All language subtitles for C.C.S01E02.The Inside Track [eng]

af Afrikaans
ak Akan
sq Albanian
am Amharic
ar Arabic
hy Armenian
az Azerbaijani
eu Basque
be Belarusian
bem Bemba
bn Bengali
bh Bihari
bs Bosnian
br Breton
bg Bulgarian
km Cambodian
ca Catalan
ceb Cebuano
chr Cherokee
ny Chichewa
zh-CN Chinese (Simplified)
zh-TW Chinese (Traditional)
co Corsican
hr Croatian Download
cs Czech
da Danish
nl Dutch
en English
eo Esperanto
et Estonian
ee Ewe
fo Faroese
tl Filipino
fi Finnish
fr French
fy Frisian
gaa Ga
gl Galician
ka Georgian
de German
el Greek
gn Guarani
gu Gujarati
ht Haitian Creole
ha Hausa
haw Hawaiian
iw Hebrew
hi Hindi
hmn Hmong
hu Hungarian
is Icelandic
ig Igbo
id Indonesian
ia Interlingua
ga Irish
it Italian
ja Japanese
jw Javanese
kn Kannada
kk Kazakh
rw Kinyarwanda
rn Kirundi
kg Kongo
ko Korean
kri Krio (Sierra Leone)
ku Kurdish
ckb Kurdish (Soranî)
ky Kyrgyz
lo Laothian
la Latin
lv Latvian
ln Lingala
lt Lithuanian
loz Lozi
lg Luganda
ach Luo
lb Luxembourgish
mk Macedonian
mg Malagasy
ms Malay
ml Malayalam
mt Maltese
mi Maori
mr Marathi
mfe Mauritian Creole
mo Moldavian
mn Mongolian
my Myanmar (Burmese)
sr-ME Montenegrin
ne Nepali
pcm Nigerian Pidgin
nso Northern Sotho
no Norwegian
nn Norwegian (Nynorsk)
oc Occitan
or Oriya
om Oromo
ps Pashto
fa Persian
pl Polish
pt-BR Portuguese (Brazil)
pt Portuguese (Portugal)
pa Punjabi
qu Quechua
ro Romanian
rm Romansh
nyn Runyakitara
ru Russian
sm Samoan
gd Scots Gaelic
sr Serbian
sh Serbo-Croatian
st Sesotho
tn Setswana
crs Seychellois Creole
sn Shona
sd Sindhi
si Sinhalese
sk Slovak
sl Slovenian
so Somali
es Spanish
es-419 Spanish (Latin American)
su Sundanese
sw Swahili
sv Swedish
tg Tajik
ta Tamil
tt Tatar
te Telugu
th Thai
ti Tigrinya
to Tonga
lua Tshiluba
tum Tumbuka
tr Turkish
tk Turkmen
tw Twi
ug Uighur
uk Ukrainian
ur Urdu
uz Uzbek
vi Vietnamese
cy Welsh
wo Wolof
xh Xhosa
yi Yiddish
yo Yoruba
zu Zulu

Original subtitles

Anyone in Laredo knows who the Zetas are.

Not only who they are, but what they're capable of doing.

The Zetas would terrorize the population,

so that they could control the population.

The people on the border being extorted and exposed.

They're disposable to the Zetas.

The power, the control that the cartel has over people.

I get chills right now even talking about it.

You cannot stand up to this group without grave consequences.

You have to follow the money,

because the money is gonna lead you back to the top people

that want to control the funds.

All about the money.

I've written for years about Mexico,

and subjects connected to Mexico,

including... the drug trade. The illegal drug trade.

I was working for The New York Times,

covering foreign policy in Latin America.

So, I'm spending a lot of time in Texas on the US-Mexico border,

talking to former agents, current agents.

One of my best DEA sources introduced me to an informant.

And we had, you know...

I'm not ashamed to say it, a fairly boozy dinner one night.

Me and this informant and a couple of agents.

The informant says "I might have something for you,"

and he sends me an email.

And the e-mail is a picture from a quarter horse racing magazine

of an advertisement about a sale.

And it was the name of José Treviño.

I didn't know what to make of it.

You know, the Treviño name is pretty infamous in Mexico,

pretty infamous in the drug trade.

The Treviño brothers run the Zetas cartel.

And surely that can't be...

can't be the person I think it is, right?

Because they surely wouldn't use their real name

in an advertisement like this.

And the informant said, "Why not?"

They're running.

Headed out for the lead, Prospect To The Top with Miss Racy Jess.

Dominyun got away fast as well inside of that.

Far side, Mr Piloto's coming on.

Dominyun. Mr Piloto!

Mr Piloto becomes the first horse ever

to qualify tenth to the All American Futurity

and come back and win the biggest race two weeks later.

Ruidoso was our first surveillance operation.

The first active step in this case,

and we knew that this case was more than a hunch.

We have Mr Piloto, the winning horse,

being transferred into José's name at the last minute.

Tremor Enterprises LLC, your winning owners here, and how about it.

We got to witness José win the biggest race of the year

with the horse with the worst odds in history at the All American Futurity.

At the conclusion of the whole weekend,

we learned José and his entourage bought 22 horses.

That José himself did not even pay for these horses.

This Mexican businessman had flown on a private jet to Ruidoso,

walked into the sales office and written a check for 2.2 million dollars.

And his name was Francisco Colorado Cessa.

When you have someone writing a personal check,

you know, those financial transactions are great

'cause each one of them is like a fingerprint.

But once that transaction goes through the banking system,

it can't be erased.

So, it just permanently ties someone to an event.

Francisco Colorado Cessa, he had big business contracts with Pemex,

this nationally owned oil and gas company.

Because he was somebody who had an oil business,

he had a lot of money.

He was somebody who had a lot of high-level political contacts in Mexico,

but you know, he was definitely a new face in the quarter-horse racing world,

so they're, like, "Who is this guy?"

At this point, we're really starting to think

that the Zetas are co-opting Mexican businessmen who have, you know,

established businesses to use what would appear to be legitimate funds

to pay for these horses in The United States.

I knew right away that targeting this criminal group

with a money-laundering front was gonna be difficult.

But we may have an opportunity

to get right to the heart of the leadership and right at the family

in a way that has never been done.

We also are thinking, we could chase horse crap around for a year

and be the laughing stock of the Laredo office.

So when you're working an investigation

that has the potential to be a big case,

you know that you need to involve other federal agencies

that bring their resources to be a partner.

You know, I got less than a year into the FBI.

I think I can do this, but I'm gonna need a lot of help.

The DEA has a similar mission for the most part.

Target and dismantle Mexican cartels.

So, DEA was the obvious choice.

So a meeting was organized in Houston, Texas

between DEA Laredo, DEA Houston and FBI Laredo.

That was my first large inter-agency meeting.

It was a very intimidating feeling,

to walk into this room and try to say,

"This is what I've got and this is why it's important

that y'all come onboard and work this case with me."

As this tension and this presentation is culminating,

it's presented pretty quickly that the DEA in Houston

was working a similar investigation.

They tell me they have an informant

who is doing the same thing that Carlos Nayen has been doing,

which is helping find horses for José Treviño and Miguel Treviño.

They reveal that the informant is Ramiro Villareal, the Horseman.

What we had learned also is their main goal

was to use this informant to find Miguel Treviño,

to try to capture Miguel Treviño.

They weren't interested at this time in doing a money-laundering investigation.

And I had to promise not to try to go after Villareal.

But at this point, I already knew that Ramiro had been replaced by Carlos Nayen.

That was, like, my card to hold, so I felt the comfort level to say

"Okay, if y'all want to keep focusing on The Horseman,

we're gonna just do our thing, you know, with this money-laundering avenue."

There were a lot of agents throughout Texas

and probably elsewhere in the country who were, like, "Really, dude?

You think you're gonna do it through horses?

Really?" And you know, in some ways they may have been right,

but at the same time, he did have an angle.

We had an angle we were trying to work.

They thought they had a better way in,

but we thought we had a really good tie in into 40 and 42.

It was their money that was coming over here to fund this.

So, when they put their money places, man, that's pretty personal.

So, I think we kinda knew we had the best way in.

All I could do is keep my nose down and focus on the investigation.

I started thinking about how I might confirm

whether José Treviño was connected to the cartel,

and if that meant that the cartel was doing business in The United States,

which would be a pretty terrific little story, I thought.

There are lots of stories about the drug trade.

While drug cartels are useful foil for politicians,

the average American cares about them in kind of a Miami Vice sort of way.

There's something kind of glamorized about them.

When people die in those kinds of series,

they're typically the bad guy, or they're nameless, faceless people.

But what got lost was, sort of,

what was happening to people on the ground in Mexico?

These are teachers, these are business people,

these are kids going to school.

So, how do I get people in The United States

to care that the Zetas might be running a multi-million dollar business

to launder money in the US,

which was driving a lot of the violence

and which was taking a lot of innocent lives.

We were by the church.

By the church?

Good afternoon. 911, what's your emergency?

This lady just drove up here on her Jet Ski

and she's reporting that she had to leave her husband behind

because she was involved in a shooting.

Okay. Can I talk to her?

Sure.

Hello?

Ma'am? -Yes.

Okay, are you sure that your husband got shot?

Yes. He was hit in his head and he was thrown off the Jet Ski,

and I couldn't pick him up to get him on mine.

He was just too big.

Did you see anybody?

There were three boats. -Three boats?

Three boats and they came back looking at me and...

Okay. What's your name?

Tiffany Hartley.

What's your husband's name?

David Hartley.

Shot to death on a lake that runs between the US-Mexican border.

The wife tells the sheriff her husband was shot once in the back of the head.

She went back to try to save him but then, on the Mexican side,

shots were fired back at her.

They got into an area where the Zetas, you know, store narcotics

and the Zetas were suspicious that they were law enforcement.

Then they just executed an American citizen in the middle of the lake.

We spent the next several weeks trying to build a case

against the Zeta hitmen who did this.

Obviously we couldn't successfully work the David Hartley murder investigation

without having investigative steps happen in Mexico.

There's an individual from the Mexican government

trying to help us locate David's body, help us gather information,

and then one Monday...

One of the homicide investigators in Mexico

never came home last night.

His head was found along the road that leads to Falcon Lake

and that the rest of his remains have not been found.

As of yet, this kinda falls in line with the MO of the Zetas cartel,

which is a powerful, a brutal drug cartel,

and this has been the way they do business,

sending a clear message.

Prior to the Zetas' rise to power,

there were these unspoken rules that cartels operated by.

And it was basically, don't bring attention to yourself,

don't harm folks who are not in the criminal world

and don't attack a US law enforcement officer.

For me and for anyone who investigates the Zetas,

it felt like there was a change in the rules of the game.

It really sparked a drive in, you know, not just me,

but my squad to really want to target the Zetas

and expose and prevent, you know, further families from being hurt.

I think my dad just always had, like, this very realistic view on life.

He knew that, as a young man,

especially wanting to go in law enforcement,

that you're gonna see some tough things.

You're gonna see folks in their worst hour.

You're gonna see folks who lost loved ones close to them.

He said a lot of cops kinda lose their heart as they go through this life,

and he's like "You cannot, you know, you cannot do that."

He said you have to find a way to always have heart about what you're doing.

During this time, things are changing and it's the Zetas that are changing 'em.

The cartels, historically, had been extremely disciplined

at keeping both their business and the violence

on the Mexican side of the border,

because that's how you avoid unwanted attention.

The Zetas are just sort of getting more and more brazen in every way.

The violence, it's just... it's heightening,

and the stakes just keep building and building and building.

At this point it's becoming clear that it's time

to get a prosecutor on board who will aggressively pursue this case with us.

I think a lot of public with the FBI,

they think of us as this powerful organization.

But when we're conducting an investigation, we're gonna need support

from The United States Attorney's office.

We can't bring charges against someone unless we have a prosecutor on board.

So really, if we don't have a prosecutor, we don't have much of a case.

You're the case agent so you're gonna be excited about your case.

You now need to sell your case to this prosecutor

so that they can see what you see, even though it's just a vision right now.

Without them...

you can't get to that finish line.

Jason Hodge and I were trying to figure out who is a prosecutor in Austin

who is driven and determined and motivated to tackle a case of this size.

We knew that we needed the cream of the crop.

We needed somebody willing to take a hard case.

One name kept being kicked around.

We were greeted by this six-foot-three marine JAG attorney.

Has kind of an intimidating presence.

Jason Hodge and Scott Lawson came to my office in January of 2011.

So, do you remember your first impressions?

Scott was tall. Jason was not.

Kind of wary about agents from Laredo.

Not because they're bad agents or bad people, it's just,

Laredo is kind of a first posting.

So I guess I was more concerned about experience level.

He just says "Tell me what you've got," you know,

and gives me time to give the spiel.

Scott would say, "Hey, this is what we believe is going on.

We believe these individuals are involved in these acts."

And really don't have a great idea how I was landing.

Our nerves are on high edge because if Doug is not interested in our case,

there's nowhere else to go with it.

Initially, it didn't strike me as anything out of the ordinary.

I sort of had this assumption this is gonna be run of the mill cartel case,

but then they kept talking about horses and cocaine and money laundering.

Money is coming from the Zetas

to fund the success of the racehorse

and to fund the ongoing breeding and racehorse operations for José Treviño.

I'd never seen a case like this before. I don't think any of us had.

Well, as you're going through the horses, you know,

the prosecutor is automatically start thinking about forfeiture issues

and complexities and why it's gonna be a pain in their butt.

But when you start talking about your main target

is the brother of the leader of the Los Zetas cartel,

you could see that his eyes perked up.

I had the head, I had the family.

So, we had the opportunity to find, you know, the top bullies

and, you know, at least affect their livelihood and their family

to the extent that they probably affected countless of others.

I've never liked bullies.

I felt this is sort of a way I could address that issue

and Miguel and Omar...

you know, the biggest bullies out there that I've seen.

Which is why I said bring it on, I'm taking it.

Things are pointed in the right direction and I know that I now have that expertise

to take this case to this finish line.

We quickly realized this is gonna be

a money laundering case through the horses.

Needed the help of the financial folks, which is the Internal Revenue Service.

So then, a guy named Steve Pennington comes into the picture.

He's a guy that can manage a taskforce of his own.

On both the drug and the financial side.

Steve's a runner and he's not very good at it.

He's a golfer, he's not very good at that either.

He's unique.

I don't know how to explain his uniqueness, but he's unique.

Steve is a... extremely hardworking, extremely intelligent,

extremely driven IRS criminal investigator.

And he's one of the few agents that makes you want to work with him.

Ready? -Ready.

Early 2011, Doug Gardner calls me up and said,

"Hey, we think the Zetas are laundering money

through the horse industry in The United States."

"Are you interested in working on the leaders of the Zeta cartel,

namely Miguel Treviño, Omar Treviño, Z40 and Z42?"

And I'm like, "Well, hell yeah. I'll do it."

This was a chance to actually go after the leaders

of a cartel that's responsible for a lot of illegal activity.

So I needed the team that was very knowledgeable about narcotics

and the way that traffickers dealt.

My name is Steven Junker, I go by Steve.

I spent 23 years working in narcotics, undercover, with my partner Brian Schutt.

Were you born in a barn? Close the door.

We were partners for 24 years. He's like my wife.

We worked undercover together. Our hair was way down to our back.

In 1999, we started working money-laundering drug conspiracy cases

with Steve Pennington and his Waco team.

Pennington called and talked about this horse case.

A lot of cash, you can buy equipment, you can buy tractors, you can buy animals.

Nobody's gonna come looking to see how you paid for it.

It's like, that's interesting,

it's a good way to launder money, is what I thought.

I do remember Steve Pennington.

Literally, it was like "Hey, we need volunteers

to go help us deal with this money-laundering horse case."

And I'm like raising my hand like I'm a kid in school,

and I'm like, "I'll go."

The idea of going after the Zeta family

or the Zeta organization, it wasn't just a cell,

it was fucking awesome.

When we were invited to join up,

they sat down and they explained that they thought

that 40 and 42, in the Zetas,

were laundering money through the horse industry.

Our taskforce started looking at the financial aspect of it.

Started looking at the money.

If you wanna go for top guys within a drug organization,

you can't necessarily follow the drugs,

because they're not gonna be touching the drugs.

We were not looking for cocaine in the horse stalls.

You have to follow the money, because the money is gonna lead you

back to the top people that want to control the funds.

And that's the reason they're in the drug business, they want the money.

All about the money.

And the power.

Money-laundering is the taking of proceeds from an illegal source.

For example, drug trafficking.

And they try to clean it up so they can be used in certain ways.

So, you'll run it through a business.

You'll say it's from the sales of a restaurant,

but in reality it came from drug proceeds.

Well, then they've got money in their bank account,

then they go buy a house, they can buy a car.

If you look just on the surface of it, you go,

"You got money from a legit source. No problem."

But the way a money-laundering conspiracy works...

each person that touches those funds and conducts a financial transaction,

whether it's to conceal or further organize criminal activity

has committed an overt act in the money-laundering conspiracy.

And that person can be indicted and charged.

My job was to figure out how they were doing it,

get the facts and the proof that the money was in fact from an illegal source

and that it was being laundered and this is where the money was going.

You start building the case and that's where we went with our team,

focusing on those financial transactions

and FBI focusing on what they were trying to get accomplished.

So in January of '11, I get a call from my source

and he says, "For the first time ever, José wants to sell a horse at auction."

Prior to this all they've done is buy, buy, buy.

They never had to sell, they never wanted to sell.

So I said "Well, which horse are they gonna sell?"

And he tells me it's gonna be Blues Ferrari.

Blues Ferrari, purchased by the organization.

The horse got transferred into José Treviño's name for...

right around 20,000 dollars, I believe.

And normally, a horse's value is gonna be how well they run, how well they race.

Did not do very well in the races. Not at all.

We sent agents to the auction, and just as all these other horses

look like Miss America and all dolled up, Blues Ferrari is the exact opposite.

And I remember the same horse farm manager saying,

"That horse came in looking like death eating a cracker."

Death eating a cracker, I mean that horse wasn't...

No one had brushed it, no one had washed it.

So, Blues Ferrari enters the ring and the bidding starts.

Everybody's thinking low four figures.

It goes from 5,000 to 10,000, then we're up at 50, then we're at 80.

I think he went for 310,000 dollars.

Thank you. You've been a good bidder. Thank you all.

For a horse that made 20,000 dollars, 30,000 dollars,

for it to sell for anything above 100,000 dollars was highly unusual.

The other half of the story is the gentleman who was raising his hand

and bidding on Blues Ferrari had never been seen at a horse auction before.

And was brought into the horse auction house

by Fernando Garcia and Carlos Nayen.

That gentleman walks into the horse auction house,

he writes two checks.

One for 150,000 dollars out of his personal account

and a second check for 160,000 dollars out of his personal account.

The gentleman who signed these checks signed the name Alfonso Del Rayo.

That was a brand new name to us.

Del Rayo went up to the office to write these checks

for these horses that really weren't valuable horses.

They knew something was up.

Person running the auction house goes, "That's kinda strange."

So he took photos of Mr Del Rayo signing the checks,

which was the only time he ever did that.

I suspected that Alfonso was probably the next Francisco Colorado,

the next Mexican businessman who had a legitimate business

and the Zetas were asking him to make purchases for them.

They just washed, laundered, 300,000 dollars

through the auction house to make it look "legitimate" purchase

of a racehorse that they themselves sold.

It's like, "Nice! I like the way you did that."

When we first started looking at things,

everybody was in way over our heads at the time.

It was millions of dollars in the horse industry.

It was front companies in Mexico.

It was a tremendous amount of horses.

It was a lot of people involved with it and it was, like...

"Everybody just take a deep breath.

Step by step, let's start... and let's start wading through it."

Started looking at financial aspect of it. Started looking at the money.

And we obtained bank records and horse records on José.

I am not the money guy, I'm a narc. I know narcotics.

You ask me about narcotics and I can tell you.

But even I could see okay, something's up with this.

Buying racehorses is not illegal.

Overpaying for racehorses is not illegal either.

Having the different companies is not illegal,

but the Treviños use companies, what I refer to as front companies

for the sole purpose of laundering the money.

And that is illegal.

I know José Treviño is dirty.

I know he's using his brother's drug money to run a horse business.

I can't prove that at this point.

You know, we were gonna have to prove up the fact

that the source or the generation of those funds actually came from 40 or 42.

Can't bring fairytales into the Federal Court.

You have to bring in, you know, hard evidence

that can back up this narrative of this story that we have.

Sure, it was horses and it was money-laundering...

but these were assets that were belonging to the Los Zetas cartel.

Being in Laredo, we're so close to Mexico.

From our federal office, I mean, you can see into Mexico,

you know, through some of the windows.

We were just always aware of that potential for violence.

It was always in the back of our mind.

A moment ago, some shootings occurred in this place

in this sector of Reynosa

where high caliber gunfire was heard,

and where traffic was stopped. This happened before noon.

There are blockades at the International Bridge

and other situations that are taking place in our city.

Are you recording? -I am recording.

Moving on, what you hear are rifle shots

and even louder noises.

This is what is happening on the Reynosa border.

The confrontation taking place is between federal forces

and some sort of organized crime cell.

The gunfire that you hear at this moment

it is a confrontation between federal forces

and organized crime.

Get down. Get down. Get down.

The Zetas, at one point were so powerful

that they decide to take over the whole country.

One way to look at it is that they created a criminal empire

and they are the kings of that criminal empire.

Los Zetas have taken over.

They are Mexico's most violent, most vicious, most feared drug cartel,

and it looks like they are here to stay.

In many of these communities, when you're talking to the mayor,

you're probably also talking to the drug organization.

Or when you're talking to the military chief,

you're probably also talking to the drug organization.

The Zetas were allowed so much impunity

and how can they just like, have gun battles in the streets

and do whatever they want?

The Zetas are battling this territory

in control of Mexico's drug trade.

It changed everything for journalists, like, how are we gonna do this, you know?

We're just domestic reporters and this is, like, a war zone.

Last year alone, nearly 6,300 people were killed in Mexico's drug war.

That's more than double the number the year before.

I mean, there were gun battles, there were people being kidnapped.

Cartels are also increasingly expanding

into human smuggling, extortion and kidnapping.

And they were so threatening

that you could not really report on them

'cause they were also killing journalists as well.

So, anyone who tried to report on them,

anyone who got in their way, anyone who stood up to them...

Would wind up dead.

Can you tell us about the button that you have?

Yes. Despite working for a major media outlet

I have been threatened by people related to organized crime

and I belong to a program that the government started

to protect journalists. This is my button

to call for help, if necessary.

What became this, like, dark hole of censorship, and it still is.

I pursued that story for a long time, trying to figure out what's the end game,

what's the solution, and then I just stopped.

Because I saw that it wasn't gonna be a solution, wasn't gonna end...

I sense a little bit of hopelessness in your voice.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's hard to talk about...

when you really get down to it, because it's...

it's a tragedy.

And... you know, a lot of people have died.

I wasn't familiar with 40 and 42 in any deep way,

but I was absolutely familiar with who they were

and what they were capable of.

And...

And it made me reluctant at first to even pursue something like this

'cause I wasn't sure how I would do it without running into them.

If you're really gonna chase this story, you need access.

I would need to be very careful if I was going to go after a story

that would essentially expose an important business to them in the United States.

I didn't know who I might run into.

I didn't know who might be watching.

I was sleeping in different hotels every night,

I was changing my rental car every couple of days.

I was knocking on doors of people

who worked as trainers for the Zetas cartel

and I didn't know when I was gonna knock on a door

that was not a good door.

So, how do I do it so they don't find out that I'm doing it?

And I don't want to just say

that they would necessarily come after me, although they might,

but I was really worried about people that I might talk to.

So, how do you move around

without leaving a fingerprint on someone who could get hurt?

Because they could really hurt some of the people that I would try to talk to.

I was in the office in 2011, when I got a call from the source.

And he says, "We're hearing that the horseman, Ramiro Villareal,

was found deceased in a fiery car crash outside of Nuevo Laredo."

He was the first person who had bought all these horses for Miguel Treviño.

We knew that there's not too many circumstantial ways

that Ramiro Villareal got killed in a fiery car crash.

Through our investigation, we learned that Ramiro Villareal

was summoned to meet with 40 in Mexico.

At this meeting was Carlos Nayen, 40 and several other

of the Zeta cartel members.

And at this meeting he was executed.

Ramiro being killed, it just followed a similar pattern

of 40 utilizing a person to his will to send money, to do his actions,

and when they become either vulnerable in his eyes, or no longer useful,

he discarded them and would kill them.

And now it happened to Ramiro.

And he was working with the DEA.

So the concern was there, what do they know

and what do they know about the folks assisting in my investigation?

And you know that anybody that you talk to in this investigation

or anybody that cooperates with you

is also putting themselves out there to risk death.

Yeah, it's a burden that I carry,

to do everything that I can in my power to ensure your safety.

And that is an obligation that I take very seriously.

Hello? -Tyler, it's me, again. Hey.

What's up? -So we owe you something from March?

No, not from March, but see the problem is this.

The problem is... I... what I... Listen, but listen.

Y'all are getting me in a jam with José.

Because I can't just pass on those stud fees unless you pay those up front.

You know, I gotta have money to operate.

Okay, okay. -You know what I'm saying?

And late spring of 2011, we're now in the breeding season,

and the bills are mounting up.

The cartel owes the source sometimes 250,000 dollars a month.

And the source is putting all kind of pressure on Fernando, Carlos, José,

anybody who'll listen to pay up on those tabs.

Which made me a little nervous.

I'm, like, "I don't know if you know these guys well enough,

you should not be pushing so hard."

But, at some point he gets a call from this guy

that we had not heard from before,

but we eventually identify him as Victor Lopez, the money carrier.

He was moving money across the border for the cartel.

Hello? -Good morning, Tyler.

What's up?

I got your money, man.

Well, that's good. Send it on up here.

Man, I can't make a wire.

What's the deal?

Bro. I'm gonna...

I... the thing is I have the money.

I'm the only one here in Laredo.

Why don't you just send me a check then?

What do you mean a check?

If it's in your account, just send me a check.

Can you come for it? To Laredo?

Well, when I hear that, I'm, like, "Hold up.

This is a great opportunity to show bulk cash crossing the river,

coming into The United States, used for the horses."

So, we had the source call Victor back and say...

I could maybe send somebody down there.

Well, I have hundred-dollar bills,

so it's a small package.

So what you want to do?

Let me send you a text message back this afternoon.

Or here in just a little while.

Let me call him and I'll send you the text message back.

All right. All right.

Victor thinks that a worker for our source is coming to Laredo

and we set up this cash pickup.

We want Victor to deliver bulk cash

that he did not declare straight to our undercover.

So that we can document that bulk cash is crossing the river

to being used in this horse case.

We'd gotten intel that money was being muled across the river,

we knew in like 9,999 dollar increments below the reporting threshold.

Therefore, they don't have to declare it

and they think that we won't realize the criminal nature of the money.

Undercover.

If you have 10,000 dollars in cash

and you take more than ten thousand dollars to a financial institution,

they're required to do a currency transaction report,

which is then given to the IRS.

So, in order to structure, to avoid that report,

you keep the amounts under 10,000 dollars, like 9,000, 8,000.

And as long as you break that money up and put it in there, it's called structuring.

That's a separate crime in itself.

Hello?

I'll be there at 10:30 at the mall.

All right, man.

All right, be sure to answer. -All right.

This is my first time to oversee an undercover operation.

If we did anything that alerted Victor or any other Zeta

to the fact that this is really a undercover operation,

they would then assume that our source was co-operating with the investigation.

Victor says, "Hey, hey, you know, I'm getting the money,

People are crossing the bridge.

One of the girls is detained, but we'll have the money soon."

So I call Raul and say "Hey, man,

one of the girls crossing the money is being detained by CBP,

we've got to get her cut loose."

We don't want anything to happen to make the Zetas think

that our source could be cooperating.

Kinda had to share some information with CBP

and ask them that they would allow the female to continue on her way.

Hello? -Hey, I'm coming in from there. Okay?

Okay.

I'm sorry. I got a little bit late.

Hey, what kind of car are you in, so I can tell my guy.

In a white cab.

In a white cab.

We now have Zeta money in our hands,

straight from the hands of Victor, you know, the money carrier.

Although we had had the bulk cash once with Carlos in Austin,

this was the first time we could say we saw it

cross the international border right into our hands.

This was a huge piece for the investigation.

You've got violations now.

Pure, criminal violations,

structured funds coming across the border.

And that's not only a red flag for the overall conspiracy,

but it's actually criminal violations on the people doing it.

But with the Zetas, positive energy is short lived

because something negative is always around the corner.

Mexico Embassy switchboard office.

We are shot! We are shot!

We are on the highway of Querétaro, Mexico.

We've been shot and attacked on the highway.

I am a special agent.

We've been shot on the highway.

Okay.

Try to remain on the line, please.

Preuzeto sa www.titlovi.com

Can't find what you're looking for?
Get subtitles in any language from opensubtitles.com, and translate them here.