Citation Needed - El Chapo [True Crime Special]

Episode Date: August 7, 2019

Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera (/ˈɡʊzmæn/;[6] Spanish: [xoaˈkin aɾtʃiˈβaldo ɣusˈman loˈeɾa]; born 4 April 1957),[7] known as "El Chapo" ("Shorty", pronounced [el ˈtʃapo]) because of his 168 cm (5 ft 6 in) stature, is a Mexican drug lord and former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, an international crime syndicate. He is considered to have been the most powerful drug trafficker in the world.[8][9]   Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

No, dude, think about it. You do a series of shorts for the movie. Really? Like, what if Tony Stark had been given the super soldier serum? What if Kilmonger had stayed the black pants? Okay, okay, now I'm excited. Right? Yeah, for the record, I still can't care about this. Thank you. Thank you, Tom, for your contribution. Gentlemen, come in.

Not again. Eli, what the hell did you do to the studio this time? Do you like it? I think it's a little more appropriate for a kingpin like us. I told you not to show him that up, Rocks article. He's just gonna go right to it. I didn't do it. He Googles himself every day.

Hone a Googling? Oh, chisel. Simple chisel. I remember the days before I was at the top. How I envy you here for your family. Oh that money give me money money Tom out out Tom Tom relax. This isn't money. I was still right. Yeah, it looks like money rectangular paper that Eli has written good for one podcast download on Jace ever since uprox.com told me about

me i am a billionaire in downloads nope how many is a billion? i think that's a lot i want it we don't have a billion downloads not even close how many zeros for a billion? that's like it's an easy question wait so if i don't get a billionaire,

Kingpin downloads money, what kind of downloads money do we have? Olive Garden on your birthday download money? Hershey Park is kind of like Disneyland download money. If podcasts downloads had payday loans, you'd need one. That's most of the ones that's kind of like what you're saying here. This, oh, sad. Is it five zeros?

That's, nope, it's not. No, I need more. I'm a good boy. Yes. Right. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we are experts. Because this is the internet, and that's how it works now. I'm Cecil, and I'll be helping move us along today if we don't get stuck in traffic

with a K, everybody at home. You can't see it, but it's really brilliant. No, it does have a K. It does. There's a K there. But I'm not alone. I'm joined by two guys that smuggle a men's amount of drugs in their bodies by just using them. Noah and Eli. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, when they ask whether there are drugs in the car, whether I'm lying or not, it's kind of a matter of metabolic rates.

That's what I'm lying or not is kind of a matter of metabolic rates. And I'm just saying post-apocalypticly you could dole me out to depressive and they'd be good for a lie. Also joining us tonight a guy who heath would have certainly sold a bag of a regano to in high school. Tom. Okay to be fair I knew that it was a regano. It's just I watched everybody else in high school turn heath down. I thought a pity yes, might do him some good. It didn't. Oh, patrons, every few weeks one of us has to skip out of this amazing recording session to go outside and run around on the hamster wheel that provides the power to the studio. Even with your generous support, the best we could do for this job is Heath.

You'd like to spare Heath from his own personal hell that is a bit of moderate exercise. Stick around to the under the show and we'll tell you how to give us some money. And with that, all the way, tell us Noah, what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event will we be talking about today? Well, today we're gonna be talking about Mexican drug lord

Joaquin El Chapo Guzman. Ah, and Tom, you picked this article, almost certainly thinking that an El Chapo was some kind of spicy foldable street food. Are you ready to regale us with your sincere disappointment? Cecil, sharing my disappointment is kind of my calling card to the world, buddy. Fair. So Tom, tell us about this tiny, tiny man.

All right. El Chappo was born Joaquim Guzman in 1957 to a poor family in a rural community in Latuna, Mexico. Sounds fishy. Oh, loving. All right. His father was Emilio Guzman. And Emilio Guzman on paper made his living as a cattle rancher except substitute cattle here for opium poppy and rancher for farmer. And he was totally still a cattle rancher. El Chapo had seven siblings, but I can't see anywhere in the wiki where they mattered.

So they probably didn't. And the three who died as children certainly did. Admittedly that was a weird epigraph for the Guzman family to choose but who were we to choose? That's not. That's not. All right. Now little Joaquin Guzman's early life was less than ideal after dropping out of school

in the third grade to help his dad with the opium poppy business. He worked making money selling oranges to the workers on the farm. But he must have been really bad at it because his father beat him regularly to a pulp or... Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh can you blame him? Hey, mister, do you want to buy some oranges? Do you accept poppies? Oh, no. Then no. Right, that's what has to go down. All right, so for most of his childhood,

Guzmán's father alternated working either in the poppy business or cultivating marijuana in large commercial centers. And he frickly brought his son to work with him. But rather than use the money that he earned to provide for his family uh... emilia instead spent his money on liquor and women okay alright i feel it gets unfair to disparage that lifestyle when he doesn't hear to defend himself and never buy things for women

i know he's probably frustrated not having his own money for liquor and women so who's monitor fifteen banded together with a couple of his cousins I know he's probably frustrated not having his own money for liquor and women. So Guzmán and 15 banded together with a couple of his cousins and they started their own marijuana plantation and they supported their family. His dad sounds like a real hard ass. He won't even give himself the company discount on weed and opium. He's like, guess I have the subtle for mad dog 2020 everybody. That was as a teenager that Guzmán began using the name El Chapo, which means shorting,

a name that fit, unlike most clothes made for grown-ups since he was five foot six. The tired of working small time pot plantations of Chapo. Small time. Small time. El Chapo joined up with his uncle, Pedro Avila, to start his career in drug trap. I hope that they, that he went into cartel negotiations and they talked to him in a baby voice. I'm going to change it.

You want to take over my table to a wee hole? Oh, oh, oh. You're going to cut off my head. We're going to cut off. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh't have to dig the tunnel very big. You know, it's called tunnel. It's a custom-fit solution, really. Like this is like, yeah, we'll go below with this one. So at this point, we have to diverge for a moment

into some of the contacts of the Mexican drug cartel situation. Oh, oh, so the year is 1980, and the CIA has just introduced crack into the black community and aids into the gate. That's not a matter of not. How would he mend? No, no. All right, to discreet.

It is now the 1980s in our story and the Mexican drugs syndicate that basically controlled everything was the Guadalajara cartel. Guzman began working for one of the bosses of the Guadalajara cartel, a guy named Hector Palma. And Guzman's job was overseeing the transportation and shipment of drugs from the Sierra Madre area to urban areas near the US border. This was a job El Chapo took very fucking seriously. So seriously, it quickly gained a reputation as a ruthless enforcer. If you're delivery ran late, no problem.

Go ahead, make the delivery, then El Chappo will murder you. That's pretty weak compared to Amazon's three generation policy that time. I mean, literally. Yeah, no, his guys had more than two days to it. Now with this policy in place, the next guy's delivery is tended to be more on time. A similar fatal fate befell anyone in El Chapo suspected cheated him or if they try to

use other people for their drugs muggling. So basically your options around drug smuggling that were limited to use El Chapo and be on time or decomposing the desert somewhere. I bet the Catholics who realized that their tithe money was going to silence child rape victims Feel just like I'm gonna feel through this essay Huh? Right I mean look I bought this motherfucker a boat in college. I'm sure I did

I'm sorry Noah? No allotments? I thought you were alleging I'm just a good man. I'm freaking out right now. If I had known you were alive, I would have gotten you instead of Sean Pan. I'm a good man. I feel so stupid, you know? So much I want to ask.

I'm a good man. I'm a good man. All right, so El Chappo's ruthless efficiency impressed the leaders of the Guadalajara Cartel. And he found himself working logistics for Felix Gallardo. And our chopper's job was to arrange for drugs to make their way through Colombia now to Mexico, regardless of whether they needed to go by land, air, or sea. Gallardo then moved the drugs from Mexico across the border and into the U.S.

Well, if they need to go by air, water, and sea at the same time, you can get one of those Arctic balloons. Or Malaysian Flight 370. Oh, that's insane. That one's always going to be late. Like, it's just, it always lands in the water. No matter what. Why do you think they all died?

There's still somebody at the opposite gate on the other end like this one is willing to land. This is not. It's, it's the gate on the other end like this one is really the way this is not. It's, it's he. So after US officials began to tighten their controls on the shipment of drugs from South America moving through the Caribbean, Mexico became the conduit to move drugs from Columbia up to the US. So as this expanded so to the power of the Mexican drug cartels, this shift was not missed

by the DEA who noticed, hey, it's the 1980s and there's still lots of fucking coke everywhere. So they began a plant undercover agents in and amongst the cartel. Just picturing a white dude in a sombrero wandering into a warehouse, oh, me fellow Chicanos.

May I know Beto Arroz. Yes, yes. Yes. About as believable. All right, so one of these agents was a very unfortunate man named Enrique Camarena Salazar and he was working undercover for the DEA. He was working with several of the top drug bosses, including Felix Gallardo and his work gave them the intel necessary for the Mexican military to raid one of Felix's larger marijuana plantations.

Well, this had the rather predictable effect of really pissing off Felix, who realized that he had been quite ironically actually narked on by Camarena. So Felix and company kidnapped and tortured and killed Camarena. And this... Hey Camarena. I ate, I ate. Well, this really and this camera and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and snicker you like that and if so what kind of weeds are that so chapo saw this and he used all this chaos to his advantage and was boss was in prison he called a summit and he proposed dividing up the guadalajara cartel into the tijuana cartel the war as cartel and this in a lower cartel

which he would have along with his his partners, Palma and Zimbata. This had the effect of putting El Chapo and charge the border crossings that connects Sonora and Baja California with Arizona and actual California. Hey, credit where credit's due. Everyone's dumping a dead body of a DEA agent into a river in El Chapo as like, guys, this is a fantastic opportunity

for some sideways merged synergy or a horizontal employment truckers. All right, so the Tijuana cartel was now headed up by the Ariana Felix brothers, but it turns out that one of those brothers got cold feet on the whole, I don't wanna get busted and die in a Mexican prison thing, so he fucking moved to Canada,

where he was very promptly arrested, but it was probably just apologized to, and then gently admonished not to do it again. Hehehehe. El Chapo, however, was unimpressed by the defection, and he sent one of his most trusted men to talk to the Ariana Felix clan about not quitting the Cartel Club for men.

Instead, the Ariana Felix clan violated that old the cartel club for men. Instead, the Ariana Felix clan violated that old don't kill the messenger rule, and they totally just killed the fucking messenger. Oh, don't do that. And then they also, and this is just fucking insane, then they sent a Venezuelan drug trafficker, buddy of theirs, to infiltrate the family of Palma, one of the bosses of the Sinaloa cartel, with the aim of seducing pauma's wife and he did he

successfully seduced her and then he convinced her to hand over seven million dollars from his account after which she was killed and her head was boxed up and sent back to her husband and then they ordered a hit on an executed pauma's children by throwing them off a bridge he just just gets it. He's like, what's in the box? What's in the box? Please say it's $7 million. Please say the fuck it's my wife's hat again. God damn it. Hate this game. Fool me once. I'd sell Palma retaliated by sending his men to kill bosses of the Arion of Felix Cartel while they were in prison. And then, Chick gets really confusing, but basically everyone starts killing everyone else.

Or as Tony Scott would have called it act three. Was it a Mexican standoff? If they had been a little more standoff, this might not have happened. Yeah. A few highlights of this craziness include six of El Chappo's men who are kidnapped, tortured, shot, and then dumped on the outskirts of the city as a message, a car bomb that exploded at one of Guzman's properties. Guzman and Palma for their part in one day killed nine of Felix's men. The Mexican government convened a special unit to investigate and try to stop all the blood shed, but they had to disband it after they discovered that El Chapo had paid off all

the investigators. And then later an attack was made on El Chapo directly, where four gunmen with AK-47s shot a car that he was traveling in, and he crazily was unheard in the attack but he decided now now is a real good time to get out of guadalajara and i thought my thanks giveings were awkward and i thought pauma and al-chapo ordered an attack of their own in response to the assassination attempt this is fucking nuts

posing as police al-chapo's men stormed a nightclub that the Ariana bosses were parting in, and they shot a thousand rounds of ammunition in eight minutes into the crowd. Six people were killed, that's it. Though the targets of the attack, we're actually in the bathroom at the time, and they managed to escape by crawling through an air conditioning duct

and driving away without being spotted by the would-be assassin. It's just like, bus, we miss them, but we shut the fuck out of those six people we killed. Like 200 bullets a person bus 200 bullets. More like 167, but sure. Yeah. Who the hell hired those assassins? Okay, last question of the interview, you're doing great so far, by the way. How many fingers am I holding up?

Uh, 12? Sorry. You think I'm holding up 12 fingers? Uh, a knee-tand. I mean, you're fucking higher. So, for six more months, they continued these tit- tat murder sprees until on May 24, 1993, an informant for the Ariana clan sent word that El Chapo was at the airport. El Chapo was thought to be, you know, white mercury grand marquee. And so 20 of Ariana's men descended

on this car and opened fire. But instead, the argument was the cardinal and archbishop of Guadalajara. Oh, Jesus. Poor fucker named Juan Jesus Posada Sokampo. This is crazy. And that guy was very much killed as we're six other people that were caught in the barrage. El Chapo was in a green Buet. Whoa. Just down the way.

Oh, no. And he saw this fucking madness and he hopped in his could just fled to a safe house 20 minutes away from the airport Oh, hey say what you will about O'Choppo. He's done more to stop child rape than the D.A. of Boston Why is that true? El Chapo's like see I told you dressing in this red casak was gonna pay off was like see I told you dressing in this red casak was gonna pay off. You guys are all like no, it's not gonna work. All right, so killing the archbishop in Mexico, that's a super bad deal. And so the Mexican president flew to Guadalajara and condemned the attack.

Oh, thank goodness he didn't do it from where he was. Now they knew he met business. All right, so the public at large, the large to church the government they were all pretty pissed off at this point and they put a five million dollar bounty uh... for the arrest of the people involved in the shooting in al-Chapo even though he was the target he was complicit by just being part of this fucking madness and he now became a very severely wanted man

i mean that's great and all but you know i would have loved that to kick in a little earlier maybe when we had 167 bullets of peace and six dudes at a club. Right? It's shame that there's a social status limit you got to reach with your hex-touple fucking homicides in that country before they get all the way pissed. Not even a little wrong. So how many followers on Twitter? You are going to have to. It's like you're filling a meter in a video game.

You're gonna be in a video game. Jesus. All right, so El Chapo fled probably not in a white grand marquee, bouncing around from safe house to safe house. At one point, he gave $200 dollars in cash to one of his associates provide for his family and that i love to see given other two hundred million dollars to another guy to run the cartel i guess

case he was late to work for a while alchapo at this point intended to run to go out of model with his girlfriend but authorities from mexico and go out of model were tracking them pretty heavily alchapo paid a one point two2 million bribe to a border guard. That guard gave him up though, not until after he took the $1.2 million. He's not, he's, he didn't get that back. And El Chapo was arrested for the first time by Guatemala and army and extradited to

Mexico, who was sentenced to 20 years in a maximum security prison. Great job. Catch an El Chapo Johnson. Thanks, boss. Anyway, I'm sorry, is that your new boat? I mean, it's one of them. years in a maximum security prison. Great job, catch an El Chapo Johnson. Thanks boss. Anyway, I'm sorry, is that your new boat? I mean, it's one of them. It's one of the boats I have.

Ha ha ha ha ha. Well, with El Chapo, Codden, and Prison, there can't be much more of this story left. So let's take a quick break for our little apropos of nothing. So without further ado, please welcome my son Huachim, the newest member of the cartel. Hi, hi everyone. It's great to be here. I got to tell you, I know that a sideways integration of management is never ideal,

but I'm super excited. I got a lot of ideas. I think there's a ton of energy here. And I just want you to know I'm enthusiastic to work with all of you on hitting targets. What the fuck did he just say? Oh, sorry, sorry. My son recently attended some business classes so he can be a little hard to follow. He says he's looking forward to making these the largest most dangerous cartel in history

Okay, I got it. I got it. Yeah, yeah, right good feedback. Thank you dad So two specifics, let me just bring up my first slide here. Okay, so the big thing I'm noticing right now is that we're not merging our time efficiency and our motivational goals when it comes to personnel. I think there's just a ton of room for synergy there. What? Yeah, listen, I think that what what Kim is trying to say is we need to kill people who are late with their shipments. Oh, okay, okay. That's hardcore, man. Great. Yeah. Secondly, let me change the slide too far. Sorry. Okay. I think we can minimize turnover by maximizing brand responsibility, especially among our sales staff. Yeah. Again, um, he means we should kill anyone who deals on our turf. That is

what? Yes. Yes. Okay. Oh, this gets all beast. Yeah. Um, thank you, Dad. Uh, but, uh, that's enough for me. Why don't we go around and do some icebreakers? Let's loosen up the room and then we'll just do a free idea jam Okay, he wants to know if you guys have any crap. I got some right here. I have crack El Chapo What can I say? I love crack All right, so far we've heard of a child orange merchant that went rogue and hired people for a vicarious killing spree, after which he winds up in a Mexican prison, Tom, how were living conditions in the Mexican lockup for our hero? Well, Cecil, just like in America, if you're rich enough they're pretty damn good

uh... while in prison el Chapo continue to run his empire except you know it's really now is the government's cooking his meals because of the astonishing wealth and power of el Chapo he just ran the prison uh... he lived lavishly smuggled in women and luxury goods he did literal suitcase of cash to spend while incarcerated the guards were basically his servants and even met his long-time mistress zulena her nanda's while in prison

she was a former police officer who was serving time for our robbery so it's like all things considered things were going on that badly okay now where's that harry met Sally So I guess like all things considered things were going on that badly. No. Okay. Now where's that Harry Metsally one? I'm like, what's that in? It's crazy is with enough money. You can have a guy girl mixer in prison. Jeffrey Epstein should see if they could get one with the juvenile detention center.

Oh, she's just. That's it. That's it. That's money. Oh, no. El Chappo was so effective running this cartel from prison that he actually got indicted in San Diego on charges of money laundering and importing literal tonnages of it cocaine into California through his associates on the outside while he was operating all of

this from his prison cell in Mexico. But why? It's so that Mexico could send him to prison harder? I wish they had. Even as lawyer ended up getting arrested and charged with bribing officials that were there to make sure that the Senate lower cartel members were freed as soon as they were arrested. And El Chapo may have just elected to stay in prison, except the Supreme Court of Mexico made a ruling that allowed for easier extradition from Mexico to the US.

So Chapo, bribe a guard to conceal him in a laundry cart, and then they just literally wheeled him out the front door in this cart to a waiting car. We stood up, got to the trunk, and the guard just drove off. There's video of this. A few miles away when the guard stopped for gas, El Chapo just pops out of the trunk

and runs off into the night. The fucking guard ends up getting arrested. That motherfucker is still in prison. 27 other people were arrested for their role in the escape and the only guard who tried to report the plan disappeared and is presumed dead. Okay. What's that guy's story?

He's like, I'm sorry guys, I will bring him filet mignon and women, but I will not help him. That's cool. Cool, no problem. Hey, quick question. How many duffel bags do you think it would take to fit you? Like if you were in pieces, probably one or two.

Why? I'm just one. I'm just wondering. That guy that they thought disappeared and was presumed he actually applied for asylum in the US but Jeff Sessions drowned him in front of a bunch of refugees as a message. Staring the refugees in the eye as he died.

Yeah, just hard contact the whole time. You made it weird. Jeff Sessions is a weird little chopper. All right, well, now that he was out of prison, El Chapo said about season control, the war as crossing. The only problem is that that crossing was controlled by the war as cartel. Yeah, no, it's baked right into the name, really. So undeterred El Chapo called a meeting with the heads of the war as cartel and he suggested, well, why don't we kill the guy and charge that crossing?

Now, that guy, he knew his life was in danger, so he hired the local police commander to be his personal bodyguard, which didn't help at all. While shopping at the mall with his wife and young kids, the head of the Juarez border crossing was ambushed. He and his wife died, though the kids and the police commander ended up surviving. The city of Juarez then became the center for cartel violence is this one act broke the non-aggression pack between the synoloa cartel the war as cartel since two thousand and six sixty thousand murders would take place in cartel

killing christ they're such a problem that they started hand out certain color trash bags just for corpses so people wouldn't throw them in with the recycling. We're clear. We're clear. There's not even a sticker on this. I'm not taking it without my god damn sticker. You know the rules. There's like one day a week you can get through a corpse

and stuff. It's a wrong day. It's so worst. Okay, we're just doing a little sprint cleaning. Yeah. You got a shamefully dragged a guy back up with her but it's like a Wednesday. Because in her because it's like put it out Wednesday, even though it's Wednesday morning.

They come at foreign the fucking afternook. They're like, I did we take the garbage out. It's summer, it's gonna stay the whole garage. God damn it. Ardol Chappo became Mexico's most wanted man and his evasiveness made him something of a legend It's not 100% clear which of the stories are true

But there are multiple counts of El Chappo just strolling into a restaurant with a contingent of bodyguards confiscating everyone's cell phones sitting down and eating his meal and then leaving paying everyone's tab for the restaurant and keeping their phones One guy's just like great great, took my iPhone 10 and all I had was a seven. That's the best. Yeah, right. And he was like, how am I going to text on an actual apple?

Like, it's real apples. Now, I know you're not talking about him doing this at a Wendy's, but that's still what I'm picturing. It was a lot better. Oh, that's amazing. So his resources in influence are so vast that he had safe houses in every state in Mexico. He had a network of over 300 informants and gunmen that reported back to him anything that would threaten his security.

He escaped from law enforcement using nearly every means imaginable. He had armored cars, all terrain vehicles, aircraft, in every one of his safe houses, he actually had a secret tunnel hidden under a bathroom in the house in every one of his safe houses, he actually had a secret tunnel hidden under a bathroom in the house in every one of his houses that would lead down to the sewers. And in one particularly narrow escape, Mexican authorities and the DEA had him located at his safe house. While they're battering down at the steel door, El Chapo, caught Midcoitus, fled naked through the bathtub into into the sewers, moments before the DEA stormed the house.

He was nearly caught while naked actually so often that investigators found a bug outback in one of his tunnels full of tidy whiteies for dressing on the go. Starts getting superstitious about fucking, tonight honey I have a I So many of his other properties were secluded miles from civilization off single-lane dirt track roads So any law enforcement approach would be visible from miles away and any attempt to catch him by surprise from the air Would run into the difficulty of dealing with the surface to air missiles that his guards have oh Jesus why the Constitution provides for all of us having tanks and cruise missiles. That's why.

All right. To protect us from lawful justice, is that. All right. That was luck ran out again on February 22, 2014, when it'll hotel the joint efforts of the Mexican Navy, the DEA, and the US Marshalls tracked him on. 65 Mexican Marines stormed the resort, quickly subdued his guards and they took El Chappo into custody. He was perp walked at the airport

and transferred to a maximum security prison, aboard a military black Hawk helicopter flanked by two US Navy helicopters and another Mexican helicopter as added security. They actually made all the helicopters joining a Valtron just to show they weren't fucking around. We're not fucking around anymore. But it's the word.

I saw the new prison area that El Chappo was confined to was very highly restricted. The cells had no windows. The inmates are not allowed to interact with each other at all and no contact with family is permitted. He had 23 hours a day of complete solitary confinement. This didn't sit well with El Chapo, so he somehow organized a hunger strike in the prison to protest for better treatment.

It didn't work, and it didn't last very long, and he soon turned his attention to trying to avoid extradition to the US. Yeah, I mean, treat me better. Or I'll starve myself seems like a weird angle one way or the other. I don't know how that ever works. I so both the US and Mexico were anxious to indict and try and convict El Chapo. And the two governments actually went back and forth arm wrestling for who is going to be able to keep them in their cage first and most.

Spoiler here won't be Mexico. On July 11th, 2015, El Chapo escaped from prison. Associates of El Chapo used GPS to precisely locate his cell within the prison. They then dug a mile long, 33 foot deep tunnel, complete with lighting and ventilation, and it led directly under the shower area in El Chapo cell. He then climbed down a ladder to a motorcycle mounted on a track in the tunnel, hit the gas, and motor the fuck out of a maximum security solitary confinement prison.

Guards find it in the morning. I told you that wasn't thunder, you remember? I said. I love it when overengineering meets flexing nuts. He's fucking great. This is fucking great. All right, now, if El Chapo had really wanted to, we might have been able to stay gone from the world.

But instead, he became fixated on Tellanovela actress, Kate Del Castillo. Through his lawyers, he reached out to her and discussed making a movie of his life. She, thinking that adding some additional star power might help, reached out to Sean Penn and asked if he might want to sit down with El Chappo and interview him. So fucking Sean Penn said and interviewed the most wanted man in two countries at a remote camp in rural Mexico for seven hours.

This is the only interview ever granted by El Chapo. In it, he admitted to drug trafficking, boasting of his fleet of, quote, narco submarines, airplanes, trucks and boats and saying that he quotes supplied more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana than anybody else in the world. Sean Penn's like, yeah, you know, that didn't work out great for my kid. I'm going to be honest with you. Oh no. Oh no. All right, so that meeting would nearly prove to be El Chappos in doing.

So using Sean Penn's cell phone, authorities were able to pinpoint El Chappos location at a ranch in the Sierra Madry Mountains, the ranch was raided. And a gunfight ensued. El Chappos fled using women and a young girl as human shields and the marines chose not to fire on him for fear of hitting innocent civilians so he escaped again time i don't want to interfere with your story about i can't promise you much

but i can promise you el Chapo did not escape because marines don't want to kill women and i don't know about that but one way or the other used as human shields is another way of saying, we're also there when I wanted to shoot him. So... So... I never heard anything in my life

that sounded more generated by madlibs than Al Chappa was caught using Sean Penn's cell. Oh, that's right. Also, does it feel like, at this point, Al Chappa was like, fuck fuck I should have just bought his meal goddamn All right, so Elchoppo was located again after locals reported armed people in a house at the coastal city of Los Moches Authorities placed that house under surveillance for a month monitoring communications Until learning that the gunman guarding the house had left

and I am not making this up to go get tacos. And he's like, man, this is going to sound really racist to the citation needed episode of the way to know. So while the gunman were getting food, they raided the house, but El Chapo escaped again through his secret tunnel. He emerged near the highway and hijacked a passing car. They sent sent an immediate alert at checkpoints where established just about every goddamn place and El Chapo was caught

in one of these checkpoints, though he did attempt to bribe the officers that caught him with money, property, and jobs. And when they refused, he snarled at them, you're all going to die. It's crazy at caught because at that point, Chapapo had a team of guys that just dug a tunnel 20 feet below where every was currently walked out. Yeah, no, unfortunately that day they did get caught up inflating a tomato with goggles and couldn't make it in time, but eventually, some weird shit going on down there. Oh, dig, dig, dig, cut, follow you all the way there. I almost just said inflating a pukka, but then I was like, no, that's nine people. Yeah.

Got that sweet 11 spot. Oh, a tomato. All right. So the officers that captured El Chapo sent pictures of him to their superiors to show that he'd been caught. And the superiors said, great, but there's 40 cartel assassins on their way to free El Chapo. So the police then had to flee to a hotel and wait for reinforcements from the Marines before they could move. They showed up and he was later flown again by Navy helicopter to the same maximum security prison that he

had just escaped from. The Raiden Elon-El-Coppos. They put some boards over his hole. They put him in the stage of nostalgia. He just moves the Rock-El-Welch posts throughout the way. They're just trying to click-training him at this point. Okay. He goes toward the tunnel, just bop him on the nose. Oh, fuck.

What? Shit. So the Raid-on-El-Coppos house ended with five of his gunmen dead, six arrested, one Marine wounded. They found two armored cars, eight assault rifles, two sniper rifles, and grenade launchers on the ranch. So, oh, wow.

Oh, said and done. It could have gone worse. Yeah, I mean, he could have been standing with access to Ted Nugensar, so far. So yeah, open worse. On January, in January of 2017, Elchappapo was extradited to the US, though not before the guy who was put in charge of working on the extradition was assassinated. El Chapo ended up pleading not guilty to a 17-counton indictment and included just about

every crime a person could possibly commit. Certainly the top 17, yeah. February 12 of 2019, El Chpo was found guilty on all counts. The jury had to be kept anonymous and they had to be provided armed escorts and Elchoppo was kept isolated from view of the jury due to everyone ever meeting him ending up dead. On July 17th of this year, Elchoppo is sentenced to life plus thirty years and he's being held at the only federal supermax prison in the united states in florins calirado

he was also ordered to forfeit his fortune of twelve point six billion dollars if you had to summarize what you learn in one sentence time what would it be forget a party bring a shovel uh... ready for the quiz my tidy white is a standing at attention so also yes for the quiz. My tidy whiteies are standing at attention. So also yes to the quiz question. All right. Yeah, we didn't need that information. All right, I got one for you.

A lot of people tell this story and they focus as you did on the negatives. What is the most often overlooked positive effect of L-chapos career? A, the low unemployment rate for Mexican buzzards in the 80s and 90s. Be America having plenty of cocaine. And take that shit for granted. Somebody had to do that. See, the low weed prices in the 90s are the only thing that kept me from learning enough to be truly dangerous.

Or D, he's responsible for the only lunches out in the last 10 years where nobody checked their fucking cell phone. All right, well, listen, I know it's not C because actually one of the side effects of the legalization of the states is that it did collapse the Mexican marijuana market. It did and we could have done it at any time. And while B having America having plenty of cocaine is a plus. So I'm not sure it's overlooked so much as singled out. So I'm going to go with A, though, the employment rate for buzzards in the Mexican desert

is going up again. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Making Mexico great again. All right. So take away their water. Yes. All right. Tom, Take away their water.

All right, Tom. What's the name of L Chappos Yacht? Okay. Hey, pipe dreams. B, Mule B, sorry. C, the smuggle is real. Smuggle is real. Or D, zero to hero, hero, and hero. See, so the smuggle is real is going to be the name of my next two boats. Zero to here hero and hero and I don't know what does it work. I don't know what does it work. See, so the smuggle is real is going to be the name of my next two boats.

The first one's almost certainly going to be lost to civil for sure. I'm going to need bail money. I'm saying I'm going to need to bail. All right, sure, that's right, I guess. All right, Tom, what should Sean Penn's El Chapo biopic be called? A, Dead Man Joaquin?

Oh, be Miss Dick River. Miss Dick? What? Like he's a dick and they missed him. Oh, man, that wasn't great. And I worked on Mr. Per. See into the bathtub or D way more than 21 grams. That was good. Alright, I like Dead Man Wahki, that was good, but I think this is a trick question.

Obviously, Sean Penn should not be in any biopic. Oh, that's not correct, apparently. No, that's absolutely not correct. Not correct, not in. Not just because of the theme of the show works out the formula here. That means that Eli's the winner this week. Woo! I choose Cecil!

Ha ha ha ha! After suitable delay. He chose the winner. All right, well, for Tom, Eli, and Noah, I'm Cecil, thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week, and by then, I will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can listen to our sister show, I will snort that, thank you.

This week's episode, buttercream frosting. Don't miss it. You'd like to help keep the show going. You can make a pro episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pot or at least five star view everywhere you can. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a pro episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod or leave us five star of you everywhere you can. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media

or check the show notes, be sure to check out citation pod.com. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Jorge, thank you so much for coming in. No problem, little chap. I was a boss. Jorge, you know, there's no easy way to say this, but your sector is going to look at some loss of overhead, um, this quarter. The truth is, we just over invested in that market, and we've got to cut our losses. Honestly, we have just put too much manpower in a weaker investment space than we probably originally should have thought of.

He's going to kill you and cut off your head. Oh, okay, but I'm er... He's gonna kill you and cut off your head. Oh, okay. Palmer