At this pivotal stage of the investigation, the U.S. agencies approached the Mexican authorities for an upgrade in support.
The unit in question is the Mexican Marines.
You just can't recruit a couple of local police officers from a small town in Mexico to go in and do it because they just don't have the capability or the will or the resources to do something like that. Plus, there's also elements of corruption. It has to be a very sophisticated, a very elite group.
a group of untouchables but on the law enforcement side that would go in and conduct and effect the arrest. And this group are the Marines. They're the special forces in Mexico. They're the ones that have the training and the capability to do it. Well, I think that the Marines have become the spearhead of Mexico's counter-drug efforts. If you notice, they've captured or killed most of the major cartel heads during the last few years.
So they were highly motivated. They knew that it was in the best interest of their country. And in Mexico, it's the good guys that wear the masks. It's not the bad guys. If you look at the Mexican Marines, they're always wearing a mask because they have to. Because if these cartel leaders or these drug traffickers identify them, if they can't get to them, they're going to get to their families.
In mid-January 2014, a team of Mexican Marines assemble at a forward operating base near the resort town of Los Cabos. They're joined by a select group of DEA agents. Their objective is to capture several of El Chapo's top lieutenants in one fell swoop. But even with these handpicked individuals, information is distributed on a strict need-to-know basis. They did not know until the last minute on who they were actually going to capture and arrest.
the Marines start the process of rounding up Chapo's henchmen. Crucially, when they arrest these cartel heavies, the Marines seize their cell phones. With each phone seized, a new set of numbers is gathered, allowing the agents to trace individuals in positions of responsibility. And Chapo himself, well, he's rattled. When Chapo realizes that his most intimate personnel are being arrested and interrogated, all of the safe houses that they know are useless to him anymore.
which forces him to start moving out of his comfort security zone into areas that he is not as well prepared or as well organized to protect himself from infiltration. You force him to get out of that comfort zone, as he did. - Next, the US authorities pinpoint a guy known as El Narese. In the past, El Narese has served as Chapo's personal assistant. There's a good chance that if Chapo needs help, he'll call on him.
One night in February 2014, Nariz returns to his home in Culiacan. He finds the Mexican authorities waiting on his doorstep. He's taken in for interrogation. Nariz gives up multiple addresses in Culiacan. Their fugitive could be hiding out at any one of these. Chapo never stays in one place too long. He moves between a roster of safe houses. The Mexican marines hit all the properties. But Chapo isn't in any of them. That's how cunning he is.
Even his personal assistant doesn't know where he's going to be at any given time. Chapo must be extremely cautious, but even he breaks cover once in a while. The key is to pay attention when he does. The DEA know Chapo does still have a phone of his own. He virtually never uses it. His orders are almost always relayed over public Wi-Fi networks. But on occasion, Chapo can't control the impulse to reach for his cell. He knows he's playing with fire by staying in Culiacan. He needs to get out of the city.
If he can make it back out to the mountains, he can disappear once again. One evening, Chapo switches on his device and prepares to call his most trusted allies. A cell phone sits on a shelf in a police safe room, wrapped in an evidence bag. Suddenly, it starts to vibrate. Agents frantically trace the call. Now finally, the authorities have the precise intel they need. A two-story house on Ria Humaya Street, in a middle-class neighborhood in Culiacan.
They're pretty sure that is where El Chapo is hiding. It's pretty dark in Culiacan in the moments before sunrise as Marines arrive at the safe house. They surround the building. Fast asleep inside, El Chapo has no idea he's cornered. The Marines ready their weapons and produce a battering ram. When they went in the very first time during this operation, they went to arrest El Chapo.
they came across a very heavily fortified residence. Steel-plated doors that were engineered to prevent the Mexican military and law enforcement from ever getting in there. The reinforced door is doing a pretty good job at withstanding the ram. It takes 10 minutes for the Marines to bust in. When the Marines came into the apartment complex, they found several weapons, AK-47s, handguns, and they took into custody several of his entourage.
The henchmen in the hallway drop their guns. They throw up their arms and surrender and are arrested on the spot. The rest of the Marines spread out throughout the house. One of them heads to the bathroom. The Marine opens the door. He curses angrily. His assault weapon drops to his side.
The bathtub has been raised with hydraulic lifts. And Chapo Guzman, within the first 20 seconds, had already lifted the bathtub, climbed down the stairs about 15 feet into the draining system, and fled with a couple of his bodyguards. Under the bathtub, a dark, narrow tunnel. Chapo is somewhere down there, in the bowels of the city.
They went in, they hit the place, only to find out that El Chapo had escaped through a hydraulic system underneath the bathtub, through a tunnel system in the city, and was on the run. And as he's running through the city, he's armed with grenades and with weapons. I can only imagine if you're the Samar officer that had just spent several minutes trying to get in through a fortified door to arrest El Chapo, the most wanted man in your country,
There's nothing else for it.
The soldiers sling their weapons over their shoulders and climb down underneath the bathtub. They went into the draining system and they could hear the splash coming from Chapo Guzman as they were running through the water. There are two pairs of footsteps in the distance. Chapo is accompanied by his one remaining bodyguard, a guy called El Condor. Chapo has the 10-minute head start of the Marines.
Following him down here, they're taking their lives in their hands. Very dangerous because you don't know who's down there. You know, he could have had a rear guard creating a defensive position that would have opened up on whoever was coming through the tunnel. Obviously, it's very narrow. Just a spray of bullets would have killed quite a few of the Marines. The tunnel leads down to a labyrinth of interlocking passages deep beneath the city.
Meanwhile, above ground, dozens of troops position themselves, ready to jump on the drug lord as soon as he surfaces for air. A covert US drone is deployed to monitor the city's streets. Back underground, in the rabbit warren, Japo calls another one of his henchmen to come pick them up. It's impossible to monitor the entire city. There are so many tunnels scattered across the metropolis. It's a numbers game. Japo might pop out into an area full of law enforcement.
Or he might get lucky and surface somewhere quiet. In the tunnel, the commandos continue to follow the noises up ahead. They emerge at a storm drain by the banks of a muddy river. They gulp down the fresh air gratefully and cast around for their target, but there's no sign of him anywhere. El Chapo has pulled off yet another miraculous escape. And yet, there's still hope for the Marines and the DEA. The raid may not have landed them the big fish, but they've arrested even more of his henchmen and seized their cell phones.
And now they know that the guy accompanying El Chapo is El Condor. It's highly likely that Chapo will reach out to his cartel allies for help, using El Condor as an avenue for communication. So, their task is simple, at least in theory: keep an eye on the C's cell phones and wait for El Condor to call. Just two days later, he takes the bait and sends an SMS to a handful of senior members of the Sinaloa Cartel, demanding assistance. The hunt is back on.
The authorities know that if they can trace the cell phone that sent the SMS, then it should lead them straight to the kingpin's new lair. Agents rush frantically to trace the sender of the text message. It works. Now they've got a new location in their crosshairs. The city of Mazatlan lies on Mexico's Pacific coast. It's a popular tourist resort, a couple hours drive south of Culiacan. Even in February, visitors flock here from far and wide. Many are in town for the upcoming carnival.
kids ride the Ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds on the beachfront. The sound of banda music drifts through the streets. It's a distinctive genre, a combination of traditional Mexican sounds with polka music brought over by German immigrants in the 19th century. Only in the early hours of the morning do the streets finally fall quiet. On February 22nd at dawn, 40 men and women from the Mexican Marines assemble in Mazatlan. Their mission is codenamed Operation Gargoyle. The location these agents have their eye on
is the Hotel Miramar. It's a 20-story condominium complex. Well, they were able to pinpoint his location at the Miramar condominiums, which was right on the water there in Asatlan. So they started to bring in Marines, you know, very slowly. The Marines circle the building. They know Chapo is inside the complex.
But which apartment? They knew that he had to have checked in probably the day before. So they checked with workers there at the condominium complex and they found out that only two parties had checked in the previous day. Chapo could be in either one. It's a toss-up. Marines climbed to the sixth floor and ready their weapons.
I'm sure that they're thinking as they kick down that door, there's going to be a gun battle. You know, they pursued him through the tunnels. They had hit other houses. Everybody's armed. There's explosives. And here now you are a doorway away from the most wanted man in the world. You're not expecting him to go down without a fight.
They went to the first apartment and they basically kicked down the door and there was an American couple in there and they were absolutely in shock. And someone told me that they were smoking marijuana. They thought that all this ruckus for a marijuana cigarette. The commandos secure the apartment and radio downstairs to their colleagues. Wrong door.
They left there and they knew that they had to now move very quickly, so they went down to the fourth floor. He must be in the other condo. This time they proceed with a degree more caution. The Marines use infrared and thermal imaging to pinpoint the positions of everyone inside. They check their weapons one more time. All eyes are on the commander as he raises a hand, signaling them to wait. Then the hand comes down and the Marines burst through the door.
The first person they come across is El Chapo's wife, Emma Coronel. Frozen in shock, she's arrested immediately. Then, as realization sinks in, she starts to struggle. She starts screaming, alerting her husband. Last time Chapo escaped under a bathtub, so this time one of the Marines heads straight to the restroom. The door is shut. They try to open it, but someone's pushing back from the other side. If it is Chapo behind this door, then the next few minutes will be pivotal.
If at all possible, they want to take him alive rather than dead. Another couple of Marines lend a hand. Three sets of shoulders open the door just enough for one of the Marines to squeeze in. Chapo Guzman is backed up against the wall, an AK-47 in his grasp, but he doesn't fire.
He knows better than to test the Marines. - If Chapo Guzman even slightly moved his hand towards that weapon, he would have been dead. And the Mexican Marines take no prisoners unless they have to. But had they been provoked,
and Chapo Guzman just made any slight movement towards that weapon, he would have not been able to fit in a casket with all the lead that would have been pumped into his body. The game's up. Chapo Guzman drops the weapon and offers no resistance as the Marines clap him in handcuffs. In the end, it took three minutes to take down the world's most wanted drug lord.
The fact that there were no shots fired, there was no resistance, it's an indication to me that it was executed in a very effective manner. And that Chapo was basically in a... You know the old saying, "Caught with your pants down"? He was basically caught with his pants down. He was in an environment where he had family members there, he had one of his wives with him. He did not really feel that they were going to come after him there.
The precautions were there. He had some security people, but nobody offered any resistance. He didn't fight. He basically did not want to get shot, which makes perfect sense. When you're caught with your pants down,
So I got a call saying that El Chapo had been captured. Shortly thereafter, I received visual confirmation of his arrest and I was delighted. But I was also delighted to find out that not a single Mexican military officer had been hurt during that time or a civilian in the area. Not a single person was injured during the arrest.
So he was taken into custody, didn't make any comments, was very sullen, very quiet. And he knew that that was going to be the end of Chapo Guzman. No question this time, it was El Chapo and he was in custody and alive. We knew at that time that the Sinaloa cartel and their leadership had just suffered the biggest blow that they'd ever had in the history of that cartel.
Later that morning, the news is splashed across front pages the world over. El Chapo is in police custody, once and for all, for the agents who've been on his tail all these years. Their response is spontaneous jubilation.
And I was very, very pleased. That was just like everybody's going to be happy. Everybody's going to be excited. The major, major drug lord has come down. The FBI have put millions of dollars in rewards. The Mexican government had done the same. So it was a big accomplishment for the government finally to take Chapa Guzman down. Very happy for them and for us as well. So throughout my 28-year law enforcement career, there was a lot of highs and a lot of lows. People get hurt along the way and injured and die.
This was definitely one of the highlights of my career. Being able to capture somebody who had caused the death and demise of so many people, it was a great, great day for not only just Mexico law enforcement and military, but also for U.S. law enforcement. It's telling that in those final moments of freedom, Chapo's entourage weren't with him. That's testament to the surveillance carried out before the takedown. The authorities whittled away at Chapo's inner circle until the head honcho himself was left critically exposed.
Across Mexico, citizens are overjoyed. This feels like a decisive moment in the war on drugs. A moment when the grip of the Sinaloa cartel over public life could finally be loosened. But just because Ciampa was behind bars doesn't mean the war on drugs is over. There's still work to be done. There's a long way to go if dismantling the cartels is the ultimate objective. I knew that we had just delivered one of the biggest blows to that cartel in its history.
And also I knew that we needed to regroup and continue in our pursuit after the Sinaloa cartel. Just because you cut the head off the snake doesn't mean that the snake's going to wither up and die away. On February 22nd, 2014, El Chapo was locked up in Altiplano, Mexico's most secure, high-risk penitentiary.
This time, they're not taking any chances. -Altiplano Penitentiary is in the southern part of the country. It is the most secure penitentiary in the Republic of Mexico, and they have taken measures to prevent people from escaping through helicopters. They have taken measures to prevent prisoners from escaping through the prison walls.
They have also taken measures to prevent the tunnels going into the penitentiary and allowing some of these high-profile prisoners
Altiplano was constructed so that Mexico could put its most notorious criminals in that facility. Most of them are the most famous drug leaders in Mexico. These are people who have killed thousands of individuals and there are
The authorities vow he will never escape again. But we've been here before. Will they really be able to keep that promise?
Find out 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. Follow Noiser podcast on Twitter for news about upcoming series. If you have a moment, please leave us a review wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
