Original subtitles

People don't know if I'm a good guy or if I'm a bad guy, but you really have to

listen to my story to find out and determine that for yourself.

I never set out to be a drug smuggler.

I wanted to be a successful business owner, a father, and a loving husband.

But you never know what you'll do to protect your family until you have to.

For me, It was turning my best friend over to the DEA.

Growing up, my idea of the American dream was having a great job and going

college was my opportunity to make my mark on the world, to finally show

everyone how smart I thought I really was.

I enrolled in a major university to study business law.

So did my best friend, Jake.

He would come to class with not a care in the world. He had more energy than a

bag of squirrels.

We had a lot in common, almost like brothers.

But the fundamental difference between me and Jake was that he wasn't afraid of

breaking the law and breaking all the rules.

He was drug trafficking.

The drugs would come from a cartel in Juarez, and they would cross them over

bridges with their mules.

Jake would distribute it into the states.

He was making huge piles of money.

Everything he did, everything he touched, was this exciting adventure

never knew what was going to happen next.

But as tempting as the life he was living was, I still wanted to do things

legal and right way and follow my dream.

So after I graduated, I moved to Birmingham, Alabama at an entry -level

accountant job, hoping that that would be my big break.

I was working my tail off to live the life that I had dreamed of back when I

in college.

And that's when my college sweetheart called.

Hey.

Hi. And told me she was pregnant.

We're going to have a baby.

I immediately made the decision.

There's no way I was going to have a child and not be a part of its life.

I wanted the car, the picket fence, the dog, going to baseball practice.

Missy was the person who I thought I could build that dream with.

I got back to El Paso and I moved in with Missy.

But finding a professional job was much harder than I thought it would be.

He had a little bit of money in the bank, but it was soon gone.

So words can't describe the feeling of defeat that overcomes you when you

realize that you're possibly going to be evicted.

And your girlfriend is seven months pregnant.

I'm going to sort it out. Okay?

Okay? Okay.

Look at what...

I just bought. While I'm having all my problems.

It's a yacht. It's different than a boat, apparently.

Jake was living this dream.

His drug trafficking business just got bigger and bigger and bigger.

I explained to him the situation.

And I said, hey. And I borrowed $2 ,000.

And he said, sure.

No problem.

Yeah? Oh, that's pocket change to you, is it?

Pulled out $4 ,000 and put it in my hand.

And then he said, but now you owe me.

If I could change one thing about my life, the moment Jake had stuck that $4

,000 in my hand, I would have refused it.

The consequences for that one decision have haunted me the rest of my life.

I'll pay you back. Oh, yes, you will.

I will.

I was just so relieved to solve the eviction problem.

We can stay.

I really wasn't thinking about anything else at that moment.

My son was born on January 19th of 2000.

The day he was born was one of the greatest days of my life.

The day we got him home, Jake was one of the first people there to hold him.

I felt the...

power of parenting responsibility come upon me.

But I still couldn't find a job.

I struggled to pay my bills. I struggled to pay my rent.

And I still had to pay my debt to Jake.

Jake told me that he was going to solve my problems for me.

All right, listen up.

He asked me to drive a car from El Paso, Texas to Wichita.

He said, easiest buy. And then I'm clear of the debt. And that would erase my

debt. Raise the bird.

I owed him, you know.

My mind started racing.

I had to take 120 pounds of marijuana over 850 miles of roadway, then bring

the money.

You going to be my boy?

And I just simply said, yeah.

I lied to myself. But I can do it just this one time, and it's not going to

anyone.

The day I picked up the drugs from Jake, I

was kind of floored to see that amount of marijuana in one place.

Byron was Jake's right -hand man. He was using some combination of motor oil,

hand lotion, and baby powder to deaden the scent.

And I remember standing there thinking, that's thousands and thousands of pounds

of weed.

What have I gotten myself involved into?

Here's the address.

But I trusted Jake.

I don't care what route you take.

He said, easy peasy, just get it done.

Byron was like, you got this. Knock it out.

But the real fear hit when I headed out of El Paso.

I knew that I had to go through a checkpoint on the road to Kansas.

My solution was to act like I was taking a day trip to go to the ski resort.

I pull up at the checkpoint,

and the Border Patrol agent, Asked me, U .S. citizen.

I said yes.

He said, see, you're going skiing.

Is there any snow on the mountain?

And then I'm like, even if it's dirt and rocks, I'm still going down that

mountain.

I was wondering, is he buying anything I'm saying?

I'm looking at a long prison sentence in the trunk of my car right there.

He's like, all right, have a good day.

Being a little bit smart had got me through the checkpoint.

My homework had paid off.

But the drive to Wichita, Kansas, was the longest 10 hours of my life.

I eventually got to the place.

Pulling up into this trailer park in Kansas, wondering what type of Kentucky

Fried backwards nonsense I was getting into.

I didn't know how it was supposed to play out.

I pulled up to this trailer.

They had me back right up to the porch.

which wasn't exactly the most clandestine location.

And they had me pop the trunk.

And then they started unloading the drug.

I had a stack of $100 bills slapped into my hand.

I just got out of there as quick as I could.

As I was driving away, I felt like I'd won the championship game.

But on that trip back, the worst possible thing happened.

And that was nothing.

It went smooth.

It was almost too easy.

And it sort of lulled me into a sense of, oh, this ain't so bad.

Now I know why Jake does this and makes all these mountains of money.

I felt great because I had pulled myself out of a financial fire.

So when

Jake paid me and said, I got another

one for you.

You're going to make $12 ,000 for a two -day drive.

going from El Paso to Memphis.

I threw all caution to the wind, and I agreed.

Well, I'm interested.

He said, I guess you're not Mr. Goody Two -Shoes who you thought you were.

I guess I'm not.

I think temptation's always there, but

if there was a test sent from the devil, it definitely was Jake.

I started doing loads and loads of runs.

I was making upwards of $50 ,000 on a good

week.

We were running drugs through all of the parts of the United States.

I started to feel pretty proud of myself to be making that kind of money.

During that time, I was hiding the money all around the house.

I would hang out with Jade and Byron.

I really trusted and placed a lot of faith in them.

And we became a crew.

Missy didn't ask what I was up to.

She just knew that the bills were getting paid and that there were no

I was finally starting to live my dream, but...

It was a price to pay because I wasn't doing it a legal way.

I lived a double life as a criminal and a father.

I always thought I could just step away from it and go back to my career, do

things honorably and respectably again.

But I kept thinking, I'm just going to make a little bit more money and I'll

out. I'll just make this much more and then I'm done.

I didn't realize it was this consuming.

trap of quicksand that was going to drag me in and drag my whole family down

with it.

Then one day Jake rocks up.

Hey! We gotta take a quick trip to Mexico.

Jake was taking me to the drug cartel in Juarez.

Going to Mexico, beautiful country, beautiful people, but it is a very

place. Guada is run by the cartel.

We pulled up to some palatial mansion with security guards out front.

They had earpieces, the whole shebang.

I was terrified because seeing the guys with guns was like everything I'd seen

in the movies.

Jake told me, hey, watch yourself.

These are serious people.

I remember thinking, wow, I'm getting in too deep.

My fate was already sealed when I walked in that door.

It was almost like flowing off a cliff.

This guy came down the staircase.

This is the cartel boss.

The man that we buy the drugs from introduces himself.

His name is Adan.

And then he told me he wanted me to bring his cut of Jake's drug money down

into Mexico.

You're going to do my money runs for me.

And that was the most dangerous part of the job.

We are not going to the U .S. to get our money.

You are going to bring it to us.

As he was talking, I was looking at Jake thinking, what did you sign me up for?

I recently had two couriers killed in a robbery.

I have no idea what would have happened if I said, no, I don't want to do that.

But I sure wasn't going to find out.

And so I said, okay.

Now go.

I just had this horrible sense of dread because I knew that now I had a whole

new world of problems ahead of me.

I didn't know the rules to the game anymore.

They had changed because the cartel was involved.

I was now on their radar.

I was no longer some anonymous guy in a car.

They can just decide at any moment, you're done and you're done.

A week later, after getting back from a drug run, I get a phone call from the

cartel boss to do my first money run.

He said, stay alive and deliver the money.

Madan wants his money.

He didn't care how I did it. I just had to get it done.

Jake gave me a backpack full of money and told me just cross the bridge, get

through Juarez, and get it into Adan's house.

The chances are of me being killed, this was huge.

Jake was so happy to not have to do the run himself. He said, take my

motorcycle, go down the sidewalks. go in between cars, lane split, and escape

the situation because their car won't catch you.

You're my boy?

Yeah. So like a good little soldier with a backpack full of money, I started

making my way down to Mexico.

I crossed the border in the water.

And,

of course, I was paranoid as everything.

I knew about the dangers of going into Mexico on these money runs.

People were getting robbed and getting shot.

As I was pulling up to an intersection on the motorcycle, I put my feet down.

I checked both mirrors, trying to see if there's any possible threats.

Then all of a sudden, to my right, a car pulls up really quickly.

I see two guys, and they pulled out guns.

Sitting on that motorcycle with a bunch of cash strapped to my back, looking at

a loaded gun pointed right at me, I realized that this is it. It could all

right now.

I was moments away from death.

I ran the throttle and got the hell out of there.

The adrenaline rush kicked in.

Just pure fear.

I had lost him.

When I gave Adan the money, he grabbed my arm and

started telling me, you're a good guy, you'll do well in this business.

I didn't think to myself, oh yeah, this is great, thanks for the recognition.

Have a safe journey home.

I was scared to death of dealing with the cartel.

The stakes were just getting higher and higher.

I got back to El Paso, and when I gave Jake his motorcycle back, he said, I got

another drug run for you to Wichita.

Your payday will be $20 ,000.

I knew I was on a path that was not going to end well.

In the beginning, he really looked out for his friends, but more and more, he

didn't care what the consequences were for other people.

So I made the decision I'd had enough, but to get out, I needed a little bit

more money.

So I decided, let's do this.

Loaded up about 250 pounds of marijuana in the trunk of my car.

Driving out of El Paso, I had a briefcase with me, suit hanging on the

behind me.

Everything to make it look like I was a traveling salesman.

But I felt a level of stress.

And uncertainty and unease that I don't think I've ever felt before in my entire

life.

As

luck

would have it, it went smooth past the checkpoint.

But something was off that day.

Something felt wrong.

And I just kept feeling the urge to pull over and get a hotel room and just let

this bad feeling pass, but I didn't do it.

In the middle of the trip, around Amarillo, Texas, I saw a state trooper

just sitting there, and they eyeballed me the second I went by.

Tried not to look suspicious.

I wasn't speeding.

When I saw the flashing lights turn on in my rearview mirror, I couldn't

it.

I said,

I'm going for a day out at the golf course.

I thought I was going to get away with it.

And then I saw in my rearview mirror another car pull up.

I saw the two letters.

K -9.

We hadn't taken our normal precautions to mask the smell of the drugs.

Nothing I could say from that moment on was going to help. I just needed to keep

my mouth shut.

Step out of the car for me, please, sir.

The state trooper escorted me back to the front of his vehicle.

He's like, I'm just going to run the dog around your car.

Feeling of panic was building on me.

They go around the car with the dog.

The next thing you know, the cop says, oh, it hit.

We're going to search your car.

Pop the trunk.

I knew.

I was done. I was toast.

It was the most stupidly surreal moment of my life, as all the drugs were

revealed. Just like, oh, great.

I just felt my world from crashing in.

You have the right to remain silent. A state trooper slammed my face on the

of his car and started placing handcuffs on me.

The cops start high -fiving each other because they just got a big score.

250 pounds worth around $750 ,000.

I just wish the tornado would just magically drop out of the sky and just

me out.

This run had cost me everything.

transported me through Otter County jail.

They wanted to talk about Jake and Byron and I could talk to my attorney and

that's all I have to say.

I was loyal to Jake because he was my friend.

In the jumpsuit, in my cell,

It was frightening because I had no idea what to expect.

I'll never forget, as I was wondering how I was going to tell Missy, written

the bed was the words, you were here because you were stupid.

I don't think there's ever been a truer statement.

Missy? Missy was shocked.

She was angry.

She said, I can't believe that you're this dirty criminal.

Not only was I going to have to manage my criminal charges, I was going to have

to manage my marriage. I'm so sorry.

And her disappointment in me.

I told her, please get a hold of Jake. Get me out of here.

Me doing honorable things like becoming a stockbroker was out of reach.

Because who hires someone with a... Fell any conviction.

Time just slowed to a crawl in there.

It's kind of hard to find a place to cry.

You're basically just stuck, holding it all deep inside.

Just a complete feeling of hopelessness.

If I'm guilty of drug trafficking, I could be facing between two to 20 years

jail.

I was not cut out for that type of life.

After seven days, I heard my name.

They explained that J -Cat got me a very

high -powered attorney who deals specifically in drug cases.

So all of a sudden, I was out and free.

It was such an emotional relief.

Jail is a scary, lonely place.

Getting out of jail on bail was just a temporary solution to a big problem.

I was going to have to go to court at some point, possibly even have to go to

trial.

But at least I wasn't sleeping in a prison that night.

When I got back home to Missy, I

don't think a word was spoken.

The arrest was a massive game changer for me and Missy.

I had really let her down.

I met with Jake and Byron.

I wanted to reassure Jake that I hadn't talked to the cops.

I thought he'd be proud of me for holding the line and staying true and

loyal and keeping my mouth shut.

The meeting went in a way that I didn't expect it to take.

He's like, you were speeding, weren't you?

I realized, wow, the honeymoon's over for me and Jake.

This was the beginning of the cracks in the facade.

I'm going to have to give you my plan B.

I've not said anything to anyone and it's staying that way.

That night, I was taking a shower.

I heard a loud bang at the front door.

I immediately grabbed a towel.

Make my way to where I heard the commotion.

I find Jake and this big guy I'd never seen before sitting on my couch.

And Jake says, hey, this is Hank.

He's my insurance policy.

Hank looks at me and says, sit down.

He was one of the scariest people I'd ever seen.

He just had that mean death look that you just see from someone who has no

He looks me square in the eyes and says, if you talk to the cops.

I'm going to kill your kids.

I'm going to take your wife, cut her up.

And then I'm going to torture you for two days.

And whatever is left of you, I'm going to burn it.

I was scared out of my mind.

And it took everything I had to hold myself together.

Those words were thinned onto my soul at that moment.

Are you my boy?

This was a person that I trusted.

The betrayal I felt was unimaginable.

It was gut -wrenching to know that everything I had invested in my

had all just come to this.

To stay alive, I needed to take my family and get out of El Paso, start a

chapter.

But I was filled with so much hate and rage from the betrayal that the

motivation was unbelievable.

The very next decision I made was that no matter what it cost me personally, I

was going to protect my family.

I decided I was going to take Jake down.

I was going to go to the DEA and I was going to crush him.

When I decided to turn myself in to the DEA, my plan

was to give them every bit of information and that it'd be over and

I wasn't safe.

until Jake was in jail.

I confessed to every crime I had committed in the past two years.

But he just said, sorry, it's not enough.

We need you to go back inside and get us some fresh information.

We need you to be an informant for us.

My handler wanted me to wear a wire.

I think you know what this is.

Once they caught him in the act, then they could prosecute him about

he had done before.

It's time for you to make friends with Jake again, Chris. They wanted the big

score.

They taped things to my ankle, to my back.

Now I needed to become best friends with Jake again, even though he had just

threatened my family.

I honestly didn't know how I was going to do that.

Hey, Jake. But I go to Jake's house.

What? I was already pretty amped up because I'm wearing a wire for the first

time.

That thing?

Eh, you know.

If Jake discovered me wearing a wire, I don't see how the DEA would have

protected me. How's business?

I tried everything I could to get a conversation started.

Any lows coming in?

Hoping that he'd say something stupid.

And nothing.

As I'm sitting there, hoping he doesn't see any of the bulges in my pockets or

taped to my leg, he comes out snapping the taser.

Yeah, let's go to the mall and taste some people. Let's go test this baby

I wondered if Jake was really just playing with me.

I couldn't believe what he had transformed into.

He was turning into a monster.

But I couldn't give up.

I could only see two possible consequences if I failed to complete my

They were going to charge me and put me in jail, or I was going to be murdered.

The DEA sometimes don't prosecute a case unless they have thousands of hours of

information.

I would record things that I thought was important.

Jake's kind of reckless in some of the things he said on phone conversations.

I gave the DEA tons on Jake's operation, but all that information simply went

up, and nothing came back down to me. They always just handed me some more

tapes, and they said, get back to work.

The fear was constant, never -ending.

I never, ever forgot about Hank.

I did everything I could to protect my family. I hid weapons around the house

that I could easily reach if an intruder kicked in the front door.

If I thought life was bad when I was broke and getting arrested, this was

as bad as it could be.

I knew that I was going to have to use my ingenuity to catch the guy. The

break finally came when he needed a new stash house.

I immediately said, I'll rent a place. You can use me as a stash house.

Jake fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Okay.

Let's sort it out. This was the perfect chance to catch him in the act.

My handler found a place in central El Paso that had a separate garage.

The DEA installed cameras everywhere, microphones.

Finally, Jake calls and tells me that a load is coming in. And I was like, no

problem.

All the wheels were in motion and I couldn't wait.

As I drove to the stash house, I was convinced

that helicopters were going to swoop in and people were going to fall out of the

sky and it was going to be great.

But, uh...

The day didn't exactly turn out like that.

Jake and Byron pulled up with the load.

And Jake was exuberant.

This was going to make him a lot of money.

By him placing several thousand pounds of weed in the stash house, he far

exceeded our expectations.

Jake was setting his own trap.

No drive.

Yeah.

I liked Byron when I tried to warn him.

I said, do you want to be loyal to someone that's not going to be loyal to

Byron was like, I'd rather be an animal in jail than a rat on the outside.

His loyalty was misplaced because Jake had absolutely no loyalty to him.

But watching Byron drive off with the first load and Jake follow him, it was

like watching a balloon release.

Called my handler, and gleefully I said, he's red -handed, go get him.

It was all in the DEA's hands, and all I had to do was sit back and wait for the

fireworks.

I was anxiously just basically waiting in limbo, waiting for a call from my

handler saying, hey, we busted him, it's done, you can go back to your normal

life.

But a few hours later, that's not the call I got.

The next call I got was the one I didn't expect.

Hey, Chris.

It was Jake.

And he's like, I'm in Mexico.

Jake was in pure panic mode.

He said Byron got pulled over, got pulled out, he got arrested.

And I'm like, what did you do? And he said, I pulled into a parking lot where

could watch everything go down.

State trooper searched the vehicle, found the drugs.

And then very quickly, DEA agents pulled up on the scene.

He told me that he immediately freaked out and ran to Mexico.

And I'm like, this is crazy.

I had to make it look like I was in this with him.

I said, what are you going to do? And he told me, well, just wait.

And at that moment, I knew that any plans I'd had had completely come off

rails.

I immediately called my handler and asked him, what the hell? He told me the

date was going to be over.

And he said our plan was to go catch him at his house.

But somehow he slipped away.

Ice ran through my veins at that point.

I think Jake was super suspicious of me with him being free.

Then my family wasn't safe.

He could have personally went to my house with a gun.

A week later, we were out shopping and

turned a corner and boom, there was Hank.

Feeling of panic that just instantly overwhelmed me was unbelievable.

Just left all the stuff in the cart, just got us the hell out of there.

He got a grin on his face and he said, nice family.

The fear that Jake could give Hank the green light to just take me out, I was

filled with so much hate and rage you couldn't imagine.

I kept pleading to my handler and saying, you need to go arrest Jake right

And I kept getting the same answer over and over.

You have no jurisdiction across the border.

They couldn't go get him down in Mexico. Hold on, just wait. You know, be

patient.

Missy had placed her hope and trust in me, but I didn't deliver the things that

I had promised.

I didn't give her the American dream.

I don't want to stay here anymore.

All I gave her was problems and misery.

I realized my marriage may not survive this.

One day turned into 10, turned into 100.

I felt completely defeated.

The case against Jake was dying on the vine.

The DEA just couldn't get anything on the guy. He was untouchable.

It was as if he was protected by Satan himself.

And all of a sudden, one day, I get called by my handler.

Yeah? And he says, Jake's dead.

That shot through my soul.

It was one of the most powerful electrifying jolts I'd ever felt.

Then my next question was, well, where's the body?

He's like, all we found was his truck, but we presume he's dead.

That's what I think. That's what the office thinks.

They had found his vehicle somewhere in St. Louis, Missouri, and the spare tire

hidden was a couple hundred thousand dollars.

And that was it.

They didn't find the body. They didn't find any luggage.

The rumors were he owed the cartel a half million dollars.

Maybe someone that he crossed came to get what they thought they were owed.

It's a mystery what happened to him, but my job was done. It died somewhere in

the Midwest.

I remember the joy I felt because for me it was over.

My family was safe.

Jake's dead.

When I told Missy, I was so excited, I said, we won.

And she looks me in the eye and says, no, nobody won.

We all lost.

As for Jake, it will always be a mystery.

There's tons of conspiracy theories, but I learned that Jake's family had a

memorial service.

So if the people close to him believe that he's dead, then I believe he's

But just in case, I will always have a gun by my side.

My wife and I separated.

I have no doubt that the strain of this experience played a major part in

wrecking my marriage.

In the beginning, I thought the only thing that mattered was being rich.

But the path I went down 20 years ago was such a destructive path, it's kind

like I never found my way.

There are doors that I'll never be able to open that I wanted to open because of

my past.

People hear my story and they say, yeah, but you're a rat.

And I go, okay, but I'm a free one.

I will never tell anyone I'm a good man, but I sure try to be one.