Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
It's late 2014 and El Chapo is finally back in jail. This time, he's incarcerated in Altiplano, a maximum security facility on the outskirts of Mexico City. This prison has a reputation as a fortress. Until recently, Altiplano held Chapo's old boss, the fallen godfather, Felix Gallardo. It's impenetrable, but if anyone's gonna have a crack at busting out, it's gonna be Chapo Guzman.
I don't think that any of us expected El Chapo to be captured alive. However, he had escaped from prison once, so it's not over in his mind until it's over. He may have been thinking, arrest is not as bad as death because I can escape from prison like I did before. The authorities vow he will never escape again. Well, we've been here before. Noiser Podcasts, this is Real Narcos. El Chapo's multiple escapes have made him a terrifying, captivating figure in the popular imagination.
Head to Mazatlan, the beach resort in Sinaloa State, and you can pay 300 pesos for a narco tour from one of the local taxi drivers, taking in a view of the condo where Chapo was arrested. For many, it's a foregone conclusion that Chapo will spend at least the next 20 years behind bars. Others are not so sure. DEA agent Mike Vigil is one of them.
It's easy to assume that prison guards should rise above corruption.
But when you're paid so little, when you work so hard and still struggle to make ends meet through legitimate means, the temptation to take a bribe can be pretty hard to resist.
Well, Altiplano Penitentiary has some of the biggest drug leaders in Mexico, but Chapo Guzman, without question, is the biggest drug trafficker in history. So when he comes in, he's already escaped from another supermax penitentiary in Mexico, so he has celebrity status.
Secondly, he has untold wealth, which means that he can bribe prison guards that are making a pittance in terms of money. They probably make less than $600 a month. So Chapo Guzman walks in, he's a billionaire, and he immediately starts throwing money around. Besides, Chapo is a man preceded by his reputation.
Many of the guards are simply terrified of him. They know that he can carry out death threats. And they know that they're not making a lot of money and therefore, you know, they don't want to risk their lives. If they can get to the guards, they're going to get to their families. So, yes, they are deathly afraid of an individual like Chapo Guzman. At first, Chapo kicks up a fuss. He complains about the conditions he's kept in.
23 hours of solitary confinement a day, with just one hour of exercise outdoors. He organizes a hunger strike amongst the inmates, but after Chapo's protests fall on deaf ears, he goes quiet and changes tack. It will only become clear after the fact, but by dishing out bribes and gifts to the prison staff, Chapo isn't simply making sure he's well looked after, he's also laying the groundwork for yet another escape attempt.
There are protocols in place here to stop high-profile inmates escaping. Chapo starts flexing his financial muscle to see if there's any way around them. It can't hurt to give it a go. They've got soldiers patrolling the perimeter of the prison, and then they also have a no-fly zone over the penitentiary. Mexican officials at the very highest level
met with the American Correctional Association so they could develop policies to prevent prisoner escape. One of those protocols was to move the prisoners from cell to cell on a regular basis to prevent tunnels or, you know, allowing cohorts or collaborators on the outside to come in and help with an escape.
But Chapo Guzman, during the entire year he was in Altiplano, was never moved once. It's one thing developing ironclad security protocols. It's a whole other thing to enforce them effectively. In 2014, Genaro Garcia Luna is a senior official in the Mexican government, an architect of the Campaign Against the Drug Trade. Remember him? He's the guy who had Arturo Guzman, Chapo's younger brother, arrested.
He worked closely with the DEA agent Joe Bond. Well now, Garcia Luna is one of the officials who sits down with the US authorities to put in place the protocols for high-risk convicts in Altiplano. But fast forward to 2019 and Garcia Luna is being arrested in Dallas, charged with taking millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa cartel. That's how deep the corruption goes. Even so, for Chapo to escape Altiplano would be to scale new heights.
First things first, he needs to establish a secure channel of communication with his men on the outside. He was allowed visitors to include Emma Coronel, his wife. So she was used to carry messages from Chapo Guzman to members of his cartel.
So they started to look at ways of escaping and they came to the conclusion that the best way was to dig a tunnel. A tunnel makes sense. They call him the tunnel king after all.
— The Mexican government knew that this was his modus operandi. He wanted to escape from Altiplano very quickly because Chapo Guzmán knew that we wanted him here in the United States to face criminal charges here. — Chapo even arranges for his master diggers to travel all the way to Germany to receive schooling from criminal organizations there.
On top of that, he orders his cartel lackeys to invest in the highest spec tunnel technology.
There is no doubt in my mind that they use this equipment, surveying equipment called Total Station. It's a very sophisticated system where they shoot out a laser to a prism and then the prism reflects it back. They're able to dig a mile-long tunnel with a variance of less than half an inch.
They've got the training and the equipment. Now it's time to get digging. Now, the security outside of the penitentiary is very, very, very tight.
So, what they did is they bought a little cinder block house about a mile away and they started to dig. They put a railing system there, a makeshift motorcycle with a little gas tank consisting of a plastic container. And they used the motorcycle initially to take out dirt that was being excavated.
And we estimate that they took out about 357 metric tons of dirt during the building of the tunnel. It's got ventilation, it's got power. It had PVC pipe with holes in it.
and they had a generator there where they were pumping air into the tunnel and so that the drug lord who is five foot six tall will not have to bend they build the tunnel at five foot seven inches high
So they were busy moving that dirt to other areas, you know, using dump trucks. But they were so far away from the site of the military soldiers guarding Altiplano that they were able to do that at night. Inside Altiplano, Chapo is keeping his head down. He's a model of good behavior. He's feeling pretty zen about everything. He has faith that he will soon be delivered.
Thank you.
Plus, you automatically get daily backups and world-class security. Get started now at Bluehost.com. On July 11th, 2015, Chapo sits quietly on his bed in his cell when he gets a welcome surprise. Through this total station system, they're able to pinpoint the shower area in Chapo's cell, which has a little wall about four feet high.
And they start to punch a hole 20 inches by 20 inches into his shower. Surely, someone in the prison hierarchy has instructed the guards to turn a blind eye. The noise of all the tunnelers' drills is deafening, but the guards are nowhere to be seen. Bang, bang, bang.
and the rest of the prisoners in the immediate area start screaming and yelling because they're disturbed by the noise. The prison has video and audio on Chapo Guzman's cell, and the guards completely ignore the incessant pounding. Chapo, meanwhile, is taking it all in his stride. Chapo Guzman is lying on his bed. He stands up.
and walks over to the shower area and looks at the area where the pounding is coming from. And he very calmly, very casually returns to his prison bed, sits down and starts to put on his shoes. He then waits a short time and then when the hole is punched into his cell, he walks over and disappears.
When the Mexican government says that, you know, the prison could not be penetrated by land,
And by air, it was also supposed to be impenetrable through tunnels. But because of corruption, Chapo Guzman was able to do that. And Chapo Guzman probably paid at least three to five million dollars to build that tunnel. But certainly, it is the most sophisticated tunnel that was ever used by a drug lord to escape.
Finally, the prison guards arrive in the cell. But they're far too late. Joppa was long gone. It was more than 20 minutes before the guards reacted to the fact that they could no longer see him sitting in the cell. It was a mile-long tunnel. It had a rail system, and on that rail system it had a motorbike.
but the rear tires fit perfectly on the track. So it had a dual purpose. It was used to carry dirt out of the tunnel, and then at the same time, it could quickly take him that mile-long road into freedom. He mounted this motorbike
and was taken to the entrance of the tunnel. And from there, he was transported via vehicle to a clandestine airstrip where he boarded a single-engine aircraft and fled to his home state of Sinaloa. Just 14 months into his sentence, El Chapo has escaped from Mexico's most secure jail. It's back to square one yet again. The international manhunt grinds into gear.
Joaquin Guzman is once more the world's most wanted man. There were many people that said he went to South America, he went to Central America, but I was always of the opinion that he was going to go back to his home state that he knew like the back of his hand and he would be able to hide up in those mountains. I've been up in those mountains and if you don't want to be found, you're never going to be found.
President Peña Nieto is in France on a state visit when he gets the news. It's a new low for the Mexican government. They've staked their reputation on keeping Chapo behind bars.
The United States had requested his extradition after his escape from Puente Grande and President Peña Nieto indicated, "No, we're going to keep him here. You know, we should be able to maintain him in Altiplano." And I knew that that was a huge mistake. How has this been allowed to happen? It's pretty simple, really. Bribery can get you a very long way. Every man has his price.
In my personal opinion, members of this cartel were able to get floor plans to the penitentiary because when they were building the tunnel, they had to avoid power lines.
They had to avoid water lines. When they constructed the penitentiary, they also had ground sensors to detect tunnel building, and those underground sensors were turned off. There was a lot of corruption and collusion by members of that correctional facility.
Somehow, the agents, both Mexican and American, who worked tirelessly to bring Chapo down, need to dig deep and find the resolve to go again. At large once more, Chapo gets right back to it. He had a very capable lieutenant running the Sinaloa Quartel, and that was Ismael Mayos Zambada.
So when Chapo Guzman escapes and he flees, he immediately regains control of the Sinaloa cartel and he maintains a good relationship with Mayu Zambada. He brings his sons into the business. So it's business as usual. He starts to immediately build his security.
And he built rings of security, like two or three rings, where people with radios would notify him if they saw police, if they saw soldiers, or if they saw anybody that they didn't recognize. He didn't spend very much time in a single place. He would move, you know, almost on a daily basis from ranch to ranch to ranch.
The outlook isn't great, but there's one silver lining for the DEA. This time, they are not starting their investigation from scratch. As they reboot their networks of informants, they manage to get one crucial lead. We had an idea where he was hiding because one of his IT specialists, a Colombian by the name of Christopher Rodriguez, flipped. Rodriguez will prove to be a vital asset.
He was the man who set up Chapo's clandestine network of electronic communications. Rodriguez has started out by encrypting the cell phones of those individuals at the top of the Sinaloa cartel. But Chapo wanted to go even further. So he pays Rodriguez $100,000 for his service, but later calls him again and says, look, I need more done. I need spyware done.
And I need to be able to track text messages of not only members of my organization, but of my wife and of my mistresses. So he wants Rodriguez to basically set up a system where he can tap in and activate the microphones to the cell phones of the individuals that he wants to listen into.
Later, Rodriguez is ensnared in an undercover trap and he decides to flip and he gives the U.S. government the encryption keys to all of Chapo Guzman's communication system. His phones, shortly thereafter, started to be tracked by U.S. and Mexican authorities. Rodriguez can't tell them exactly where Chapo's hiding.
He can't pinpoint his precise location, but he can give a ballpark estimate. It's a start. To really crack this case open, the DEA need to plant an informant close to Chapo. And out of nowhere, the ideal candidate falls into their lap.
Chapo Guzman had one major addiction, and that addiction was women. He had been married four times. He likes to go out and have a good time. He likes to listen to mariachi music. He's got millions of dollars and nothing to spend it on, and living like a pauper up in the mountains. The next chapter in this saga is really stranger than fiction.
Just three months after El Chapo's escape from Mexico's most secure jail, the DEA acquire a new asset entirely by accident. The Hollywood actor, Sean Penn. Mike Vigil explains. Let me lead from the very beginning.
Kate del Castillo, a Mexican actress, put out on Instagram that Chapo Guzman should traffic in love and not drugs. So Chapo Guzman sees that and being addicted to women like he is, he has his attorneys reach out to Kate del Castillo and starts to communicate with her.
the perfect storm comes into play. Kate del Castillo wants to make a movie about Chapo Guzman, so she reaches out to Sean Penn. Now, Sean Penn is not interested in making a movie about Chapo Guzman. He wants to write an article for The Rolling Stone. And then on the other hand, you have Chapo Guzman
that just wanted to have a love affair with Kate del Castillo. So you had all of these individuals with different motives come together. To clarify, Castillo and Penn are not formal assets or anything like that. The fact that they've acquired access to the man himself is just a happy, mad coincidence for the agents on Chapo's tail. This is a journalistic endeavor, not an undercover mission.
Even still, the DEA keep a beady eye on proceedings as the actors are invited to a sit-down with the Sinaloa godfather himself. Chapo Guzman decides to meet with Sean Penn and Keitel Castillo in one of his fortresses up in the mountains.
And they are taken both by ground and then also by an aircraft to this ranch. And they're there for seven hours. And Chapo Guzman feeds them tacos and, you know, he's just completely enamored by Quetel Castillo. Sean Penn might be a huge star in America, but Chapo doesn't even know who he is. He couldn't care less.
and he asked one of his sons who was sitting at the table with them, "You know, who is Sean Penn?" And his son responds, "Oh, he's a famous actor from the United States." He had no clue who he was. And he does really stupid things. He does a videotape of himself admitting to being in the drug trade. He talks about having boats, planes, submarines.
that facilitate the movement of the drugs into Mexico and then into the United States. So he is very open about his trafficking of drugs and he does it to impress Kate del Castillo, but it's a huge mistake because as far as evidence goes, there is no better evidence than a defendant convicting himself on audio and video recordings.
As if there wasn't enough evidence already of Chapo's guilt, he's just recorded himself bragging about criminal endeavors. Picture the scene: Mexico's most powerful drug lord sat around a table with two actors, one of whom has two Academy Awards to his name. But this story is about to get even stranger. According to Agent Vigil, Castillo and Penn are almost innocent victims in an attempted hit on Chapo. Tracking the actor's cell phones, the authorities are able to pinpoint their location.
and thus, by association, the location of their number one target. For one brief moment, an opening has appeared to end this once and for all. This is the moment the agents have been working towards. They finally got eyes on the world's most wanted man, but they never imagined it being like this. It's a bizarre dilemma. They could try to take out Chapo right now, but the collateral damage could include a Hollywood A-lister.
Agent Vigil and the DEA know that as soon as Chapo hears helicopters approaching, he'll take evasive action. To Chapo, Sean Penn is just a stranger, someone he neither knows nor trusts. If Chapo suspects him of colluding with the authorities, he'll deal with the actor just like he would any other threat. The DEA's position is clear: it's far too risky to move in on Chapo while the actors are in his company. But their Mexican hosts don't all take the same view.
Vigil suggests that some in the Mexican government are eager to storm the location. The potential risks are outweighed by the prospect of laying hands on Chapo once more. - The Mexican government wanted to do a helicopter assault because we knew at that time where he was at,
But the DEA didn't want to do that and take the risk of these two individuals getting killed in a DEA-led assault, which would have been horrific here in the United States and abroad. Ultimately, the Mexican authorities are in control. This is their jurisdiction, and the DEA's protests are falling on deaf ears.
They knew his exact location. They had the coordinates. The Mexican Marines wanted to initiate an assault. DEA did not want that to happen because if you can only imagine the negative publicity that
DEA and Mexico generate an assault which led to the killing of Sean Penn in Mexico. But the Mexicans were going to do the raid anyway. The life of one of Hollywood's biggest stars hangs in the balance. The situation is out of the DEA's hands. Inside Chapo's lair, Penn and Castillo have no way of knowing how much jeopardy they're in. The DEA agents hold their breath.
If this raid goes wrong, it'll take a lot of explaining back home. Fortunately, weather intervened and there was a storm, so they were not able to do it because it could have had disastrous consequences. In the nick of time, a storm rolls in. The mission is called off. Had it not been for that, there's a very strong likelihood that they would have been killed because when these helicopters come in, they're not going to take the time
to decide who's a foe or who's friendly. They're just gonna start shooting and spraying the area with .50 caliber machine gun fire. That was close. A PR catastrophe has been averted just in time. With the raid postponed, at least for a night, the DEA agents exhale with relief. By the next morning, Penn and Castillo have bid farewell to Chapo and taken their leave of his hideout. Ignorance is bliss.
Little do they know, last night they were in mortal danger. With Penn and Castillo out of harm's way, Chapo is once again fair game. Later that same day, the promised raid duly arrives. As helicopters close in on Chapo's location, they're met with heavy gunfire. Guzman has more personal protection than most heads of state. He has a fully armed private army, complete with machine guns and surface-to-air rockets. With the incoming choppers occupied, Chapo slips out of the compound's rear exit.
Accompanied by his two personal chefs, they make their way through a mountain gully towards a small group of vehicles, primed to take them to the next safe house. Onboard one of the helicopters, the pilot's eye is drawn to three dots on the landscape. The aircraft pivots away from the gun battle and speeds off in their direction. The helicopter quickly catches up with its quarry, three figures clearly armed. The helicopter gunner turns his weapons to face them. He hones in and prepares to take aim.
His fingers flex just above the trigger. He stops, but he sees that the man below is carrying a small child. On the ground, Chapo clutches the kid to his breast. She's his human shield. He's confident the military won't fire on him. And he's right. Chapo and his retinue make it to safety and disappear into the hills. The Sean Penn interview is met with criticism in some quarters. Photos from the interview show the actor shaking hands with Chapo.
"Many feel it's more than a little disrespectful to Chapo's thousands of victims to give the drug lord this kind of hearing." An editorial note in the magazine admits that the article was submitted to Chapo himself for approval before publication. But one thing the article does do is cement Chapo's public image as a narco criminal who is guilty of sin and proud of his crimes. If it wasn't already, public opinion is now firmly behind those seeking to take him down.
For now, Castillo and Penn return from their voyage into the mountains. El Chapo remains a fugitive. But his meeting with these two celebrities is still a turning point. Chapo is as famous as any Hollywood actor. He's far wealthier than any of them. But he has no liberty. He can't enjoy his wealth. He can't feel the acclaim of his fans. Chapo has had a small taste of freedom. It's whetted his appetite. He's now about to make the biggest mistake of his life.
The individual that ran the Sinaloa cartel while Chapo Guzman was incarcerated was Ismael Mayo Zambada. Ismael Mayo Zambada has always remained up in the mountains of Sinaloa and he has never been arrested. He has never spent one single minute in a jail cell. There is no question
El Chapo's man right now would be a free man and he stayed up in the mountains. In the season finale of Real Narcos, after more twists and turns, the curtain finally falls on El Chapo's career. But as he departs the stage, the country he leaves behind has been changed beyond all recognition. We examine Mexico today and take a look where it might be headed in the years to come. It's one thing to rid yourself of a drug lord.
It's another thing entirely that purges influence. 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.
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.
