Original subtitles

If you want to know who's in charge in a territory, ask the people.

And yes, people are the ones who are going to tell you If the government rules or the mafia rules.

And, today, in Sinaloa, We have been in charge of the mafia for many years.

And people know it.

Who rules in a mafia? The most bastard, without a doubt, right?

Everyone told you that May ruled.

Here they called "the gentleman with the hat."

All drug dealers They told you: "No, we don't talk about May."

Because they know that if they opened their mouths,

maybe it would be the last time that they would have the opportunity to do so.

That was the level of fear, of respect,

that they had someone like Ismael "el Mayo" Zambada García.

To the boss of bosses.

On July 25, 24

It will mark a before and after in the history of drug trafficking in Mexico.

The mafia respects even its enemies.

What he does not admit is betrayal.

On July 25, 2024,

I went to the ranch and event center called Huertos del Pedregal,

on the outskirts of Culiacán.

The meeting was scheduled for 11 in the morning.

I saw many armed men with green military uniforms,

which I assumed were gunmen of Joaquín Guzmán and his brothers.

I saw Joaquín Guzmán López, whom I have known since I was little.

Relying on the nature of the meeting, I followed him without hesitation.

They ambushed me.

A group of men assaulted me,

he threw me to the ground and placed me a dark colored hood on the head.

They tied me up and handcuffed me,

and then they forced me to get in in the bed of a truck.

Then they took me to a landing strip,

where they forced me to get on a private plane.

One of the founders of the Sinaloa cartel, Mayo Zambada,

was detained in the United States together with Joaquín Guzmán López.

He was arrested along with the son of the drug trafficker El Chapo.

Mayo Zambada, the untouchable,

the one who had never been arrested in half a century.

The one who had never set foot in a prison.

They fell, he said, from the sky, to the FBI.

Federal authorities they haven't explained yet

how those men ended that night on a rural landing strip.

But no source suggests that have deviated in mid-flight.

This case seems taken from a drug novel.

This morning the trial began

which will last at least four months.

EL CHAPO COURT IN BROOKLYN

Extreme security in front of the federal court in New York,

where the trial begins against Joaquín "el Chapo" Guzmán.

MEXICAN CAPO COULD RECEIVE LIFE

The police even Brooklyn Bridge will close

every time Guzmán is transferred from prison to court.

The rise destructive and violent of Guzmán

as an international drug trafficker

it was like a small tumor

that metastasized until it became a great scourge.

This is a powerful individual, a powerful criminal,

the most infamous criminal of the modern era.

When Chapo's trial begins,

I remember that I arrived with a colleague and I started laughing.

Because? Because I saw the tanks, I saw the entire federal building surrounded.

What were you waiting for?

A group of gunmen of the Sinaloa cartel

that they will arrive on the subway train to leave

or in helicopters, small planes:

"We're coming for our boss"?

Because it was El Chapo.

Because that was the image that the DEA created for him.

Mayo and El Chapo were, for almost 25 years,

the central figures of the Sinaloa cartel.

But their styles They couldn't be more different.

El Chapo was ostentatious, an iconic public figure.

On the other hand, Mayo Zambada was,

during his 40 or 50 year career, a ghost

Mayo had a very important presence throughout the entire trial.

In fact, on the first day of the trial, when Chapo's lawyer

presented his opening statement before the jury,

he proceeded to blame everything on Mayo.

What I held

was that, although Chapo Guzmán was the most famous member,

of the Sinaloa cartel,

Mayo Zambada

He was the brain of the organization.

Maybe, at some point, they can go

by people who have sunbathed

during the last 40 or 50 years and they haven't stopped.

Two of the main witnesses in the Chapo trial

They were King Zambada, brother of Mayo Zambada,

and Vicente Zambada,

his eldest son and main heir.

Your Honor, the prosecution calls Vicente Zambada Niebla to testify.

Mr. Zambada, where are you from?

From Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico.

- Who is your father? - Ismael Zambada García.

Does your father have a nickname?

Yes, "el Mayo" is the most common.

And then, King Zambada

gave to the jury a real master class

about the operation of the Sinaloa cartel.

"This is the structure. That's how money works.

This is how we control the airports. "This is how we bribe officials."

I came to think which was a bloody opera.

From the stand extravagant stories were heard,

full of violence, desire and betrayal, one day after another.

The trial of Chapo Guzmán

he put us on the table the most important clues

In order to understand who he was, At that time, he was a fugitive,

Ismael "el Mayo" Zambada García.

Between 1975 and 1985, his brother

was involved in heroin and marijuana trafficking.

His brother is Mayo.

Correct.

The red poppy, so beautiful and innocent looking.

The red poppy, so beautiful and...

The red poppy, so beautiful and...

...so beautiful and...

Ismael "el Mayo" Zambada García

started working with drug trafficking in the seventies.

Well, all the people in Sinaloa trafficked some type of marijuana or heroin,

not on a large scale.

I was born in 1961.

Being in full adolescence,

we weren't talking about drug trafficking,

we weren't talking about drug traffickers, of organized crime.

We called them "gomeros".

Why were they called gomeros?

Because the poppies, poppy bulbs,

They grated and released the sap,

which was very thick and constituted in a gummy product.

This is raw opium, known in Spanish as "goma".

And then it was that opium gum

the one they brought from the mountains to the Tierra Blanca colony,

which was where the laboratories were, who then transformed her into a heroine

and that it was going to be exported, Well, illegally to the US.

On the main routes towards the US border,

Mexico installed checkpoints to detect heroin,

instead of destroying crops.

But there is too much traffic and too many places to hide it.

Some Mexican officials complain

that this campaign is extensive and expensive benefits the US

well they say that heroin

It's an American problem. not a Mexican problem.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Government pressure from the United States to Mexico

causes the Mexican army and the federal police

start getting more into Sinaloa.

In the flowering season, 2000 Mexican soldiers

they travel through the mountains stop destroying poppy crops

may they find before the flowers are harvested

and converted into opium and heroin

for sale to consumers in the United States.

Who knows how many thousands of soldiers had come to Sinaloa,

They had waged a fierce battle. against drug trafficking

and in particular against the Gomeros.

The then governor of Sinaloa, Alfonso Genaro Calderón,

says that drug trafficking has been eradicated from Sinaloa.

Today, drug trafficking is dead, but laughing.

And today we speak to him as well as the cockroach effect.

Indeed, they left Sinaloa, but they went to Jalisco.

In Jalisco, with the Guadalajara cartel.

And that is where the mastery for the transfer of drugs from Mayo...

is founded.

Did your brother start trafficking cocaine?

I was working with cocaine at the time.

With Miguel Félix Gallardo in particular, the Godfather, correct?

Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo.

After a citizen complaint,

the authorities arrived to a winery north of Los Angeles,

where they performed the greatest cocaine seizure in history.

In the mid-eighties,

started registering huge cocaine seizures

in the Los Angeles area.

Researchers believe that cocaine

came from the two Colombian cartels most important.

Miami was thought to be the base of Colombian organizations,

but we realized that there had been an important change.

Do you see the name?

"Smuggler's Blues."

Colombian organizations from drug trafficking they had so many losses

for seizures when trying to introduce Cocaine in Florida

they made a deal with the Guadalajara cartel.

More than half of cocaine entering the US

enter through Mexico.

With the arrival of cocaine in Guadalajara,

they became in the axis of drug trafficking.

Ouch!

Chiquita.

Ismael "el Mayo" Zambada García

He was one of the gunmen of the Guadalajara cartel.

El Chapo was also part of that group.

The love of my life.

Very good!

Mayo always stood out for being a brave man.

For fighting with anyone,

and even beatings.

There is an anecdote from the La Langosta restaurant,

which was in Guadalajara, for seafood.

I never had...

El Mayo hit a group of police officers with fists,

and challenged three of them without guns.

...poorer than me.

And he gave them.

The American Enrique Camarena Salazar

He traveled to Mexico to fight to international drug traffickers.

Today, the anti-drug agent He was transferred to California with honors.

A hero in a coffin covered with the flag.

In February 1985, the Guadalajara cartel

kidnapped and murdered to a DEA agent, Kiki Camarena.

The US government I needed to send a strong message:

if you kidnap, murder or hurt to a DEA agent,

The US would go for you.

Wherever you are,

we will find you and take you before American justice.

Between 85 and 89, somehow,

the Mexican government is forced to beheaded

with the imprisonment of the leaders of drug trafficking to that corporation.

In less than a week,

two of the three leaders of the Mexican cartel "La Familia"

they were captured and now they are behind bars.

The triumvirate in Guadalajara disappeared.

Mayo and Chapo returned to Sinaloa.

They arrived in Culiacán.

And they enter the mountains.

But with everything they had already learned,

eh, especially May,

eh, he replied very well.

The big difference since then he never liked the spotlight

and always knew

that the character of his compadre,

the ambition he had to take over of the territories to transfer drugs,

They were going to cause problems for the business.

It was a normal day.

As always, they got rid power struggles between cartels.

At that moment, El Chapo He was at war with the Arellanos.

El Chapo was heading to the airport.

And Cardinal Posadas Ocampo I was also going to the airport.

At the same time. What a coincidence!

And in the parking lot a shootout broke out.

Truly tragic news

of recorded events in Guadalajara, in the capital of Jalisco.

El Chapo escapes, the cardinal dies.

But they would attribute to El Chapo the death of the cardinal.

Fifteen million pesos, equivalent to five million dollars,

for people that provide information

leading to capture of drug traffickers

Joaquín Guzmán Loera, aka El Chapo Guzmán.

Joaquín "el Chapo" Guzmán

was captured on the Talisman International Bridge

on the Suchiate River, in Guatemala territory.

Then, it was delivered to the Mexican authorities.

The objective who is now in custody in Mexico

it was Joaquín Guzmán, a drug trafficker from Sinaloa.

From there, everyone knew his name.

- Chapo Guzmán. - Chapo...

- El Chapo. - El Chapo.

- Are you involved in drugs? - No.

- What do you do? - I am a farmer.

The assassination of the cardinal Posadas Ocampo was a turning point

in the trajectory of May and Chapo Guzmán Loera.

Chapo Guzmán arrested in 1993

and they send him to Puente Grande prison.

And he was held there for eight years.

So in those eight years is that Mayo Zambada

turns your head and the coordinator with the most responsibility

of leading to the Sinaloa cartel.

And, at that time,

Mayo Zambada was in charge of co-opting

and make an agreement with the governors of Sinaloa

and with the mayors and with the heads of the military zone.

Sinaloa I think it is the clearest example

of, say, a governor in the real shadow

whose name is Ismael "Mayo" Zambada.

What did your brother, Mayo, tell you? about the release of the accused from prison?

In mid-January 2001, my brother arrived at my house in Acapulco.

We are now in Acapulco, Mexico.

Looking down from the hill. Wow!

JANUARY 17, 2001 1:22:17 P.M.

JANUARY 17, 2001 2:01:05 P.M.

He told me: "We have to go because my friend Chapo is getting out of jail."

I asked him: "When is it coming out?"

And he told me: "He's going to run away."

After eight years in prison,

the boss would star a film leak.

Guzmán escaped from Mexican authorities

with money, bribes and a laundry truck.

One of the key moments in the history of the Sinaloa cartel:

El Chapo just escaped from prison for the first time.

It's in its moment weaker and more vulnerable.

He's been locked up for years.

And the law is after him.

Well, who do you turn to?

To the boss of bosses, to his compadre.

Ismael "el Mayo" Zambada.

My brother asked me to find a safe place

where a helicopter could land.

At seven in the morning, the helicopter appeared.

And El Chapo came in it.

My brother was happy.

There was an interesting dynamic. between these two leaders at that time.

Mayo had the advantage.

My friend Chapo said that, at this moment, he was not doing well financially.

May sees an opportunity to consolidate his power.

And he decides to back Chapo with money.

My compadre Chapo thanked him

and they agreed that, from now on,

"of each kilo of cocaine that you receive from Colombia,

I'm going to give you half."

In other words, at that moment, they became partners.

Checking the date, that's when it grows...

notably

control of territories and the transfer of drugs in Mexico.

If the US drowns in cocaine,

Mexico opened the floodgates.

Agents assure that they sent it

in every way imaginable.

One year they hid cocaine in cans of jalapeno peppers.

The following year, in plaster statues of Jesus.

They say his men were hiding cocaine

in hollowed cucumbers and bananas, in thousands of them.

From then on, Mayo and Chapo

They formed one of the alliances most successful criminals

of the history of organized crime.

- Good. Only your silhouette is seen. - Wow! Alright.

- Is that okay? Yeah? - Yes, it looks good.

I should comb my hair, right?

My name is Margarito Flores. I was born and raised in Chicago,

in a neighborhood called Little Village.

I have an identical twin whose name is Pedro.

SEIZED HEROIN

my father was a known drug trafficker.

5 KG OF HEROIN

We helped him.

From harvest, packaging and the burden of marijuana

in the gas tank.

He taught us how to compress marijuana in very small packages.

He taught us how to use a scale triple arm from a very young age.

We didn't even have eight.

For our family, That upbringing was normal.

We started in 1998.

We made our first million before 18.

And that life caught us.

We moved between 1800 and 2200 kilos of cocaine per month

in the Chicago area and nearby cities,

like Minneapolis, Milwaukee and St. Louis.

We had a system in which we received between 300 and 400 kilos every three days

of the Sinaloa cartel.

As? we met in the parking lot of a Denny's

at 6 a.m. m.

The truck was parked

with the keys in the visor or under the mat.

It was a very strange truck. It looked like kidnappers.

And my brother hated her

because I felt that attracted too much attention.

We got into the truck, We were going to unload the drugs,

we returned it to the same place and we were leaving.

After September 11,

Cocaine prices skyrocketed.

My brother and I had a winery with a huge amount of kilos.

And we take advantage of it.

That was the point we passed from being common drug traffickers

to convert some of the most important.

We admired Chapo and Mayo.

Just like the kids growing up in Chicago They admired Michael Jordan.

They were our Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.

We had offered a million dollars whoever introduced us to Mayo or Chapo.

In hindsight it's like they say: "Be careful what you wish for."

Pedro and Margarito Flores

were well known to the authorities from Chicago for a long time.

They were of age of some drug sellers,

but its operation It was, that is, impressive for its size.

How much money did they earn?

Eh, a lot.

That is equivalent to billions of dollars.

They received large shipments,

They brought them safely into the United States.

and then they divided them into quantities easier to transport.

The most shocking It was how effective everything was.

and that almost all the drugs entered through legal ports.

Not only in Chicago, but throughout the United States.

So, very soon, rose within the cartel

and, so to speak, they became in preferred customers

of the Sinaloa cartel.

BORDER PATROL

I took office on September 11, 2001.

They hired me as a special agent US Customs

to combat drug trafficking and money laundering.

POLICE US CUSTOMS

The Sinaloa cartel controlled most of the border

between Mexico and the US. since the 90s.

In 92 or 93 they discovered the first drug tunnel in Douglas, Arizona.

Authorities say it appears a James Bond movie.

Named "Cocaine Alley."

An underground tunnel as long as a football field

that connects Mexico and Arizona.

I was under a pool table mounted on a platform.

This showed the magnitude of the volume of drugs

that the Sinaloa cartel could be smuggled in.

They had to count with great financial backing

and have been trafficking drugs for a long time.

Thank you, Yvette.

And also the ingenuity that was behind everything.

When they weren't using it to traffic drugs,

smugglers flooded it.

If we approached with technology to detect it,

if it was flooded, It would look like an underground stream.

It is a work of engineering extremely sophisticated.

Our responsibility was to determine who controlled

the most important sections of the US-Mexico border.

Who made the money

and who was behind of homicides and kidnappings.

Mayo Zambada had been doing this for decades.

People knew who he was, but it was very strategic.

I wasn't in the public eye, There were no photos of him either.

Yes, there were drug murders who pointed it out,

but it was convenient for him that El Chapo will grab attention

because that's how it could operate with much more freedom.

They did what was necessary to traffic drugs.

We, what is necessary to catch and imprison them.

It was a game of cat and mouse.

Chicago police achieved his largest cocaine seizure.

They seized more two tons of drugs.

One day I turned on the television and a breaking news appeared.

A seizure of 2000 kilos in the Denny's parking lot.

Largest cocaine seizure in the history of the city.

With value in the streets of almost 240 million dollars.

Today, three men are detained

with a bail of 500 million dollars.

Those who supplied us They had just been arrested.

And they showed the truck about which we complained so much.

We got rid of the phones, the vehicles and the safe house.

And we accept that we would have to hide in Mexico.

When we arrived in Mexico,

we start working with a friend of my father, Lupe.

He became in our main supplier of cocaine.

But we start to have problems and disagreements

and we finish the business relationship with him.

That made Lupe angry.

And, in April 2005, He asked to meet my brother.

And they violently kidnapped him.

Days later I received a call.

A man said that, if he didn't pay 10 million,

They would kill my brother.

I hung up, I was on the road towards Sinaloa.

They put me in an armored truck

and they took me to the outskirts of Culiacán, to a corn field.

They took the plane out, One turned it on and told me:

"Now, let's go." It was him, the pilot and me.

He told me: "You'll be fine, come up."

And we take off.

We are heading towards the mountains of Sinaloa.

I started to get nervous. I thought, "Oh, maybe I won't come back."

It was a hillside and we landed uphill.

When you reach the end of the track, There were several armed men.

Hitmen with military uniforms.

They were sitting. It was very hot.

It was summer in Sinaloa.

They took me to a man who walked from one side to the other.

El Chapo.

I was impressed. I couldn't believe I was meeting him.

He glanced at me in passing and then looked at me again.

Like, "Who is he?" I thought he was waiting for me.

I told him: "I'm Margarito Flores, "I come for my brother."

He just nodded.

And he said, "Do you have money to pay?"

I answered him: "Well, I don't owe the 10 million."

And he told me: "That's what everyone says."

I told him: "Well, I move, on average, 2200 kilos a month for you.

I make the payments, I receive the drugs and I take care of everything."

And he said, "That's not what Lupe says.

Lupe says you owe him the money and you don't want to pay."

And he told me: "I don't care about 10 million.

For me, it's nothing to kill you and your brother and resolve this."

And I told him:

"Sir, with all due respect.

I thought this It was a word business.

I just have my word.

"I'm here for my brother."

And he kept looking at me.

And he crossed his arms like that.

He asked me: "Are you and your brother identical twins?"

I said, "Yes, sir."

"And they look very similar?"

I said, “He looks like me.

But it's a little uglier."

I said it to break the ice. And he laughed.

He said: "I just lost my brother.

There is no money in the world May your brother's life be worth it.

Pay the 10 million, come back,

and we will continue working together."

And they freed my brother.

Five days later, I received another call.

He said: "The boss is waiting for you."

We went to Culiacán.

I remember that the property had walls of at least five meters.

When the doors opened, There were about 12 or 14 men.

But I saw a hat.

I knew immediately it was him.

He shook my hand and said: "Ismael 'el Mayo' Zambada.

I finally meet the famous twins.

"My God, they are identical," he said. "Which of the two did we have tied up?

It has to be you! Look at you! How do you feel? How many kilos do you sell?"

And we told him, and he:

"Imagine if you were triplets. "Imagine how much money they would make."

He told everyone: "Look, these men are special.

Move that amount of drugs In the US it is impossible.

I tried, and I am Mayo Zambada."

That's when I knew we were at the top of drug trafficking.

Many traffickers say: "I am Chapo Guzmán's people."

But to say that you were people from Mayo Zambada were different.

That was the team you wanted to be on.

We earn your respect in business.

"You look a lot like me," he said. "I have been Mayo Zambada for more than 30 years."

Sometimes he talked about himself in third person.

He didn't talk about it with pride. He said it as a fact.

As if to say: "That's why I'm Mayo Zambada."

Without a doubt, he knew exactly who he was.

- Hey, my friend. - Tell me.

- And are you from Sinaloa? - No, buddy. Sinaloa is mine.

They nickname him the MZ.

Others call him Godfather.

You already know his name

even newborns.

They look for him everywhere,

and the man is not even hidden.

El Mayo Zambada, he was from a different school

with a different thought regarding criminal work.

So,

our intelligence work,

when we did it in a compartmentalized way...

The fewer people I knew of our intentions,

we could achieve the surprise.

We left early, at six in the morning,

and we changed the route along the way.

Every time we went down, there was no one.

Everyone had already left.

It generated a certain effect of helplessness in us, some frustration.

People have no idea how difficult it is

carry out an operation of this type.

I mean, it seems, eh, incredible to think about, but...

we didn't have a picture by Ismael Zambada García.

- It's insured, they've already taken it down. - It seems that one is missing.

in an operation which was done in 2001,

my people found images that they left them in a vehicle

which, we estimate, was there being used by Mayo Zambada.

And that's where we had an image of his face.

Why was the credential from Zambada García in your truck?

- Because he left her there. - Because?

-He left her there. - So, he was with you?

- Yes, he walked. Yes it was. - Yeah?

A credential that had his photo and with another name, obviously.

That will be it, right? The one below?

- Let's see. - Look.

- Was it this? - That. Exactly.

Before he was like a ghost.

But now we knew it did exist.

The act of counting with an image, and very recent...

Well, this is essential.

In order to reach its culmination, which is to apprehend them.

Do you want to see the face of evil? Here you have it.

The DEA says he is one of the drug traffickers more violent and richer.

And he'll do whatever, whatever to gain and retain power.

The Mexican police he says it looks like this photo.

The DEA placed his image in huge spectaculars

on the highways between Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Today, the Department of Justice announces

the accusation against Ismael Zambada García

for conspiring to import and distribute cocaine.

Where is Zambada García?

He is believed to be in Mexico.

But he is not detained in Mexico.

Do you think they were close to capture him during this investigation?

We don't believe we have had...

a real chance to capture it.

The Mexican authorities They arrested several people,

but Zambada García was not among them.

Yes sir?

Namaste. Namaste.

We carry out many operations to achieve his capture.

Through intelligence,

we were able to know

that Ismael used to go...

Every day that spring began,

I used to go to Chichen Itza.

Welcome to Chichen Itza, in southern Mexico.

Today we celebrate Sun Earth Day, and the spring equinox.

It was very mystical.

He used to go and receive the rays and all the energy and so on.

many people say we don't find anything here,

but if we go up on the pillar of the pyramid...

That's why it tends the energy down,

and we are going to receive it in all of this here.

So, we did an operation there.

We went like tourists with shorts, with a cap.

We all spread out around the pyramid of Chichen Itza.

We went to try to capture him.

- Oh? - Have you already seen?

Look, there are the police. Up there.

Yes, the police.

Unfortunately there were thousands of people.

Look at Kukulcán. Here it comes!

Let's look at Kukulcán!

People are going crazy!

We don't know if it was or on that occasion he did not come

to the custom he carried out.

But, that time, I don't know if...

We didn't see it.

I think what made it unique Mayo Zambada was its simplicity.

Mayo was like a cowboy.

He loved ranch life: the cattle, the bulls, the horses and the countryside.

Once we went to a ranch

and had bought some Swiss bulls very expensive, a million dollars.

I was very happy. Like a child with a new toy.

He came closer and said, "Look. "These are eggs."

And he grabbed the bulls' testicles.

That is, with both hands. They were huge!

Mayo Zambada had many children.

Vicente Zambada.

Ismael, Fat Mayito,

Ismael, the Skinny Mayito,

and his youngest son, named Seraphim.

El Chapo Guzmán had at least six children with different women.

With Griselda He had Ovid, Joachim and Edgar.

And, with Alejandrina, He had Jesús Alfredo and Iván.

In general, everyone looked as one family.

I met Vicente the same day as May.

He got up immediately. He carried an AR-15 on his shoulder.

Mayo Zambada said: "He is my son", proud.

They called him "The Child."

"The Child", not just any child. "The boy."

It was the symbol of that pride of lions.

He knew that, one day, he would be king.

Then I met the other juniors. They didn't look anything like him.

My first reaction when I met to Édgar Guzmán, the son of Chapo,

who was younger and had a defiant attitude,

who made big movements inside the cartel

and he made a name for himself, It was that he was very different from Vicente.

Edgar, the eldest son of Chapo Guzmán,

It was a guy, a young man,

who liked to take advantage and prove that he had money.

There are several stories how he got to the clubs

and I wanted, as we say in Mexico,

take down the girlfriend from the others if he liked the girl.

And he sent to his safety

to tell the young man he was accompanying to the girl he liked

that he had better give in to his companion

because, otherwise, they were going to kill him.

Or at least give him a beating which he would never forget.

They didn't know much about the business or anything like that.

His thing was more the party.

They were younger, they had a great time partying, drinking and using cocaine.

In the end, they were the heirs. They had power and money.

The Zambadas and the Guzmáns They were one family.

It was like a reunion of cousins.

I, for a long time, I thought it was a happy cartel.

But little by little I realized that it was not like that.

At that time, the Sinaloa cartel It was divided into three factions.

The organization of Arturo Beltrán Leyva and his brothers.

The organization of Mayo Zambada.

And the organization of Chapo Guzmán.

We had a business relationship very close with all three.

But there were internal conflicts out of jealousy and drug trafficking routes.

And it was starting to get out of control.

Mexicans demand to live in a safe way,

in peace, without anxiety and without fear.

Citizens demand that it end

with corruption, impunity and injustice.

People want to recover tranquility and certainty.

Felipe Calderon, when he wins the presidency,

We had, uh, a very complicated moment

for the explosion of very strong violence.

There were already four wars in progress.

Executions that are recorded daily

are due to rearrangement in the drug cartels

and the dispute over territories.

Then a new conflict begins. of the most violent,

with the breakup of the Sinaloa cartel.

They were tied hand and foot with traces of torture.

Three targeted messages were located To Chapo Guzmán and Mayo Zambada.

El Chapo wanted to get rid of of the Beltrán Leyva.

Because? Well, because they were fighting by what is the control of the business.

And he said: "You better I'll put them in front of me."

And send Mochomo to jail.

Alfredo Beltrán Leyva alias "el Mochomo"

is considered as one of the main bosses

in the structure of the organization.

Filtration to stop al Mochomo came from Chapo Guzmán.

It was a scandalous note.

What we do not imagine is that this was going to generate a war.

Edgar, who was just over 20 years old,

died shot in a supermarket in Culiacán.

It was an exaggeration.

It was a retaliation for handing over Mochomo to the Mexican authorities.

In a land of anarchy, Edgar felt untouchable.

And maybe it was.

But not among criminals.

Shortly after, I was able to give

condolences to Chapo for the death of his son.

And he was kind of surprised. and said, "Thank you."

Like "Thanks, huh."

The family of the bosses did not touch each other.

And there that unwritten rule was broken.

It is a very quiet city

that, tonight, it became a war zone.

El Chapo did react also with violence.

In the world of Mexican cartels,

practically, It was World War III.

Some time later, in 2008,

we received a call from a man from Mayo Zambada.

He explained to us that the May I was listening to the call.

And, in a few words, he said: "This is a friendly warning.

"We only do it once."

"If we find out that they receive a gram of cocaine from the Beltrán Leyva,

"They are going to pay for it with their lives."

Mm. I said, "Got it."

Now we were in the middle of a war.

My intuition told me that it wasn't going to end well.

Out of nowhere, the Flores twins

They came forward to collaborate with the US Government

We couldn't believe those words came out of our mouths.

I wanted to cooperate.

I told them, "This is life or death. They have to understand it.

There is no turning back. "This will reach the highest levels."

And they asked: "Who do you have information about?"

And my lawyer repeated the names: Chapo Guzmán, Mayo Zambada.

And he said, "Are they playing?"

WARNING: FEDERAL PROPERTY AREA WITH VIDEO SURVEILLANCE

The government needed proof that the bosses did business.

SHERIFF'S OFFICE FROM COOK COUNTY

And getting them was going to be very difficult.

I was more worried about Mayo Zambada.

May could last all day in the mountains.

He took security very seriously.

He was very careful with who he had around him

and who he gave his trust to.

My father, Julio Scherer García,

was one of the few impeccable journalists.

He had a long and established career

and my dad was going to protect his source Absolutely.

It is one, and, if not, the best journalist Mexico has ever had.

As a reporter for the magazine Proceso,

I have felt, in some way, a lucky man

to be in that journalistic institution which Don Julio Scherer founded.

In March or April 2010,

he told us he showed up a person in Process.

"I don't know where it's going to take me to meet Ismael Zambada".

So, I was very anxious.

Um...

Well, he was one of the criminals most wanted in the world.

Which I am absolutely certain It's just that no one told him: "Don't go."

No? Nobody would have thought of that. First because we knew my dad.

What my dad says is:

"If the devil offered me an interview, "I would go to hell for it."

It flew, right? Somewhere in the northeast, Sinaloa.

A few hours later, They took him to a place in the mountains.

This is the description my dad makes.

"On a surface of rammed earth and under a roof of logs and reeds,

We had arrived at the capo's shelter, His head was valued at millions of dollars.

Ismael Zambada received me with the hand ready to greet

and a few words of welcome.

He was very interested in getting to know me.

'Thank you very much', I responded naturally."

It was the first interview that Mayo gave.

My phone rang, and he was a DEA agent.

And they told me: "Have you seen your magazine?

Don Julio is coming on the cover with Mayo!"

Well, it left me with my mouth open.

It's the best kept secret that was in Process.

That was the most up-to-date photo. that any government had

about Zambada García at that time.

It was quite an event and a rudeness.

To say: "Here I am, I have been here

and I can afford

to bring the main journalist in Mexico let me take a photo

and here we will be."

"Is there space in you for peace of mind?"

"I carry fear.

All the time. Everything."

"Will they finally catch him?"

"At any time. Or never."