Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Inside Mexico's Most Powerful Cartel | The Unlikely Narco

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

Inside Mexico's Most Powerful Cartel | The Unlikely Narco

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August 1st. If you're an American, then it speaks Spanish, you're valuable to the cartel. Everything was a throwaway. Like, people have throwaway phones. I had throwaway cars, throwaway houses, throwaway clothes. I would strap 20,000 at a time on my waist up and down all the way around. And whatever couldn't fit, I would put on her. I told her, I said, hey, look, just let me go first.

And if something happens with me, turn around and run. I'm going to be interviewing Jacob Diaz. I wrote a story about him when I was in prison. It's called The Unlikely Narco. It's going to be super cool. I appreciate you guys watching. Check out the story. Single mom, four kids.

You know, you really don't know that if you don't have nothing until you start getting older and going to school and seeing kids with stuff and just being innocent. My thing was I'm going to help my mom any way possible. So I would find myself going in a gas stations and stealing packs of gums, the dollar packs. Right. I would take the whole rack out and go to school and sell them for a dollar, come back, give it to my mom. And it was 10, 15, 20 bucks, but it was anything crazy. But it made me feel good.

And I was able to help my mom, and she smiled. And a couple months after that, that's when my mother left. And I ended up, I got kicked out from the landlord, which was crazy because it was a friend of my mom. So she knocked on the door one day. I come up from school. She knocks on the door. And what your mom hadn't been home in a few days? I've been home, like, foof, like probably almost a week.

And it was around the time we had to pay rent. So she, the landlord, the landlady, whatever, comes by. Hey, where's your mom? And I know this lady, too, since I was little. So I'm like, I don't know. Where's my mom? I was going to ask you. Where's my mom?

She goes, oh, no, you got to pay rent. If we don't have rent, you got to leave. I said, leave. Where I'm going to go? She's like, I don't know. So I was like, man, that's fucked up. I mean, how old were you? Like 13, 14?

I can't live with, like, I'm thinking I said, I mean, I can't live with you until my mom comes back. At this point, I don't think my mom had left me. I think my mom's just out for, because she would do that. Around this time, she would go out for the weekend, come back on Sunday and go to work Monday. So around this time, it was odd when she didn't come back Sunday. She didn't come back Monday, Tuesday. And I'm thinking, okay, this is weird.

The first time she's done this, something happened. So I'm going around the neighborhood asking her friends that she goes out with on the weekends. They're all back, but her. So I'm thinking, okay, but nobody's want to tell me any. I don't know. And they're shying away from the question and beating behind the bush. I just got tired of it. I gave up asking. I just said, oh, you never think a million years your mom would leave you. So that's the last thing on my mind. Oh, she left me. And when I get a knock on the door from the landlady, I'm thinking, you know, oh, she knows where my mom's at, but it's not.

It's where's the rent at? Where's the rent money? If you don't have the rent money, you got to leave. I was in my mind, where am I going to go? So I just had a garbage bag full of stuff that I wanted to keep. I left a lot of shit behind. And at this time, my younger brother's in a juvenile detention center. My older brother had moved out of the house. And my sister was adopted by my mom's friend temporarily. So I was the only kid in the house.

And I'm like, okay. So I left. I went to Mike's. I said, hey, Mike, can I stay here? Obviously, yes. Like on the weekends, we'll go out to parties as kids. I don't know why. We'll be able to go to these rolling parties.

Exit was a big deal back then in 2000. I started meeting people who were buying and selling drugs. And that's kind of the first time I actually seen transactions like that. I would see the potential of not being poor again. Right. So it is like a light bulb happened and body put too much attention into it until, Mike's sister's friend was arrested and her husband and Bobby were working. They were selling, they had a grill house in Ocala.

And when they got busted, they needed money for lawyers. So they had some weed buried, but they're locked up. But they're locked up. She's like, hey, you guys, can you give me a hand? Can you help me clean out the house, you know, help me get some stuff? And I've seen the girl house for the first time. I'm going, there's big tubs everywhere with water hoses and filters and the shit that the DEAs are ripped up. And they're even left behind.

There's one on the floor everywhere. So I'm scraping the weed up, putting in my pocket. You know, for me, I'm like, that's my tip for working. Right. And she goes to us, she goes, hey, can you guys get rid of some for me? I was like, I don't know, like how much. I'm thinking half ounce, ounce is like, no, we can give you, we have like 40 pounds buried. And can you help me.

give you a quarter pound out of time and would just give me 200 bucks back and at this time it was called hydro and hydro was i guess a big deal more expensive quality it wasn't it wasn't everywhere then yeah it was higher quality so whatever i made i just smoked as a kid i really didn't see anything going on there and just helping someone out i didn't think it was going to be like a life lifelong deal and i'd sell a little bit and around that time that was when um when my left and then I was by myself and I couldn't stay out of his sister's house by myself and as Mike was there so then that's when I became homeless and I was in the streets and trying to do whatever I can to get something to eat but you're still going to school I am going to school

but then I ended up not going to school like like a few like a few months after because I didn't have no clothes I have nowhere to go and these things so and you know once I got to to to the point to where I had nowhere to go, no nothing, then all day I'd be out by myself running the streets, and I met this girl, there's a pizza, pizza delivery girl. She's like the same age as us, and the idea came up. I said, hey, can you, if you give me pizza, I'll give me wheat, you know, because she would buy wheat, and it just clicked from there. I was like, okay, I can't eat like this.

So just give her a quarter ounce to eat and I'll get, you know, two pizzas. And she just said, oh, I just, the delivery, the guy was in there, it was an abandoned house or nobody was home. I couldn't leave it there. Nobody answered the door. So she would, I guess they would write it off. That moment clicked to say, okay, now I can eat. I was making five, ten bucks doing that and going to move up meeting, meeting people where I can get, okay, I got a weed guy. I can go to, and I know for sure he'll give me this for this price.

and I'll do the math in my head, okay, I could make 10 out of it from this person, and I could just keep it going. But once the way, the money wasn't as good as you should, but it was enough to not break into people's houses and steal from people and things of that nature. Okay, so eventually you meet your co-defendant. I meet my co-defendant. How do you meet him and for what purpose? Well, like, why would they introduce it? Like, he's like a, he's in his, what, 30s at this point, 40s? Yeah, yeah.

He's my age. That's your age? Now. Now. Right. He was in his mid-30s. You're like 18 at this point, right? Shit.

I'm 17. Okay. 17, 18. Yeah. He came to the United States to sell drugs. Right. And he needed a driver. Someone he could trust, someone that, you know, you're not going to steal and shit like that.

He came over, didn't know a lick of English. Right. Pulled up. And he goes, hey, do you want to go eat? He's like, yeah. He goes, where do you want to eat at? So I go to my favorite place, Pepe's Mexican restaurant, dog. So we go to Pepe's.

And that's where he lays it out. He goes, hey, would you be interested in staying with me? You don't have to pay nothing. If you want to go to college, I'll pay for college. If you, you know, but I don't want you, you know, you don't have to worry about anything. if you want to go buy clothes i buy whatever you want you don't worry about no money but you need you to drive right just take me around to run errands like go shopping movies stuff like that you know because he doesn't have papers he doesn't have a driver's license he's here illegally right right right

right and this is something colby that happens every time i like i talked to like do you remember carrie wolsey uh i wrote a guitar man yeah the guitar yeah yeah yeah yeah carry danny every time i talk to these guys it's always like, you know, it's just a guy. And it's like, he's not a guy because the average, the average Mexican guy living in a little town in Mexico doesn't up and say, you know, I'm thinking maybe I just, I'm going to go cross the border, get from Texas all the way to Florida. Yeah, let's go through life surviving, life threatening situations and conditions just to just to, yeah, go and rent out some houses.

And then I'm going to find another guy that. will send me or drugs in general, whatever, that will send me, I think, yeah, it's what, yours is pretty, years is great, it's yeah, because an average guy can't go, can't come from Mexico and have the ability or power or references to say, hey, or sources say, hey, these resources are expensive to bounce over international lines and to drive on the highways. There's a lot of the logistics involved, and an average guy can't make that happen. Yeah, they can't make a call and say, hey, I need somebody to send me 50 keys ago. It's just not going to happen.

The logistics involved in getting that across the border and then all the way to Florida, the average person, like, so this is someone who is connected with the cartel that was sent here and helped to get to Ocala to arrange a bunch of houses, drop, what do they call them, Stash houses. Yeah, stash houses. Safe houses. Safe houses. So he needs to open a bunch of safe houses to have drugs placed in them so that he can then distribute.

He's a distributor for the cartel. But these guys never say that. It's a guy. It's this guy. Well, to me, it is a guy. I don't see nothing. I don't see. I mean, at the time, I was so naive.

And I just, as I, as the relationship grew, you know, with this person. I did I didn't never see because I didn't know the background and the work that had to be done until I went to Mexico and then I was able to see okay like this guy this this connection there's connections here now here's another crazy part I'm from a small town this guy is also from a small town and a smaller town a more third world town dirt roads you know just no internet no cell phone connection and he came out of that to do what he what he did and that's not average so we're not going to call him that guy i guess we're going to say what are you going to say what you're your code offended yeah so listen i have uh i interviewed a a chick a friend of um my wife who got caught crossing the border and she was like she talks about when she got in front of the court and they start like they start talking about the cartel cartel this cartel that she's working for the cartel she's I'm like, what are you talking?

She's like, they make it sound like you're working hand in hand. You're an integral part of the cartel. She's like, I met a guy in the parking lot that said, I'll give you $1,000 if you'll get in this car and drive it across the border. She's like, I don't know anything about the cartel. But when they lay it out in front of the judge, you become this integral part of the chain. Yeah, this web. Yeah, it's like, what are you talking about? It was a guy.

His name was Rico. He seemed nice. We went to the bar. He bought me lunch. Yeah, you don't really ask any questions and you don't really see what's behind the person. I mean, you don't know what's going on all. You don't know who anybody is. In this kind of business, you don't really ask a lot of questions because it's, if you're going to ask a lot of questions, then they don't really need your right.

Yeah. What are you doing? Writing a book. Yeah. We did write a book, though. We do. Yeah. So, so what, so.

So, so your co-defendant's telling you, we need to, you're driving me around, but doesn't eventually, don't you start running houses for him? So I didn't know, when I, when I sat down with him, he said, just running errands. And I immediately said, yes, because, I mean, what, look at the, look at the, he was clean cut, very well dressed, a type of mess because I'm not used to seeing, because I'm used to seeing dirty, you know, people who work at construction. Yeah. You know, that kind of stuff.

There's a clean cut, very nice dress, very educated, very, you know, sophisticated. you know serious person you can tell no games and he goes hey i'll give you basically i'll give you the world just take me around to what i want to go if i want to go eat shopping and he goes when i when we go i'm paying for you too who's going to say no right so i was like immediately yes you're barely surviving right now barely surviving so i'm like boom i go in to the house the house has literally nothing maybe two three chairs and uh what is it futon. That's it. It's an empty house. Nothing there. So I'm like, okay, this is weird. Like, who has a house? I never been into, I never went to a house where it wasn't fully furnished. Right. It doesn't look like someone lives here. I need pay attention to it. Until one day we go around. At this point, I don't know what's going on. It's like two weeks in. And we still goes, we're driving while I'm driving. And he says, hey, go to go to this house up here on the, on the, on the way to the, on the way home, I got to go get something.

Oh, cool, whatever. We pull in. I wait in the truck. He was wait here. I wait in the truck. He comes out with, you know, like a, like a Wind Dixie bag or something, like tucked in the arm. And I don't like to, I don't want to be in somebody's business. So I didn't really think nothing into it until we got home.

And I'm just in, I'm in a living room. He's in his bedroom. And that's where I was sleeping. I'm sleeping on a futon. Right. So in a living room. And he goes. Hey, can you help me?

So I'll go back there. Yeah, I got you. What's up? He says, can you help me count this money? And I'm thinking, help you count this money? Who needs help counting money? Right. And though I've seen it, I'm like, oh, you need help counting money.

And he rips open the bag and that's where the bundle start coming out. And I'm like, this dude didn't click to me because I've never seen it before. I've never been around it like that. And so we started counting, whatever. And then he breaks it down to me. He goes, all, look, this is what I do. I don't want you to do it. I can't force you not to do it, but I just don't want you to do it.

I want you to go to school. And me, I'm like, no, I want to do it. Right. Yeah, I want what you got. I want to do what you do. And I'll follow your directions and whatever. And you don't have to worry about me talking to people. So he broke down the golden rules.

Don't tell nobody where we live. Don't give nobody your phone number. Don't tell nobody what you do. Basically, every kind of you just. deflect every question that someone asked and it's just hey where do you work at I'd always say real estate I said I work I'm a real estate agent up here oh where over there by the one place next to the other place right okay and they just people got tired of asking me questions because I was just live and and it was

just selling and I didn't sell at the time I wasn't selling anything and I was just driving and how much money though is it $100, $150,000. It was somewhere around. Just from the size of it, that's just what it's what it looked like. It was a nice chunk of change. And, you know, he would pay me per week to drive. And when I seen the first package come in, he opened.

When I went in, I went in. There was no little by little. There was no baby steps. It's you go from zero. You're like overnight success. You don't, I wasn't able to see. or comprehend and and, uh, grasped the magnitude,

the life, the life changing. Right. That happened. People started treating me differently now that they know, I guess, who I'm with. Everybody knew what he was doing.

Every time we went somewhere, it was always, we were always greeted like VIP. And I just thought, you know, he come from a rich background and this and that, his family. I don't know. I just,

he's someone special. They start treating me different. But are you making more money? Yeah, I'm making more money. And I'm doing my own thing. I have my own cars. And I'm doing, you know, I went to college for like two weeks. I dropped.

Yeah, I dropped out because the teacher, because he put me to school, he kept pushing school, school, school. He never, never, never wanted to do this. He never wanted me to get in any of this. You know, great person. surprisingly everybody in the drug business is trying to get you to do something to use you that you know just he's like go to school so i said fuck it i'll go to school i'm two weeks in um i don't know what class it was but i remember the teacher was trying to tell us how to how to make money and i raised my hand and he was yeah i said um

how are you going to tell me how to make money when i make more money than you he's like i'm like 19 he's like what do you mean and I had a knot in my pocket I know I had a knot in my pocket what are you doing what am I doing I had a knot in my pocket and I said like that I said all right I'm gone I left my books and that was the last time I was in school in college and unbelievable idiot yeah straight idiot but yeah and you know this the first package that came in I was asked you've seen it was 50 keys that came in and i didn't know the price of i didn't know anything how to price it the way i just seen his little blocks these blocks start coming in and out of the out of a dash of a car and you know their tape next each one is connected by tape so you're pulling one

pulling one out of another but no i know i'm part of this i think that's funny you know they've got these these hollowed out part and they they're that's so tiny they can't you can't take it all out you got to they tie them together so there's like one and then another I'm talking like it's nothing right yeah yeah that's what it was it was nothing I'm looking at these things coming out and there's black electrical tape tape to each one you tape one around and connected to another one another one and there's 50 of them coming out of this of this dash of old Volkswagen Jetta that came from North Carolina and just like okay what do we do here I didn't was I didn't know the pricing and all that other stuff and how much money everything was coming out the first time i seen this like a month after moving in and once i guess

the trust started getting better i was able to get or know more information because he would just tell me okay it's this much we got to go get this much money from this guy because we gave him this so i put it in my head okay so that must mean one is oh damn there's a lot of money right so what is a key like 15 grand or something at this point or 20? This was 05. It was 19,000, 195. Right. 195. And give it to one guy, he would distribute everything that came in to everybody and we'd just go in a few days and collect, you know, give them little by little. Let's do that. Do people not pay? They would always pay. It was always good business. That was the last thing we I worried about was not getting paid.

It was... I was going to say, it's funny, you know, Pete. Yeah. Like Pete always says, he's like, you watch these movies and everybody shows up with guns. He's like, but at the higher levels, he said, no, he's got a gun. You know, why nobody has a gun? Because these people are referred by higher people to say, I don't want this customer no more. I'm going to give it to you.

I'm done. And he'll pay you and he's good. You don't have to worry about it. And it was true. Right. You can go up there with $100,000 with the drugs and no in three days. that you'll get every single dollar back. If anything, you'll get a little bit more because you miscounted.

But there's never short ever, never, never had an issue. And it was always by the rules. You come by yourself. But we'd have a car full of Mexicans, but you got to come by yourself. And I would have never done that. I'd be like, man, I'm getting set up. But they would come and boom, we meet in someone's yard in a country part with no neighbors, drop off.

And three days later, meet the same place and pick up. And how long did this go on? Shit. Until I get arrested. Well, I mean. Like seven years. Yeah, but you went to Mexico. Yeah, I went back and forth to Mexico.

My first time going to Mexico was I was 19. This is six months after moving in. That was another culture shock. I couldn't take it. I was like homesick. It was weird. I wanted. What happened?

Like, why did you go to Mexico? He invited me and I've always wanted to go as a kid. I said, well, I'd like to go to, you know, Mexico. You always want to know where you come from and your roots, whatever. So I was like, yeah, I'll go. And, of course, all expenses paid, and you don't have to worry about nothing. And when I went there, it was, that's where you play. You work in the United States, go to Mexico and play.

And it was true freedom. Like, you really don't experience true freedom until you leave the United States. You see these, I mean, the hospitality was through the roof. There's morals, principles, people's, still, you know, it's like almost living in like the old days where they trust you and they see a stranger walking, hey, did you eat? Come inside and you can eat in my house and it's like, what? They don't do that here. So going over there is I was able to see a lot of things, a lot of things for my first time. I, you know, seeing where he came from and met his

family and they took me in because at this point, it's like six, seven months in, whatever, I just kind of took on, I took him on as a father figure, like a father role, role model, I guess you want to say. You know, never having a dad and here's a man that's treating me like his son and, you know, protects me and make sure I'm good and eat, I ate. And I've never had that. I've always had to fight for it. And just I couldn't trust nobody. And here I found myself trusting someone. I was like, oh, you know what?

I'll give it a try. But it just happened that we're selling drugs. Hey, real quick, just wanted to let you guys know that we're looking for guests for the podcast. If you think you'd be a good guest, you know somebody. Do me a favor. You can fill out the form. The link is in our description box. Or you can just email me directly.

Email is in the description box. So back to the video. When I was in Mexico living in Mexico, I didn't work. I would play. So I would make the money in the United States, save it, go to Mexico, blow it. it, then that's when I had to come back to the United States to do it all over again. I was doing that for seven years. Just my girlfriend at the time, I invited her to go on all expensive paid vacation to

Mexico. And, but I know from my experience, anything over 10,000, you have to claim on a piece of paper for customs when you're going international. And I would always put zero. So I didn't have zero dollars. I had a lot of dollars. So I would put zero. anyways so um i would strap what was it about 20 the 20 those two tens 20 000 at a time

on my waist up and down all the way around and whatever couldn't fit i would put on her and uh i learned through tsa as soon as you catch it catch tsa on the beginning of their shift where no one pissed them off that you were able to get by quicker and faster with less static, meaning they wouldn't pat you down as aggressively as they would as if you caught them in the middle or end of their shift. So I booked my flight at the beginning of their shift. And I told her, I said, hey, look, just when you go in, just act normal. Let me go first.

And if something happens with me, turn around and run. Because there's a first checkpoint for the pat down. The next one is your passport. They do your, they scan your documents. So I went through and they patted me down. The TSA felt the money all the way around because he hit the belt line. And I don't know how and why or what he was on. Maybe he didn't care, but or God, whatever.

But it's just he, he did this to my, to my waistline to pat my waist and went down to each leg and said, clear. and I looked back at her and I just looked back forward I just kept moving like everything was normal and then they did it to her and nothing we went in and got on a plane and was she wearing it or it was in her suitcase

no she was she was wearing it she had on jeans jeans and a t-shirt is that the chick you left in Mexico yeah I didn't leave her she said I did I didn't leave her man what happened set the story straight so this is this is what happened while in mexico on that trip i think we were there for about

four months and i wanted to go back to united states it was in it was about two weeks before the semester started because she wanted to go to school so i said why don't you go to united states enroll and i'll be right behind you in a few days cool well it was getting closer and closer to the date where she was supposed to leave and she didn't leave So I was like, hey, I got to go see some guys. And I never told her what I did, but I think she kind of suspected what I did, but never questioned me. So I said, all right. So I went.

I said, hey, look, if you don't leave by Friday, if I wake up on Friday morning and you're still in the bed, then I'm going to leave. I'm going to go to Mexico City. And I'm not coming back until you leave. And Mexico City is only an hour north where I was at. So I was like, all right. So I woke up, looked over, seen her. I said, all right, I'm gone. I went to Mexico City like I did

And not even that same day She had already booked the flight and left Okay I just remember you leaving her I remember you left some shit that that That was that that that I guess I did leave her But that in a way I had to pick between the two I was like okay do I see

Because I got I got my co-defendant He's bugging me he's like Hey man get rid of her So we got to go we got to do something And nobody wanted to tell her They said it was up to me They left the responsibility to me Because she was with me

To go tell her to get out out, got to get out, but hey, go back to the United States so we can do our thing and I'll be there three days behind you. She didn't want to leave. And I just got fed up, listening to my co-defendant, give me shit, and then her gave me shit. And I was in the middle of getting shit. So I said, fuck it. I'll just tell her, if you don't leave, I'm leaving. And I'm not going to come back until you're gone. Because I can't have you. I can't have you here. Like, well, I'm doing this. I can't take you with me to go talk to some guys. And then you you know I just can't so I guess I did and in a way in a way I had to well I don't know what else

I could do if my hands were tied I remember the first time I was going out to to a nightclub you know just I won a high-end nightclubs dress code all this kind of stuff and you know you're pulling up in bulletproof BMW Mercedes Jaguar these kind of exotic coat wreck not exotic but foreign cars I guess and you know we're going to these places and people have bodyguards and it's like why do you have bodyguards but you don't question it so you go in and you know you see uh you're looking around and everyone in there is you already know is selling or is part of a cartel or a group of people that distribute drugs in the area or whatever and i remember the first time i was probably like 20 and going to a nightclub in alcapulco and

I hear a bunch of screams because you're deep in the club the club is a huge club so by the entrance I hear towards the entrance I hear like a lot of women screaming just screaming and we go to look

and there's heads that rolled in that someone just came by and rolled heads into the club I guess to send that message and to that extent it's like that was a shocker for me I was like I don't want to come here no more

and by that time I've lived life on the edge and people would always tell me you can't go out past 9 o'clock here. He wasn't even announced on the radio in Acapulco that if you drive a red, black, or a white car, because that would identify what group you're associated with. And it's like, you don't want to be out. It was announced on the radio. Like, we don't, like the cartel would announce that how the radio people announced

and say, hey, we don't want you this color cars out after 9 o'clock. We'll give you to 9 o'clock to put your car. up and if and if uh you're out then basically it's on site and it was on site uh man it's like what they'll shoot the car up on site it's like the wild wild west man and all these all these all these gunshots you don't they don't even hit the target sometimes they shoot it is this there's their shots everywhere so i didn't even like to go out in a daytime because it would happen any time you know i remember one time i was in uh i was just in a i guess like downtown okapuco and they were was a city bus it got sprayed because there was a car that was getting away and they was just

spraying everything in the in the streets as like that was a typical day just so they're trying they're trying to shoot this car and they're just hitting everything and the car got away and it's but they spread a city bus yeah I think they hit a woman and a kid and you know just so it's I mean I don't know it is just how do you I don't know how to say it is well what was happening at that time that was causing um you were just saying that some one group had broken away from another group yeah so there's there was a group uh was it beltron leva they i guess they apparently branched branched off from the sinaloa and they had they operated in the territory or in the region of mexico where i was at and they were in charge of it which they had conflict with other up and coming ones

that would want to get the territory because, you know, whoever has the territory can do whatever they want. And this is when you have bodies being hung on the bridges in a morning when you're going to eat breakfast and have a note, a paper with a message on her staple to the chest, hung right there's, you're driving under the overpass. What does the note say? I don't know. I wasn't that close to read it.

Yeah, I just seen it and it looked away. It's like, oh, God, that's what I want to see. But, you know, just living, living in Mexico was, was, uh, it was, it was different with, as far as you have. Basically anything goes, you could do, you could do whatever you want. Okay, so what, what about the, the, the, the, remember the chick you had, you were dating or, oh, yeah, uh, was that, was like 23, 24? Yeah, I ended up. It was one night after leaving a club, we went to what was called after party. And my buddy, Nacho, he was like, oh, let's go to the other parties. So I was like, okay, cool. And like nine in the morning. And I've seen these women, these chicks, was girls in a pool.

And one of them spoke English. And I guess they were aware of me going there. So they were waiting for this. I guess you could say a gringo. And that's what they call you over there because you're not born in Mexico. Even if you are like you say, like typical Mexican, like dark skin and black hair, all that stuff. And if you wasn't born in Mexico, whatever is, you're just gringo. But one just popped out on nowhere saying, hey, and come over here. And I was like, okay. And come to find out she was a daughter of a politician there in that state.

And I mean, I didn't think nothing of it. She started taking me out. different places. And I really didn't know who the, the person until one night where we're driving and running a red light was common in Mexico. If you had any kind of power, whatever, no one's going to stop you. And so we got pulled over by the military. And she goes, wait, let me talk. I said, okay. So the cop, military guy came to my door and she She's in a passenger. She's talking to the guy, and she says, she hands her credentials over to the guy, says, this is who I am.

Do you need me to call my father? So as they're looking at the ID or credentials, they just apologize. It's, oh, we're so sorry. We didn't mean any harm. We didn't want to disrupt your night. You guys are good to go. So I pull off. I look to her.

I said, who are you? And that's when she told me, because I didn't ask her. I didn't know she was a daughter of politician until that, in that time. right there. She goes, well, who? I said, well, who are you? She goes, oh, don't worry about it. You're going to have a lot of fun with me. You're going to see, I'm going to give you a real Mexican experience. And I'm like, okay. And she did. She would, we would get away with almost anything. I mean, whatever we did. And I didn't know the, the amount of power this person had. And she was in her late 20s. I'm like 23 at the time. And, you know, wherever we went,

she was greeted and cameras flashing I just thought because she's the daughter of a politician or political people, they're kind of like celebrities in the way and did she live in like the like the like the there's like a protected area or something

like that or a gated community was close to a Navy base and I don't know what that had to do with anything but it was like it was a protected place right there I was just wanted because I know in Mexico well I don't know a Mexico city I heard that there's like an entire area that's like just for the government officials, but you're not like in Mexico

City. You're in Acapocco. Yeah. I don't know if that was like that everywhere. I don't know. It could be because, you know, these people have a lot of power. And if the politicians don't do what the cartel wants, then they can be subject to be. And harm and things like that.

So it probably is. So at what point do you go back to the United States? Because at some point you go back from the United States. Remember, didn't you have, like, you have a backpack or money in a backpack or something? You don't you get pulled over? And because I know you go to, you stashed a backpack. You get pulled over or something. Oh, yeah.

I remember you pulled the police report while we were in calling. Oh, yeah. You did. I forgot about that. You did pull the police report for me. And they charged you. They charged me for the helicopter fuel. The fuel.

When I was running from the helicopter and I got away with it. so it was what was it I was driving one night and I was out having fun with some friends and I guess I guess I was I was

most times reckless careless I had a bunch of money on me and I didn't think I was going to get pulled over anything so I it was like 12 1 in a morning I go do a beer run which means not steal beer

it's to go buy beer so I went to go live beer because most people get to confuse a beer run and then you're going to go smash and grab whatever but i go get beer it's the streets are empty i go to i'll go to pull out the parking lot and i see a car far far far down i don't know what it is that's how far it is i go to pull out into into into the highway and i see these lights coming towards me like it's face like this i'm going this way they're coming this way and i'm thinking oh they're going to go get somebody and then I see the thing do a U-turn

I see the cop car do a U-turn so I'm like oh it's I guess it's that way so and then they get behind me and I'm like oh I'm in their way but then I go to pull over and it follows me I'm like what the fuck did I do so I pull into this parking lot

I look over to my buddy I said I'm out to run he's like no man Jacob don't run I said I'm a holler at you later but why do you Now, are you intoxicated? Do you have a, you have a license? No, I had a, I was on suspended license.

I had a ticket that I didn't pay that I didn't know it was going to suspend my license. So I didn't know my license was suspended. So I was kind of guessing maybe my license is suspended, maybe not. I don't know, because I would hear the, oh, they'll suspend your license. But I didn't know exactly the exact date when I had to pay the ticket that when it was due. I didn't care. I just, whatever, I just brushed it on the rug. So I'm thinking, damn.

I think my license might be suspended, and that's going to make me go to jail. And then they're going to search and find everything in here. So, and I have my passport in there. So I was like, all right, I grabbed the backpack. As soon as I go to put it in park, I just, I think it was still moving when I went to go put it in a park. I just slammed it in part. As soon as I put it in park, the door was already open and it was off to the races. It reminds me of the horse races, whereas the gates open.

that you're running, I hear a guy in the back and behind me, stop, don't, like, stop running. And I hear keys, just right behind me. And then there's a fence. So in my mind, I'm like, I'm going to run until I stop hearing keys. Right. I mean, that's the whole goal. It's not here keys anymore. So I'm running, running.

I jump over a fence, jump over another fence, going to a ditch. There's no more keys now. I cross the same highway that I went on to when he was pulling me over. I go down a ditch behind the gas station, come out of the ditch, jump on another fence where I met another cop waiting for me. And then there was an apartment complex. So I run the opposite way of where he's at. I run to a fence.

And at this time, I'm so tired because I'm drunk and smoking. And I jump on the fence and just cut myself with a barbed wire on my stomach and just continue to run. And I didn't know where I was running. I didn't have a game plan or nothing. And I was just going to run and try to escape and these lights and all these police. I go to someone's house where there's an Equaline van. All right. You got under the van.

Yeah. I get under the van. And it's like three in the morning. It's cold. Oh, while I'm in the, before I get to an equal line van, I go to throw the backpack into the woods. There was a small patch of woods. I separated the apartment complex and the, I guess, another neighborhood. And I just, I just, I just chocked.

tucked it in there hoping that, you know, because at this point I'm thinking they're probably going to catch me because I'm dead beat tired. And I know where to go. And they got the place around it. At this point, there's helicopters. There's dogs. And I can hear the dogs coming. I can hear the dog coming. And the helicopter is catching up to where I'm at. So I said, let me hide, but where I hide at. So as I'm looking around, I see an equal line van. I go in an equal line van just so I can get away from the helicopter because I know the helicopter can't see me if I'm under there. I just, that's what I think. But I hear now the dog's catching up to me. So the dog's getting up to me. And it's so close, I can hear the dog breathe. It's going, you know, I can

hear it breathe. I said, man, the only thing that's going through my head is like, if this dog comes after me, I'm going to punch the shit out of it. And that's like hitting a cop. That's a charge. Right. So I'm like, I don't give a fuck. I'll take that charge because I'm not going to get bit by this dog walks right past me. And then I don't hear it no more. And then the helicopter leaves. And then I jump out. And then I'm going to walking down the street. And I see a cop and the cop goes, hey, are you the guy we're looking for? At this point.

Was he in the patrol car? He was just walking. Oh. He parked his car in the middle of the street and just like patrolling the area trying to catch, like, see if anybody's moving. And at this point, I just said, you know, they got my passport. It's in the car. The car's in my name. I might as well just bite the bullet on this little charge here, do whatever, a month or two, and get out and not risk anything, what else I got going on the background.

So I said, yeah, I am the guy you're looking for. And he was so cool with it. Like, I wasn't, you had all this stuff looking for me, but now I was like, he's like, okay, cool. And he radioed in. He goes, hey, we found the guy and took me over to where my car is at. and the captain of the Ocala Police Department is there, he goes, the only reason why I'm not going to hit you with a DUI is because you outran me, and no one's ever outran me before.

So, but whatever you do, don't throw up in a car. I said, okay, good. I don't know what you're talking about, but good. And they took me in, and I did like three months, and while I was in the county, I was able to get a plane ticket back to Mexico and go back. Or I got out, got the money, and went back. Yeah, went back.

So why couldn't you bond out? Like, was there was nobody to bond you out? So your co-defendant is still in Mexico, or is he here? No, he's in Mexico. So by the time they booked me in, they had, I didn't know they had court the next morning. And I didn't, I was like, oh, I'll just, in my mind, I'll just bond out tomorrow. I said, I'm going to get some sleep. I'm tired.

I ran all night. I'm beat. I wake up in a morning. morning, call somebody and bond out. But I had one of the CEOs, he goes over to my bay, taps it. He was, hey, you got court in 10 minutes. I said, court in 10 minutes. How do I got court in 10 minutes? Because it's usually when I've been to the county before. When you go there, you don't have a court date. I'm usually bonded out the next day. The same thing or the next day, I'm usually bonded out. So nobody knew I was in the jail or nothing. So I was like, oh, I'll

just call somebody. So the, the CEO, he's a, hey, you got court in 10. minutes. I said, you sure you got the right person? He was like, yeah, he's Diaz, right? Said, yeah, that's me. I said, he goes, you got to see Judge Fudge. And that was the worst judge in the county at the time. He would give you the max on every charge you get. He was straight, straight dickhead. So I was like, all right, cool. Splash water my face. I got a head full of hair. I'm doing the best I can to kind of look presentable, try to get the less amount of time, whatever. And I was like, fuck, how if I'm about bond out? They're going sentence me before I bond out. It's not even hanging up. It hasn't even been six hours.

He goes, he goes, judge goes, I would give you, I would give you probation, but I'm sending you up for failure by doing that. I'm going to give you the max on both your charges. I'm going to give you 60, 60 days for resisting, resisting arrest without violence. And I'm going to give you 90 days for having a suspended license. And I said, okay, but he said, I'm going to run it, I guess is run them concurrent. All right. So you do the time for. both charges at the same time. Right. So 90 days.

Yeah. So I ended up doing that for the helicopter incident. Okay. And then what? Then you get out and you grab the money and you go back to Mexico? Yeah. I get the money. I get the money.

Do what I have to do with the money. Go back to Mexico and just continue doing what I mean, continue selling drugs. So you go back to Mexico. and you end up meeting somebody, right? You end up meeting a new, you get a new contact there that connects you with someone, with these guys, the brothers or something in the, in Ocala, or is it in Ocala? Orlando, what was it? And I was in Ocala.

That was, when I was in Mexico, we ended up meeting up with someone that recommended a customer. We're looking for a new customer before we go back to the United States. So we get it. The contact was the Shuler brothers. So once you get there and you meet the Shul, how do you meet these guys? My co-defendant went first to meet him. I stayed.

I didn't really care. I was going to see him anyway. So it wasn't like, oh, I got to meet you the first day. He went. When he came back, I asked, hey, how are these new guys, whatever? No, we're good. They spoke about pricing and all this other stuff and how they're going to handle the business. And that's when I ended up meeting, I guess it's the older one, Nate, is the one that was doing all the running around.

His younger brother, Casey, was the one that was doing the directing and giving out the orders. And we would meet up in the middle, at a trailer in the middle of nowhere. There's like maybe the next neighbors. You have houses with like five, six, seven acres, so no one can really see what's going on. We met up with them and, you know, drop off, drop off the product, wait a couple of days, and pick up the money. It was something about the, uh, them I didn't like. I just had a thing where I didn't like them. I don't know why.

I didn't, I had a weird feeling about him. There was an incident where it kind of confirmed what my thoughts were. It was one time where he tried to blame us that we gave him bad bad. and he said that he tried to cook it. He tried to cook a key and it came out and he fucked it up. It was a bad batch, whatever. And instead of going back and forth saying, no, you're right or I'm wrong, whatever, I said, well, let's do this.

How about I bring five keys to you, you pick which one you want, open it up and test it in front of me. And let me see if it's wrong. And this is the first time I actually found out how to cook. and test it and see the purity of it because we never had to open it. It was always, you just give it away like that. And you're giving him the same shit that you're giving everybody else and nobody else complained.

But it's only him I'm giving it to. He's the only one distributing, distributing for us. So he's not, there's nothing, I don't know anybody else that had the problem, same problem. So we know it's not fucked up. So to prove a point, we just said, look, let's nip it in a bud. Here's five.

Pick which one. you want to test testing in front of me and then we'll go from there then i can go back and say yeah we did get a fucked up batch right um but we knew that wasn't the case so he opened one up uh put it in a pyrex bowl he put about seven grams in there started with like like wishing it around in the in the microwave he flag he was splashing with water and he just he had a big grin on his face big smile and i was like hey is everything okay like what was going on because i didn't know the process of what he was doing he was just doing in front of me he goes um no i just i dropped seven and eleven came back and like okay is that good it's like oh no we're good everything's good to

go and that was that's how that was a way you could test the purity uh or the the um yeah the purity of of the see if it was any good or not because i guess they were cooking it cutting putting cut on it and stretching it right so they would that's how they would stretch it a lot of times you know you sell when you sell large amounts so people want to they want to make more money on top of it they're whatever the $2,000 per $2,000 per key that they would make wasn't good enough they wanted to break it down sell ounces and try to get the most out of it I don't know why they did it they didn't have to because it was an endless supply you didn't have to do that it was wasting more time to break it down but that's what he

up doing and that's why he fucked up one of the keys and he had to we i mean he had to prove that it was that he was a liar and it was from that moment on where that was the money that he owed for for it was like a it was about a key there's a key or key a key in a half it turned out to be about $94,000 worth that he was in debt still, but I was still giving him, giving it to him because I didn't want to slow it down because I knew they were good.

As far as paying, they were good at that. They were never fucked up about that. So I didn't have an issue of, I'm going to cut you off until you pay me back. How can you pay me back? Yeah. I got to keep giving you more drugs so you can pay me back little by little, which is okay because you work at off. You work at it off. So, and that was the

that was the amount of money I got busted on when they had a we wore a wire and I was collecting that money because it was oh I got you next week I got you next week and it was already been it's already been a certain amount of time

where we know we don't know exactly how much you're making but we know you're making good money because you're buying things they got a sod company and they got brand new John Deere tractors for their business and they got new cars

And it was, okay, we know you got money, so where's our money? So we went to go confiscate the John Deere, confiscate. We wanted you to sign the title over for a property. You got to put something down to say that you're going to pay us because it's already been so long. And you haven't paid us a dime yet. And you've been still getting drugs off of us. And that was the exact amount where I got busted for collecting $94,000.

What happened? What happened with the, because you're trying to find him. He's dodging you. You, at one time you found him at the gas station. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would call and it was always, I got to talk to my brother. So at this point, I had no idea that his brother Casey had already got arrested and they were already, and then Nate got arrested and they were already cooperating with the government.

But I guess they were already on other cases because by the time I got popped, they were already in nine different cases. And they had another connect that was also bringing in, right? Well, they were in. You weren't their only supplier. Well, is that right? Because the article I saw there was a whole other. Well, the deal, the thing was they were already indicted from the guy that entered,

the guy that referred them to us. Oh, okay. So they were already indicted. And I don't know if they knew or didn't know. But Casey was already on probation, which I didn't know. He was on probation for drugs. Yeah, like 10-year probation or something like that. That's hard to do.

So I couldn't even do five. But he gets pulled over. They find drugs on him. He rolls over. And his brother rolls over. So I'm calling, calling, calling. And Nate's telling me the whole time, oh, he did tell me his brother got arrested, that they needed lawyer money.

and they were using the money to get him out. So that's why they couldn't pay me. And I'm like, yeah, whatever it takes to get them out, get this thing cleared so we can get back going to work. That's cool, whatever. Don't worry about it. But he would always leave us hanging with, oh, let me call my brother, see if we can get a little bit of money to pay you, you know, 10,000, whatever we can do. But that day never came. It was, oh, I got you Friday.

or I got you Monday or Wednesday and Wednesday never came so I just said fuck it I got tired so one day we're driving around and because he's not responding to the phone calls and text messages like he used to so that was a big red flag

so we spot him we spot him at a gas station and he just he was he turned like a white like a ghost like he's like oh like I guess he saw his life flashed before his eyes and I go, hey, what's up, man?

How come you have been, you know, responding to your text and your phone call? What's up? And, you know, these are big guys and, you know, scary looking guys. And do you see someone like me that's clean cut coming up to you and you're scared to me? Right. Like, that's how I will approach you. Like, hey, can I give me an answer or there's going to be some issues?

And he's like, hey, follow me. Okay. So he takes us back behind the store. There's like a little graveyard. and he jumps out and he starts to talking and later on down the road I was figuring I figured out that he was on the phone with the feds he was buying time to go back to the cemetery buying time to be on the phone with the feds like hey I got these guys here how do I record his conversation but he couldn't he didn't have the wire or nothing right and they couldn't tap our phones so

it was how they how he was able to to get me on the wire or any kind of phone call recorded phone calls was he wore earpiece and a mic and recorded his phone calls with me and that's how they were able to get me on the recorded phone call that's how they were able to guess you could say tap my phone without tapping it and so we met him back in the cemetery

he goes look man it's just it's very hard he started breaking down again man it's hard right now we can't get nothing I'm not avoiding you we're going to pay you everything's good and at this point he still hasn't told us what really is going on that he's cooperating with the feds and everything

So, I'd take it like a day or two. Do you think at this point he wasn't cooperating against you? No, no, no, no, no, no. At this point, I didn't think he was cooperating or his brother. No, I know you didn't think he was cooperating. I'm saying, in retrospect, was he cooperating with the feds against the other group of people? And they, he hadn't, he hadn't told them about you? Or you think it was everybody?

No, he hasn't, I guess he hasn't gotten to, to me yet because he was already, working on other cases. So one, I guess, what was it? Like a few days later, I'm, I don't know why, but for some reason, I go, I go open my laptop and I like to see mug shots. So I'm going through the mug shots, whatever is on Facebook. I'm scrolling through mugshots. And I see Casey's face.

And I'm like, I've only met this guy once, Casey. I've seen him in a Walmart. And I know he has, he sticks out because he has a huge thing on his face. Like a bark marker. Yeah, like a mall, big old fat, ugly mall, whatever. And he, and I turn around and I go to my co-defendant, I say, hey, do you, do you know this guy? And he's like, oh, that's one of the brothers. And he was like, cool about it.

Oh, that's one of the brothers. I'm like, he got arrested for drugs, you know, because we didn't know he got arrested for drugs. And he's like, all right, so what do you want to do? And I was like, well, my idea is to, I know I'm not going to get the $94,000. But I want to get as much as I can to $94,000 and then leave town and set up shop somewhere else because we had already set it up to go move. So we're already in the middle of moving to move because at this point we're like, all right, he's fucked up. Whether or not he's snitching on us or not, we're not going to take that risk. So the whole investigation was me going to collect as much as I could off the $94,000.

I mean, if I can get 20, 30 or 40, I'll be good. and I'll just cut my losses. And he, I mean, the whole investigation is him wearing a wire. And I never forget the last time he wore a wire when I went to go see him. There was like, it looked like, how you say, a helicopter, like a private helicopter. It didn't have a police or nothing. It was a regular helicopter, but it kept circling us while I'm sitting here talking to him. But he wouldn't let me get close to him.

For some reason, it was weird. He would stay next to his truck. and I was parked behind him so I really didn't think nothing of I just sat back and I spoke to him far distance and that was a conversation that I guess the last conversation that we had

where he was able to get enough evidence to have us indicted that's the one where you said the transcript says you said look you're better off paying I'm a nice guy I'm a nice guy

you want to pay me What I said to him was, I said, because I got, I got, I was tired of, I knew he was jerking, jerking me off, whatever. Jerking me around. Jerking me around. He wasn't jerking me, jerking me around. So, I say, hey, and I just, at this point, I had, I had enough power, I guess you could say, or I can make those kind of decisions and say what I wanted to say, because it only makes sense.

I mean, how long are you going to wait? So I just said, look, and I made up a story. a lie. And I said, hey, you know, I like you. I mean, you're a great guy. We've always gotten along. We never had anything wrong. And it's not me. It's the other people. They keep blowing up my phone and they want to know who you are and where you live. And we know where you live. We know where your kid goes to school at. We know your grandma lives at. We know where your brother lives at. Do you want me to give us information out to these people? Because they're not going to come and collect like I collect in a nice way.

They collect in a different way. So what's up to you? And that's when he turned like a ghost. He's just like, I might have been seeing shit, but he turned white almost. He's like pale. He's just, you've seen the life leave him when I said that. And that was, I guess that was the reason why that was our last conversation because he was in fear for his life.

And they just said, we're done. We got enough. Well, so how did they come arrest you? It was like a movie. The typical day that I was going through before this. day of arrest wasn't the same day. For example, I got a buddy of mine that I would always invite to go out drinking and I don't care. I would say anything to get this guy out, but he would never come out. I say, hey, man, don't worry about it. I'll pick you up. I'll take you home. I'll

buy your drinks. I'll buy your food at the end of the night. Don't have to worry about shit. I would say, oh, I would say anything to get him out. No, I can't. No, I can't. I don't want to. I was like, all right, fuck it. The day I got arrested, I get a message in Facebook say, hey, can we go out tonight? I said, okay, that's weird. Yeah, we can go. It was a Wednesday. I was like, yeah, we can go.

Yeah, I got you. I'll pick you up later on tonight. Now, the way the house is set up in the garage, it's like an open garage, I guess. There's no walls, but it's a carport, right, for the back, for the side door, the house. And that was the door we came in. And only two people knew where I lived at. So they would, you know, come on that side, too. And there was a front door that nobody ever used.

I mean, it worked, but nobody ever used. So I heard a knock at the front door. But you know how you ever heard, like, you could tell when it's a police knocking? Yeah, yeah. I heard the police knock. So I'm sitting here. I knew it was the police knock because, one, it's the wrong door. Two, it's to have a, there's a certain knock that they used.

And my heart went to my stomach. I just said, I just said, it was like the movie blow. when he's at the table, and he got set up by his friends, and he's like, we already know. I knew it was over, but my co-defendant didn't know it was over. He's in the kitchen cooking, you know, just, he's making food before we go leave, and he's cooking, and he hears a door knock, and he goes, he goes, answer it, answer it, because he's cooking.

I said, no, you answer it. Right. I'm not, I don't want them to come in. Right. So this time, they made their way to the side door, and there's more knock. and I can hear voices. I said, we know you're in there. And he answers the door.

Does he know it? He realized at this point. He doesn't even know what the police until he opens the door. He opens the door and he's met with assault rifles. He's like, put your hands up, get on the, or come outside and get on the ground and whatever. They take them out. And then at this point, I had, I had an HP laptop and like the highest technology at this time was you can open your, open your computer with a fingerprint.

So I made sure that that setting was still on so they couldn't get into my laptop, which I mean, I think they can get in anyways. But in my mind, I was like, oh, they can't get in. So I log out of everything, shut it down, close my lap, calmly close my laptop while he's dealing with them in the front yard, just close it, put it to the side, and I go out there. And he goes, he goes, is your name Jacob Diaz? I said, yeah. He goes, you have ID? I said, yeah.

And I'm trying to play it off like, like, I'm innocent guy. This is a mistake. Yeah, because I go to get my ID. I show him the ID. He goes, oh, yeah, you're the one. I said, you want to what? He goes, we got a, we have a warrant for your arrest. I said, for what?

He goes, for drug trafficking. I said, that's impossible. You got the wrong guy. I said, I don't sell drugs. In my mind, I didn't. Somebody else did. I just gave it to him. And he goes, come outside, go over there.

And they separated us. and they went in the house pulled the tub off the wall ripped up the couches the beds and we're because what helped me what helped I guess what helped me was we were already in the middle of moving so we had already

everything already packed up so they come in and ripping the place up we don't have any drugs in the house they don't find nothing they find five cell phones that I had and it's not suspicious no no because so they find

five cell phones I had and they didn't find anything so and I know there's cash I have cash in a shoebox in the attic and I'm trying to hurry up the process to get out take me downtown because at my mind I'm going to bond out right you know is this a feds this is oh those 13 cars 13 cars that surrounded the house and you know what saw assault rifles yeah but it was like 13 cars that surround the house. We had a house of five acres, so there was no neighbors. I think nobody can see it.

And it was 13 cars I surround the house. And they finally get me out. They put me in a front seat of a navigator and a DEA agent because it was a North District, Middle District, and South District that came and teamed up to get, to get me and my co-defendant. And I'm in a front seat. And I'm trying to rush the police to get out so they don't find the money. Right.

And as soon as the guy goes to put it in reverse, the reason why we're waiting there is still because we're waiting for two guys to come out. He kept saying, man, where's these guys at? Where's these guys at? They come out. As soon as he goes to put it in a reverse, like, fuck it. I'm just going to take you downtown and we worry about them later. He goes to put in reverse, these two guys come out with a shoebox.

And he's like, hey, look what we got here. And he opened up the shoebox and there's black bundles. And I know what it is. It's cash. So he's got black bundles. He's like, look. He's like, oh, fuck. Because my thing was, let me get downtown, tell my brother to go get my clothes at the house and go, I was going to give a code word.

It's like, go in there, go into this room, and look in the closet for my clothes. And he would have found something and I was going to bond out and get the money and run. But it didn't happen. No, man. It was a day late and a dollar short, well, like $87,000 short. but is that what they find that was a 87,000 they took 10 and they said 76,000 remember we seen they got the report Wells Fargo counted it um um I was going to tell you I bought everybody steak dinners so what what so what so did you bond out you did bond out I know you

I ended up bonding out a few months a few like a two months after I had my uncle do what is called like a signature bond where you put up uh $80,000 or either collapse. collateral cash property, whatever. Yeah. And I was on ankle monitor. I had to forfeit my passport, you know, the whole deal. Yeah, yeah. And you got a, you got an attorney.

Yeah. What the attorney tell you? As far as, like, I mean, what he tell you you were looking at, what you were facing. Oh, man, I couldn't even, I didn't speak that language at that time. Because at my mind, I'm beating the case. I'm going to trial. Like, I don't have any drugs. So how can I go to jail?

It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything. Well, I didn't know the system. Right. And he goes, he goes, he starts talking about these guidelines and these months and I'm like 144 months, 151 months. How many years is that? 12 times. Right.

So, holy fuck. You're getting, I was looking at, my guidelines started off at 15 years because I had, they found a gun in the house. I was able to beat that in trial. I took five years off because they said I possessed it during drug trafficking and I didn't possess it. So they wrote the charge wrong. So I've knocked that out with a, I knocked a, I knocked a five years. years off. And my attorney is sitting there telling me, he goes, look, man, this is the first time I heard the word cooperate as relating to snitching. He's like, if you just cooperate, I get

you five years. You have no criminal history. This is your first time in the feds. You do like three. You get out, get a whole new career, live the rest of your life. You're good. Let's get this over with. I looked at him. I said, I thought you were on my side. Like, why? That is your side. Like, why are you, being on your side? I was like, why are you trying to get me to say, I'm guilty when I don't have any drugs? He's like, that's not how it works. So he broke down how the conspiracy, it was a conspiracy to possess with intent to this JB5 more kilos. He goes, how conspiracy works is if two people agree to, to commit or furtherance of a crime, it can mean, he goes, for example, if you go to Home Depot and get a rope, a knife, some of trash bags, and you're on your way to go kill somebody and they kill.

Catch it before you do it, that's conspiracy. You haven't, you don't have possession, but you were going to have possession. You were about to go do it. And I said, well, how's that worse than having possession? I said, I would have better, better off having it on me, right? It's like, yeah, you would have got less time. I don't know why it works like that. But, you know, conspiracy is, and it was facing 10 to life.

Right. So, and they have, they have, they have recordings of you. Yeah, I've seen that in trial. They have me the video. when they played the video of me threatened to kill this guy or have somebody kill this guy, I try not to laugh because my attorney, my attorney goes, because I did not, one, you know, you always sound, you don't know how you sound until you hear it. Yeah.

So I didn't know I sounded like that. I said, man I sound like a pussy. Oh, I thought you were going to say gangsters. No, because I was like, because it's like, like, I didn't sound tough. I just went straight to the point. I just said what I said. But, and but then I did, I was starting to think I was like, damn, I'm. Little old me got this big guy scared like, damn, that is kind of, I guess you could say, gangster in a way, but they played the video because they were playing all the evidence that they had the phone calls.

They played 13 phone calls, and they played like four videos, and that was the times where I was meeting him at in private and he had the wire. And when they played that video of me, I was going to send somebody to his to him. And I started, I try not to laugh because my attorney tells me every day before court, he goes, whatever you do, don't. show no emotion right don't look at the jury don't don't keep a stone face but don't smile and don't look he's it was hard like what do you want me to do like right dead because I got to have something right and but I broke I broke character that one and I but I had I look down I like this I just looked down I was like oh god man I can't believe I did that well so wasn't your didn't you say that you're like your co-defendant had even said like because they

arrested your co-defendant too the same day yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. Didn't he basically, like, say, tell him what to tell him. Like, just, like, tell him and take the time off or something, and you just wouldn't do it. Yeah, I got to, when I got bonded out, he, he didn't. He didn't because he's illegal. Right. So they didn't give him no option.

But I got a message saying that for me to blame everything on him. Right. For me to tell on him, and that would be my way of getting a reduced sentence. and it will be okay and I told him I said remember what I told you in day one I said I don't care if they give me

a hundred years I'm not gonna I'm not gonna tell on nobody and I was not just what I stuck I just stuck to that to that code and I didn't

I was hardheaded just a kind of kind of person that I didn't like to be I didn't like to play both sides and if I was gonna be something I'm gonna be it to the fullest

and if not then I'm not so there was no in between with me and I just went all the way and so then so the the

governments come into you with deals, right? They're trying to get you to take a deal, right? Like, even once you say, look, I'm not going to cooperate. They still come to you with a deal. They still don't want to go to trial if they don't have to. No, they never want to go to a trial. So the first deal I got was my attorney got the prosecutor on the phone. He put them on speaker phone. And the prosecutor says, okay, what do you want in order for you to sign the plea deal? And I didn't want to sign a plea deal. So I was making shit up, see what I can get away with. I said, take the gun off, done. I was like, bam.

And I said, if that's so easy, can I reduce the charge from five kilos to 500, was it, 500 grams to five kilos? And that was five-year mandatory minimum. And he's like, no, we can't do that. We have too much evidence, but don't think I can take off is the gun. He goes, just put an X on the gun charge and initial it, and then you're good. And I said, okay, I'm not going to do it. And I just went along with stringing them along, just playing a game. And even one time when I told my attorney that I was going to plead guilty, I said, I want to have a change of plea.

And in a way, deep down the side I wanted to get it over with, I was like, I'm going to do a change of plea. But on the way to do the change of plea, I had a change of heart. And I got to the, I got to the. courtroom. And I didn't tell my body what I was going to say. I wasn't going to change my plea. I didn't tell my body. So I went up to the judge and judge says that anybody promise you anything or, you know, why do you understand you are pleading guilty? Is this something you want to do? You're ready. Whatever. And I said, yes, your honor. He goes, okay, you want to enter your plea right now? I said, yeah. And I leaned into the microphone. I looked at them dead in his pupils and I said,

not guilty. And then I look back and see my attorney's reaction and he just had his head down shaking like this. Like, what are you doing, man? I was like, what? Fuck these people. But that's just... Then you went to trial. You end up going to trial.

Yeah. They moved the trial out of Ocala to Orlando. And, man, that's the fastest trial. It's the fastest trial. The open shot case. How many days was it? Four or five? Four or five days, yeah.

And the DE agent gets on the stand and he talks and everybody. Okay. So it's four or five. day, four, five, well, four days. I forget, because I mean, I know, I remember we got the, um, did we get all the transcripts or we just got some of the transcripts? No, I still got them. Oh, did we get them all?

No, we only have day, we only have one day of transcripts. Okay. But the transcripts that we did get was both of the brothers, the Schuler brothers testifying. So I got their testimony. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. So the Schuller brothers, they testify, you're found guilty.

Yeah. Your judge was a newly appointed female judge. Yep. That was our first case. You came out of Fort Myers. Listen to this. And what happened when she sentenced you? She started to cry.

She started to tear up. Aw. Yeah. She said she felt bad. She felt bad. She is a mandatory minimum. She couldn't give them less than 10 years. Yeah.

She told me, she says, like, she started to prepare, like, sentencing. And then she, like, took a long break and, like, put the microphone away. and got some tissues and I thought she was just like maybe trying to sneeze or something or whatever but she's you can hear the sniffles and she started the cry and then she cleaned herself up and she says she goes I don't want to give you you know this this amount of time you don't deserve it your childhood is was probably one of the worst ones I've seen you don't deserve this time you just was you got you were putting a predicament in an environment that you couldn't control and things got out of hand

and unfortunately I'm going to have to send it to you to 120 months and the prosecutor was even mad because he was wanting to give me 14 years and but the judge went under that and gave me the mandatory minimum

and she said that's the best I can do I got my hands tied I can't do it okay so what would your code offending get 11 and a half 11 and a half years and then you got shipped to

you didn't go to Coleman first no ended up going to Pensacola camp well why didn't it would but then I met you at the low what happened at the camp they catch you with a cell phone or what happened at the camp you got to a fight yeah I got to a fight I got to a fight I got to two fights in six months my first fight was like in month three someone called me a snitch and then I don't understand how that's possible you went to trial so I go to trial like the only people look whenever we were at Coleman and guys would be like oh, you know, this guy's solid, this guy's, you know, this guy's a snitch.

I used to always say, well, the only people you know that for sure did not stitch is that people that went to trial. Yeah. Because if they went, they wouldn't, you wouldn't go to trial and then cooperate. Or you might go to trial, lose, and then attempt to cooperate. But at very least, he went to trial. So you at least know, you could, and it's not hard to figure it out anyway. Yeah.

But anyway, so that's just, that's just people being idiots. What was the other fight? During a soccer game. Well, you know. That's very, yeah, I guess very Hispanic of me. But it was during soccer game, and it was one of the Mexicans from Texas, and apparently in the feds, Mexicans from Texas don't like Mexicans from Florida. I don't know why.

Anyways, it was playing soccer. The guy steps on, we're at the end of the game, and to go, I went to go, to go win the ball from him, and I guess I nudge them a little bit too hard. I mean, that's how you play soccer, I guess. He didn't like it. He goes, oh, that's how you want to play? And I said, what do you mean? He goes, don't worry about it.

So next play, the ball's coming to me. I see him coming. And before I get the ball, I just pass to get rid of it. So there's no reason to get contact with me or anything. Right. I get rid of the ball. He keeps coming to me. He steps on my toes, and he goes, there, now we're even.

I said, what? I said, okay, you know what? Yeah, we are even, I guess. Yeah, we're even. I guess I pushed you. You know, I'll take that. You know, he goes, oh, you're going to cry about it. I was like, what are you talking about?

So he's approaching me. And as soon as he comes up to me, he pushed me. I take two steps back and I met him. I just hit him in his mouth, knocked him out. And he started snoring on the ground. And then that's when I got in trouble. And then you went to, you went to Coleman. I was in Coleman.

I was in Elkton. Why at Elkton? I thought you left from Coleman. No. I went from Pensacola to Elkton. It's a disciplinary prison. So they send people up there. It's like two hours or hours south at a Canadian border.

So they sent me up there for, I was up there for three years. And then on good behavior, I was shipped or transferred to Coleman. Hey, sorry to interrupt the video. Just want to let you guys know that we're going to have an extra 15 or 20 minutes of content on my Patreon. It's $10 a month for about an hour's worth of extra content every single week. Back to the podcast. So the Shulers, remember the two guys that testified that everything?

So he gets to Coleman. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is the Shulers live in the general, they live in Ocala, that general area, right? Is that close area? And there's, some sort of counting. There's three brothers. So two of them are drug smugglers. One of them is a career BOP employee who's the, was he a lieutenant?

Yeah, he retired. But he was there when you were there. Yeah, yeah, he was there. And I'd walk by him every single day. And he, I wanted to tell him, but I did, I just, I left it alone. And I just, and I just, and he looks just like him. So I had almost see, I had to see that face every single day and it fucked me up. I was like, God, you had that look on your face on.

God, he was in, he was in. He's just like a, anyway, just a cut of a. Yeah, he was, he was power tripping. Walk to him. Hey, you, you, you, inmate, inmate. You know, just a total. you know he probably maybe he wasn't a douchebag but i never really had any interactions with him but just watching him he was a he had a whole the whole boston people around and yelling at

people and you're just kind of just kind of a jerk oh he might have been a great person i don't know did i tell you when um when i was in coleman the schuler brother's nephew arrived there and um so you know how they have cars and shit so the ocala car which i wasn't in but they knew me I knew them, and, you know, so they said, hey, we got someone from Ocala coming. You can, you know, you want to introduce yourself or see where they are, whatever. Yeah, I'll go see what, because I'm always down to see people from Ocala, whatever. Right. You know, like, what's his name, the one upstairs that was with us? Cook?

Cook. Yeah, so anyways. You know Cook's out. I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. He texts me all the time. He's just as much of a maniac now. So one night, the bus, a bus came in with inmates.

and I approached him, and I said, hey, I said, what's up, man? My name's, you know, I'm new to myself. And he goes, oh, what's up, man? I said, you're from Ocala? He goes, yeah, yeah, I'm from Ocala. But I got my case out in California. And I was like, oh, shit, what are you doing in California? So I started, you know, getting some small talk.

And so one thing you do is you want to show paperwork. So I was like, let me go. I said, hold on, wait right here. I'm going to get something for you. He got off the bus, so I wanted to get him some stamps, whatever. Go get a haircut and get some food, whatever. some before, so he can go to commissor, or before he went to commissary. And so I was like, I go upstairs, I grab my paperwork, I go down, I give him the

paperwork, and I didn't know who this guy was or nothing. So I gave him my paperwork, and he's going through, he gets to like the second to the last page, and he freezes. And I looked at him, I said, is everything okay? He's like, you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, everything's okay, but I just want to let you know, man. I had nothing to do with it. I said, do with what? He goes, man, those are my two uncles right there.

I said, he goes, I did deal with them, but, hey, man, that's between y'all. I had nothing to do with what they did to you because it showed out they testified on me. And I said, no, man, you're good, man, relax, man, you're good. I know it's not you. You're just a whole separate case and everything. And you just came in a system. I'm about to leave the system. So, yeah, you're good.

About three days later, he checked in and he left. Oh, I remember this. Yeah, he checked in. So he was basically what worry that you might. I was going to say. And then the other thing about him not saying anything to Shuler, because you don't know how somebody's going to react. So you're technically Shuler, the, the, correctional officer, shouldn't be there with someone that he's connected to in someone, especially somebody who's. And I didn't want to leave the prison because I was the first time being back

close to home. So I kind of wanted, I didn't want to, that's one reason I didn't want to mention it. And two, as is like that, like you said, you don't want to, you can't be in the same place because I guess for your safety. You're safe. He might decide he wants to have you something happen to you. Or I might have something done to him. Right, right. Either way.

Yeah. So it does happen. You know what I'm saying? Like it'll happen where people, they're like, like, what was it? I'm going to say it was Doug Dodd. Doug Dodd went to, he went to high school with a guy that, I could be wrong, but I'm most positive it was Doug Dodd where it was like they knew somebody, right? Like one of his co-defendants, like, anyway, he went to high school at the guy.

guy a little bit older, but he happened to be a CEO there. And he saw him one day, looked up and saw him, and the guy kept walking. And Doug was like, kind of like nodded at him, but, you know, we were all in a line. You have to keep walking. Well, then later on that day, he saw him again. He walked up. He said, hey, come here for a second. And he goes, don't tell anybody that you know me.

Don't tell anybody. He goes, if you tell anybody you know me, they're going to ship you. He goes, nothing will happen to me. He said, if you should tell anybody. So Dodd told me, he's like, you know, I'm here with so-and-so, a friend of one of his co-defendants, you know, such and such, went to high. We were in the same high school. He was like two grades ahead of me or something like that.

And he's like, yeah, but he's, I'm like, oh, okay. He's like, yeah, he said, but he told me not to tell anybody because they, and I knew another, I knew a chick. Do you remember that fat black chick? She was a CEO. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So when she first got there, she was thin. Oh, shit. I mean, not thin, not super thin, but thinner.

Thinner. Like she was, you know, maybe thick, you know, with the black guys called thick, you know. But not like super, listen, not bad looking. She was 25% of the woman She was when you and I saw her I mean she was maybe a third of the side I mean she was

She probably weighed 125 pounds Oh wow Compared to the 200 plus pounds Yeah that's when I met her And I met her at the No no it was at the low She went to high school with one of the guys And the guy was telling everybody

And he's in there in the in the The office with her Every night lights would go off He'd go in there he'd be sitting on the desk talking to her and they'd be laughing and then that lasted maybe a week and a half and one day boom he's just gone they come in one day take all of his shit he goes to shoe he's gone you know he's telling everybody yeah and you're hanging out like this is why they don't want they don't want that familiarity next thing you know he could have her bringing in cell phones you know

you don't know what's happening oh that's definitely gonna happen so they just ship them and that's the problem same thing so you don't one you don't want to tell him and two you know but he may been totally cool. He may have been like Dodd's guy. Like, just don't say anything, bro. Yeah. Plus, he was on his way out. He's retiring. So I think that was last year there. And I don't think he would have made a big deal out of it. But I didn't want to get shipped. Yeah. Because they were going to ship

they were going to ship me before they move him to somewhere else. Oh, yeah. Yeah. To move a guard, it's a huge reveal. You got to buy their, like they have to buy their house. It's a huge thing. Like, if you got a house and they ship you across the country, then the BOP has to come in. You try and sell

your house, but they have to purchase the home. They have to, so it becomes a huge deal. How'd you first meet Matt in prison? What was your first impressions or like, how did you guys get connected? Yeah, who was that? Someone, someone told me, they pointed him out. They say, hey, there's a guy, there's a guy here that writes true crime stories. And I've always wanted my story to be out to kind of, to, how do you say, give motivation to let people know.

Like, I guess like a, I don't know how you would say it, to encourage someone. someone that might be going through the same thing I did when I was a kid to not do what I did. So I was like, that was my ideal. So I was like, oh, I want to talk to him, right? So here's this guy, you know, short guys with boots on. This guy wore boots in the 90s, 90 degree weather, got black boots on. Because they give you the black boots. That's your assigned boots.

They don't have to, you don't have to wear them, though. You do? I didn't have a, that they're free. So I see him going, I see him going to the rec yard. and one day I just I seen him go to the record one day and I just I walk real fast to catch up to him I say hey my name I introduced myself and he kind of just brush me off he just you know oh here's another guy with another story and of course you have the best story whatever but I knew I had the best story so I was like I said look listen you have to sit to sit down with me and let me talk to you about this and then as I did he goes okay what was it meet me in education at this time whatever so I go meet up with them and you he starts i started talking i soon i started talking not even a few minutes in it's just boom it's like tell me more tell me more and then i was meeting up with him but almost every day for like a couple weeks yeah i think what i liked is one when i talked to pete because he he left out like a whole

bunch of stuff you know but i mean like pete you know pete kind of explained like look there's a whole backstory to this like you know what i'm saying like you can tied like this guy he's he's acting like, oh, it's just, you know, this, I don't know the backstory, but my, you know, oh, my, I met this guy and he was a nice guy and this and that. And, but the truth is, like, if you're an American and you're, you're American that speaks Spanish, you know, you're valuable to the cartel. You can fly back and forth, back and forth, you know, so they approach him. He can drive him around. He can, he can rent properties for, for these guys. He can move stuff for them.

And, you know, where every time they get caught, they got to go, they get sent to ice and they get shipped back and it takes a year or two. And it's nothing really happens to him. He might go to jail for a month or two. But he can fly back and forth. He can bring messages. He can bring money. He can do all, you can open up bank account. He can do all kinds of stuff they can't do.

But then there's the whole backstory of what's going on with the cartel. And, you know, why is it, you know, who are these guys that you're dealing with? How are they getting the product across? Like, he doesn't go into it. But let's face it. Is Cotefin has to cross the border, get through Texas, get all the way to Florida, like that's, you know, and start find somebody and start renting properties. That's not an easy thing to do. It's not like I could go to Mexico and do the same thing.

You know, it might be, especially, you don't speak, you don't speak the language. Like, there's all, it's a, it is a, there's a whole chain of people that are involved and finding a guy that, especially a young guy, you know, a young American. Looking. I look because I mean, it's almost perfect because I look innocent. I speak proper. I don't have any tattoos, nothing against people with tattoos, but you judge people upon their appearance. And then I would wear collar shirts every day and just look like a preppy kid. And like mommy and daddy's got my bank account, you know, fully loaded and I can do whatever I want. And so I would keep a book. I had like two textbooks. I would keep in a backseat just in case I get pulled over. I'm like a college student. an ID. I didn't go to school anymore, but I kept it on me, and I just had it in plain view just in case I get pulled over. I don't want to show it to you, but I know you're going to see it. So you're going to put your guard down a little bit more and believe a little bit more of what I'm about to tell you. Yeah. So, you know what I mean? I mean, so it was, it was, you know, once I talked to Pete, Pete was like, oh, that's a good story. And then the more

he talked about it. And then he lived in Mexico for so many years, like all of that super unique. Like, who's born in, who's born in the U.S. has never been to Mexico and just up and decides, oh, I'm going to go to Mexico for six months and blow through my money and come back for six months. And do it again. I'm going to go back and live there for two years. And then I, we run out of money and I have to go back. So I go back. But who does that? Like, I'm not, most people are not, you know who's ballsy enough to do that kind of stuff? Like Boziac would. But it's all these guys that, that, like Boziac deciding to go to. Thailand, most people won't do that.

Yeah, I wouldn't do that. Right, but I mean, but you just went to Mexico, though. Yeah, but I did go to Mexico. You have to be born into a situation where you don't have a place that you really considered home or that security to feel secure enough to be able to leave the country and just go. Because that whole time, I lived out of a suitcase. Everything was a throwaway. Like, people have throwaway phones. I had throwaway cars, throwaway houses, throwaway clothes.

so I could just up and leave everything behind and go do it again. And the next day, I go to Mexico and buy new stuff and just never. Right. But a middle class kid who was raised in Tampa, Florida, he didn't even want to go to college away from home, let alone up and pack up and go to Mexico or go to Thailand. You know, it takes these guys that really have no, nothing tying them to any place to do that kind of stuff. So I always thought that was interesting. I thought that being a part of that whole chain, the cartel was interesting. There's all kinds of stuff that were interesting about the story.

So I ended up writing the story and we met a bunch of times. And yeah, and we got out. And actually right now they're doing a, with the production, there's a production company that's tracking down all of these people. We were in the drug program and we were in a class one time. And we're sitting in class and everybody has to talk. I don't even know what we were talking about. But it was just about how you feel horrible about how you're,

you're, I think, harming your family or relationships, whatever, the victims, the victims or whatever, he does, and I'm wearing a circle, and he does this whole thing, tears up and everything, I mean, about his victims and how he feels bad, about what he's done, how he's led his life, and this and that, and the teacher completely buys it, like, she's just like, like, like, you're making real breakthroughs, and then they go to the next person, I'm staring at him, and I hope he's okay, and he looks up at me, he goes, and then he's, and then he's, just looked in, I thought, this, mother father. He sold that shit.

Yeah. Let's see. They told us to fake it until we make it. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I think that's, that's, that's, trying to think of what else happened at Coleman. But then, yeah, we met, and then I wrote your story. Matter of fact, we should, and at the end of this, when the thing that comes up, I'll put the link. Yeah.

So, so you did the drug program, and then you, you, you. You got out, and now you're still living in Ocala. Yeah. What about, like, your parents? Did you ever reconnect with any of them? Oh, yeah. We didn't get into that. Yeah, so.

And I'll probably, there's a whole bunch of good stuff. Yeah, well, depending on what you say here, like, some of these questions I might put back into the story, like, chronologically. Yeah, so. Yeah, because at some point, when you come back, you, you track down your mom. Or no, your brother called you, right? So this is how it went. Six months before I got arrested, my older brother was just, he was doing bad mentally. He had just, he just had kids, and he wanted to give his kids a grandmother, and he felt like he didn't do a good job as a dad, so he would drink, drink, drink.

And one day I just got fed up with him. I said, look, man, just forget about her. He's like, no, man, it's her a mom, and I can. We're going to find her one day, and this and that. I said, look, I'll make a deal with you. I said, if I find her, are you going to stop drinking? He goes, yes. I said, all right, and three days later, I was able to locate her, which I didn't want to, which I thought she was dead.

Because in my mind, I had to say she was dead in order for me to move on with my life because there was a point of my life where I wanted to kill myself because I couldn't live with her. I couldn't live without her. And I couldn't, all the stuff that I had, I couldn't share with the only person that I loved. So I didn't feel good. Anything that I had wasn't worth anything because I didn't have her. So I was like, all right, I told myself that she's dead in order for me to move. all my life. So with my brother, I said, look, I'll go, I'll, I'll do my best to find her only because I want you to stop drinking and so your kids can have a grandmother. Because at this point,

I didn't want a relationship with her. So I was able to find her. Turns out she was in the next county overworking in KFC for 10 years the whole time, man, we didn't even know. And I found out through my uncle, which is her brother on her side and on my mom's side. And he said, for some reason, he made it seem like I was going to do harm to her he's like I don't want you to meet her I want you to meet her at my house so nothing happens I was like okay whatever I agree to any terms and so I brought my brother with me sure enough she was right there and she started crying we all started crying hugging each other and you know that's how I was able to uh I ended up relocated with her I took her out on a date I guess you could say a date but I wanted I took her out to dinner to get more more answers of why you left me. And on the way to the restaurant, I asked her, I said, look, I said, can I ask you a question? She goes, yeah. I said, why did you leave me? She said, because I felt like that you didn't that love me. And I said, do you know a dog doesn't even leave their own puppies? So that makes you less of an animal. I said, that's not a good excuse.

but if that's the best excuse you can come up with after all these years now I don't want nothing to do with you because there's more to that and you can't blame us for being bad meaning we didn't love you because we were bad I mean

I never considered you a bad mom so that was that was kind of that was how I was able to relocate I only because my older brother wanted to have a grandmother for his kids but you still see her Now from time to time, but I don't have a good relationship with her.

I just, there's nothing, is, you know you're connected with her. I know I'm connected with her because I'm her son and everybody says, oh, that's your mom. You shouldn't, you got to, no matter what, you got to, that's your mom, that you only have one mom. But does she have that towards me because I was one of her kids? So what if I, what if I ran away from the house or what happened? And while she was gone, what if I died or became a hattuck under a bridge? Can I blame that on her? Right.

No, I can't blame that on her. So don't blame me for your actions. I was a kid when you left me. You're a grown woman. So I don't have that relationship like that with her. Hey, we're going to go ahead and play Jacob Diaz's audio version of his story. The Unlikely Narco gives a lot of the background on the cartel and what was happening. so check it out.

The Unlikely Narco, how a struggling American college student ended up a key operative for the Mexican cartels by Matthew B. Cox and Pierre Rossini, narrated by Brian Wiggins. The 22-year-old slipped his U.S. passport

to the female agent at the Orlando International Airport Customs Desk. From behind the counter, the stern woman carefully compared the data on the screen before her to Jacob Diaz's travel documents. Her eyes bounced between the handsome baby-faced young college student, a Mexican-American with the uncharacteristic features of an Anglo, returning from Alcococoe and the monitor.

When the agent inquired if the young man had anything to declare, Diaz politely replied, No, ma'am. His stomach tightened, however. He forced himself to smile, revealing a slight dimple on his head. his upper left cheek. He deliberately adjusted the strap of the bookbag slung over his shoulder and added, just some textbooks. Unimpressed, she continued to observe his body language. Where do you go to school? UCF. Jacob Diaz was, in fact, a student at the University of Central Florida. However, he was also a drug trafficker. Diaz was part of

of the Beltran Lava Organization's American-based distribution network, one of the principal factions of the Sinaloa cartel, which, at its peak, between 2003 and 2010, was the largest, most powerful drug trafficking syndicate to have ever existed. The Beltran Lava organization was based in Sinaloa, and led by five brothers, one of whom, Arturo Beltran Lava, was considered one of the most powerful drug lords in Mexico.

The Sinaloa cartel controlled 2,000 miles of American border stretching from San Diego through El Paso, some 17 ports of entry falling within its sphere of influence. At that moment, the Sinaloa cartel was embroiled in a full-blown narco war against the Gulf cartel for control of the Texas stretch of the American border. Weeks earlier, while in Acapulco, Diaz placed an order for 50 kilograms of During the next two weeks, a large shipment of product was transported from Alcapulco to Mexico City. From there, the country was moved upcountry to the border town of Reynosa.

There the product was delivered to members of Los Zetas, the organization in control of the Renoza Plaza. Within hours, the shipment was dispatched to a nondescript warehouse where Diaz's load was concealed in one of a fleet of vehicles, all of which had been outfitted with his hidden compartments. Days later, during the shift of a crooked U.S. Border Patrol agent, Diaz's 50 kilos passed through the border. Once on American soil, the product was delivered to a driver in Brownsville, Texas, who then transported the to Houston. There, Diaz's driver took possession of the vehicle. At that moment, the driver was traversing the perilous U.S. interstate system,

avoiding checkpoints and highway patrols from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, where ultimately he would arrive in Florida. Once outside of Orlando, in the shadow of Disney World, Diaz had to be there to meet him. After a long, uncomfortable gaze, the earnest female customs agent gave Diaz a curt nod of approval, handed him his passport, and said, Welcome back to the U.S., Mr. Diaz. minutes later, Jacob stepped through the airport's automatic doors into the scorching Florida heat holding his bags. He rendezvoused with the driver of the 50 kilos. Inside of a week, Heade delivered the product to various distributors and picked up several hundred thousand dollars in outstanding debts. Then Diaz arrived back at the airport for a return flight to Mexico.

The modern-day Cinelloa cartel, known internally as El Federacion, the Federation, was born out of a strategic alliance entered into by five kingpins, one of whom was Arturo Beltran Leva. The Federation, formed during a meeting in 2002 in Monterey, attended by Beltran Lava, Joquan El Chapo Guzman, and three other drug lords, was created out of necessity. Guzman had recently escaped from a maximum security prison with the assistance of his cousin, Arturo Beltran Lava, whom, like Guzman, had grown up dirt poor and Badiragwato-Siniloa. The Five Kingpins met as a Council of War to discuss a problem they all shared, the rise of the Gulf Cartel. Jacob Diaz was born on Valentine's Day, 1986, in Redding, Pennsylvania. His mother told her son, his father was in prison for murder, a robbery that went wrong. However, Diaz's uncle confessed to his

nephew that his father was never incarcerated. In fact, Diaz's father was living in Pennsylvania and asked about his son constantly. Regardless, at our first interview, Diaz tells me, I could care less about meeting him. Based on the things he'd heard growing up, his father is an alcoholic low life that abandoned me. When Diaz was five, his mother packed up him and his younger brother, his older brother, and his older sister, and relocated the family to Ocala in central Florida. The family moved in with Diaz's maternal uncle who lived in a single-wide trailer located in a trailer park known as Little Mexico. Extreme poverty is how I'd describe it, he admits. The park was a massive grid of manufactured housing.

It was row after row of single and double-wide trailers filled with undocumented laborers, prostitutes, and drug dealers. It was no place to raise kids. Diaz climbed through the window of the teacher's lounge of Oak Crest Elementary shortly after 10 p.m. He was 13 years old. The school had held a fundraiser earlier in the day, and Diaz, along with two of his friends, were certain the money was. still on the premises. Since the age of nine, Diaz had been shoplifting and breaking into houses. He'd been on house arrest and spent three days in a program for juvenile offenders. Project Challenge. While Jacob and his friends were rifling through drawers and closets, Ocala police

officers entered the school. Minutes later, Diaz exited the teacher's lounge to search the principal's office and walked face first into an officer and his service for. revolver. Diaz was court-ordered to serve six months at the Silver River Marina Institution, a state-run juvenile offender program. They sent me home after four months, says Diaz. The teacher said I didn't belong there. He'd been committing petty crimes for years. However, the majority of his criminal behavior, Jacob confesses, was to buy clothes and food. It's not like I was a bad kid. I was just trying to survive. Shortly after returning from the Juvie program, Diaz's mother neglected to come home from work one evening.

She'd disappeared for a day or two before, so initially he wasn't concerned. Diaz continued to go to school and do his homework. Then, roughly two weeks later, as the food was running out, the rent lady showed up and asked to see his mother. When Diaz explained that she hadn't been home in weeks, the property manager told him if his mother, wasn't back within 24 hours she was calling child protective services. I didn't know what to do, Diaz admits, as his eyes tear up. She abandoned me. An uncomfortable silence fills the air between us. He eventually wipes his eyes and continues. I packed up some clothes and went to my best friend Mike Bersiel's house.

Briseel lived with his sister, Stacey Yarbrough, in a single wide in Little Mexico. She agreed to take in Diaz for a few weeks, which turned into months, which stretched into over a year. By the dawn of the century, the Gulf Cartel had grown to become the most powerful drug-trafficking syndicate in the world. Based in the city of Matamoros, in the Gulf state of Tamolapas, directly across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, The organization smuggled 20 tons of coal into the United States every month. Osiel Cardenas had taken over the leadership of the legendary cartel after orchestrating the murder of its leader, Angel Gomez Herrera, in July 1999. Cardenas was part of the new generation of Mexican drug traffickers,

young men who weren't only bold and technologically savvy, but also vicious and willing to kill at the slightest. provocation. The key to Cardenas' ascendancy was his relationship with Lieutenant Arturo Guzman Descena, an officer in the Mexican Airborne Special Forces Group, or G-A-F-E. Together, Cardenas and Guzman Descena formed Los Zetas, a paramilitary group of 31 former Mexican Army Special Forces soldiers whom Cardenas had persuaded to defect from the military. They took the name Los Zetas, the Zetas, the Zs,

from the radio call sign of the GAFE. To ensure their anonymity, the Zetas were only identified by their call sign designations. Guzman Descena was Z1, with the others following in order of rank, Z2, Z3, Z4, and so on. Originally, these soldiers had been groomed by the Mexican military to combat drug traffickers. They were trained by Israeli defense forces at the infamous school of the Americas in Georgia and by American Special Forces at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. In a diabolical twist, Cardenas assigned them the responsibility of securing drug trafficking

routes, collections, and executions, often carried out with unspeakable savagery. The Zetas were armed with military-grade assault rifles to 50-millimeter machine guns, grenade launchers, and ground-to-air missiles. Led by Z-1, the Zetas were ruthless. Because Cardenas offered salaries considerably higher than those paid by the Mexican government, more special operations troops soon defected and joined. Training camps near the border of Texas were established, and experts from Guatemala's counterinsurgency special forces were brought in to run them.

Now 300 strong, the Gulf cartel's paramilitary wing was the most powerful. powerful group of enforcers in the history of organized crime. Once Cardenas became the undisputed leader in 2000, he then set his sights on the biggest prize of all, the plazas controlled by the Sinaloa cartel, led by Jaquine El Chapo-Gusman. Bobby, a friend of Stacey's, was a white guy from Alabama. Sometime in 2001, he was busted by the DEA for running a grow house. Bobby's cousin, Vicky, approached Stacey shortly after his arrest with 20 pounds of hydroponic marijuana. Bobby needs money for an attorney, she said. He needs help.

The two girls asked Briseal and Diaz if they'd sell the hydro. Diaz was 15 years old, and he'd been selling low-grade Mexican dirt on and off for the last year, he admits. But this was different. This was $3,000 a pound high-grade kush. Bobby was willing to front them the marijuana on consignment for $1,000 per pound, well below the going price. The two teens broke the cush down into ounces and started selling to friends and friends of friends. They priced the at $2,000 per pound. It took us about a month to get rid of it, recalls Diaz. We should have made about $20,000, but we smoked a bunch of it, and Mike's sister made us reimburse

her for food and rent, so by the end of the month we ended up splitting $15,000. Diaz had just turned 16 when Bersil and his sister got into a huge argument. Stacey kicked her brother and Diaz out of the trailer. Bersil moved to Alabama to live with family. Diaz couch surfed for a few months. Eventually his money ran out, and he didn't have a place to stay. Out of desperation, I turned myself into the Department of Children and Families. They placed Diaz in a group home run by an older African-American woman. There were half a dozen other foster kids in the home, according to Diaz. Some of them were really messed up.

One kid had seen his mother get murdered in front of him. The Texas State Trooper was bored. For the second day in a row, he'd been detailed to ride alongside an oversized load being transported on State Highway 281. Beside him, a freight liner rolled slowly, pulling a trailer hauling 375-foot-long high-frequency transmission poles from McAllen, Texas to Houston. This was the third transport in two days, complete with chase cars front and rear, and white utility truck following closely behind the Big Riggs extended trailer, with bright yellow flags

announcing oversized load and proceed with caution. For a trooper that would have rather spent his shift chasing drug smugglers, it was a shit detail. Unbeknownst to the Department of Transportation and the trooper, concealed within the concrete pole's bowels, was a metric ton of coal. In the Mexican state of Tamalipas alone, the Gulf Cartel controlled the lucrative Matamoros, Renosa, and Nuevo Laredo Plasasas. key border crossing points, which served as prime drug smuggling routes between the United States and Mexico. A plaza is a geographical area that is controlled by a cartel cell that is responsible for overseeing the transportation of narcotics in that specific region. The bulk of that product was destined for Houston, a major trans-shipping and distribution point,

which served as the Gulf Cartel's American base of operations. The organizations that transported the cartels over land from the Rio Grande Valley to Houston, had to run a seven-hour gauntlet through some of the most heavily patrolled highways in the nation. That's where men like Vicente Sanchez Guerrero took over. Sanchez-Garero was a 30-something-year-old Mexican-American who owned a number of businesses, one of which was a small trucking company based in McAllen. Sanchez Guerrero was a key figure in the Rio Grande Valley. His His drug ring was responsible for transporting multi-ton shipments from McAllen and Brownsville to Houston. He would often utilize ingenious methods to accomplish his missions,

one of which involved transporting the Gulf cartels product utilizing the services of unwitting Texas state troopers to ensure safe delivery. Sanchez Guerrero, Lycosio Cardenas, was part of a generational shift taking place in northeastern Mexico, with younger narcos taking over control of the drug business. Unlike the older generation, men who built the Mexican drug trade and strived to keep a low profile, Sanchez Guerrero was flashy, quick to show off his $60,000 Rolex and luxury vehicles, and well-connected. Not only did he socialize with Cardenas at exclusive nightclubs in Matamoros,

his wife's brother was one of the founding members of Los Zetas. Diaz pulled the Ford F-150 onto the driveway of an isolated rental home, a smidgen outside of Ocala's city limits. His passenger, Olegario Hernandez, a slender, tan, illegal Mexican national in his mid-30s, liked the location. He liked the solitude, the privacy. Shortly after graduating in May 2004, Diaz had been approached by a distant cousin of Olives, a guy that lived in Diaz's former neighborhood, regarding a job. It paid decent money, so he decided to take the job driving Ole around. He didn't speak English and Diaz didn't know Spanish, but he agreed to learn.

By the end of the summer, the 19-year-old had a passing knowledge of the language. He was only vaguely aware of the illegality of what Ole was involved in. As the months passed, and Diaz's Spanish improved, he realized that Ole was renting inexpensive houses for the purpose of storing and cash. Later, as the drugs arrived, Diaz pieced together that Oleg was somehow associated with the Gulf cartel. The property manager showed up minutes after they'd arrived. Diaz explained the lease to Oleg, and he signed.

They swapped the keys to the stash house for cash, and Oleg was in business. By 2005, the Gulf cartels' fortunes had taken a turn. Ossiel Cardenas, the cartel's embattled leader, was sitting in a prison cell, specifically because he'd underestimated Chapo-Gusman. Compounding Cardenas's problem, he had overestimated the loyalty of Los Zetas, whose alliance with the Gulf began to sour following his arrest. Under Guzman's leadership, the Sinaloa Federation struck back at the Gulf and its allies utilizing a two-pronged strategy. Guzman handled the treachery and Arturo Beltranleva handled the violence.

Specifically, Guzman, through his lawyer, Umberto Loia Castro, began supplying the DEA with strategic information on his rivals, deftly manipulating American and Mexican law enforcement into wiping out the leadership of the Federation's enemies. Shortly after the Federation was formed, Mexican Federal Police made its move to arrest Ramon Ariano Felix, the second in command of the Tijuana Cartel, during a visit to the Sinaloa Resort Town of Mazatlan. While attempting to evade capture, he was gunned down by Federales. Less than a month later, Ramon's brother, Benjamin Ariano Felix, the leader of the Tijuana cartel, was arrested by the Mexican military.

Nearly one year later, in March 2003, Ocel Cardenas was captured in the city of Matamoros after a shootout between the Mexican military and Gulf Cartel gunmen. By supplying the DEA with actionable intelligence, Guzman had orchestrated the capture or killing of the Federation's principal rivals, crippling the leadership of the Gulf and Tijuana cartels without his men ever firing a shot. Arturo Beltran Lava, on the other hand, handled the Sinaloa Federation's military strategy, organizing powerful groups of assassins who knocked off dozens of lower-level operatives from rival cartels. Then, in 2004, Arturo orchestrated the killing of Rodolfo Carrillo-Fuentes,

the operational head of the Juarez cartel, by having him gunned down while shopping at an upscale mall and Klua-Kan-Siniloa. Also, by 2005, Arturo had established a heavily armed, well-trained enforcement group called Los Negros, whom, under the leadership of Edgar Valdez Villarreal, La Barbe, engaged the Gulf Cartel in territorial disputes in the cities of Nuevo-Lorero and Renosa. While the Beltran-Lava faction fought the Zetas for control of the Gulf cartels plazas in northeastern Mexico, the seeds of a much more different relationship were being planted between these groups. Most of the time, says Diaz, Oleg and I just hung out. He comprehended some English, so we'd go to movies, watch TV, go out to eat. According to Diaz, Oleg saw him as a son or a younger brother. He bought

me clothes, gave me money. When Diaz's foster care ran out, he moved into Ola's rental. A one-bedroom, one bath. It was in the middle of nowhere on a farm, Diaz laughs. I slept on the futon, but it was better than the group home. Along the Mexican-American border, agents were being recruited by the cartels. Some were lured by money, others by sexual favors, and, in at least one instance, an ill-advised romance. The city of Rhenosa, located in the Mexican state of Tamalipas, lies across the Rio Grande from McAllen, Texas.

The Reynosa-McAllen area served as one of the Gulf cartels' key drug smuggling corridors. Given its strategic importance, the Zetas were assigned responsibility for administering and protecting the Rhenosa Plaza. As a leader of Los Zetas, Ephraen Teodoro Torres, known by his call sign Z-14, was one of the men responsible for overseeing the Gulf cartels-Rinosa operation. Torres was one of the original 14 Special Forces soldiers who deserted the military to form the Zetas. Although not in overall command, Torres played a key role in the Rhinosa operation. Not only did Torres maintain a business relationship with Vicente Guerrero's drug ring, he was the Zeta that compromised a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent

who had fallen in love with the handsome former Special Forces officer turned successful businessmen. Thereafter, the Zetas spotters being directed their drivers to the border crossing lanes where Torres' girlfriend would wave the trucks through, thus allowing tons of to enter into the United States without any risk of detection. Despite Diaz's willingness to get deeper involved in Ole's distribution, he refused. Ole let the teen translate for him, and on one occasion he asked Diaz to help him count out $100,000 in cash. hash. Other than that, however, Oleg didn't want him involved. Instead, Diaz enrolled in the College of Central Florida and eventually transferred to the University of Central Florida.

Oleg brought in two of his cousins from Texas. Losers, announces Diaz. They didn't have a brain between them. We never got along. Over the next six months, they acted as drivers and translators for Oleg, while Diaz attended classes. Although only peripherally involved, He began paying attention to the mechanics of Oleg's network. 50 to 60 kilos of Kahn would arrive from Houston, Texas every week to two weeks. The product would be stored at one of the stash houses and distributed to various drug traffickers in central Florida throughout the weeks. The proceeds would then be collected and transported back to Texas.

Diaz watched as Oleg's operation, consisting of himself and two worthless 20-somethings, generated over $2 million in cash proceeds for the Gulf cartel every month. The 18-year-old couldn't help but wonder, if an average-sized city like Orlando could sustain at least one Ole, probably more, how many could Atlanta or Houston sustain? For the first time, Diaz began to grasp the magnitude. Three tons of cars were delivered to a warehouse in Reynosa operated by the Zetas. Over the course of several days, multiple Ford Dooley's were disassembled and 300 kilos of product

was packed into their wheel wells and door frames. The handsome former Mexican military officer, Z-14, called his girlfriend, a naive U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent working the Hidalgo, Texas Port of Entry. Z-14 had been sleeping with the agent for several months, thereby compromising her effectiveness as an agent. They spoke briefly, and she indicated it was possible she'd be working the lanes during her shift that day. 1,000 yards inside the Mexican border, a skinny boy stood atop the flat tar roof of a ramshackle house, holding a pair of military-grade binoculars. The young spotter watched as the crooked

female border agent walked across several lanes of traffic, stopping at lane two. She looked south and ran both of her hands through her hair. The boy recognized the signal and spoke into his headset. Lane two, he informed the driver of the first duly to attempt the border crossing. Lane two now, go, go, go. The vehicle slowly crossed over the yellow lines separating several lanes of traffic eventually arrived in lane two. Minutes later, the female agent gave the truck a cursory inspection, then waved it through the port of entry. It was, was the first of several Dooley's she'd waved through, out of a sea of 20,000 vehicles, that would pass into Texas over the Hidalgo border that day. Once the Dooley's were safely

on American soil, the drivers delivered them to Guerrero's ranch near McAllen. He then transported the kilos to Houston for distribution. Days after the spring 2005 semester ended, The DEA raided several of Ole's associates' houses, several of whom were arrested, and four kilos of the cartels' product was seized. It wasn't safe for Ole in the U.S. He needed to return to Mexico. Diaz drove him to Laredo, Texas, and crossed into Mexico through the Nuevo-Loreto border crossing. Then they shot down to Alta Merano, Tierra Caliente, in the state of Guarico.

It's a small dirt road town made up of small manufacturing plants and warehouses. Oleg introduced Diaz to his sister, brother-in-law, and his nieces and nephews, as his Iho or son. In turn, Diaz started calling Oleg his Tio or uncle. Oleg let everyone know that Diaz was familia or family. Everyone loved Oleg, says Diaz. He was a successful narco-trafficker, a frowned-upon occupation in Mexico, but tolerated, and he was quickly making a name for himself.

He was a big fish in a small town. The large yellow school bus, a Bluebird GMC CV-200, idled outside an elementary school in Corpus Christi, Texas. It was 8 a.m. on a weekday in late spring, and the children, a group of special needs students, excitedly boarded the bus for a field trip to the Houston Zoo. The driver, a chunky Mexican sporting a gold tooth, smiled and greeted the kids as well as the chaperones. patiently he answered their questions, and they were off to the zoo. Typically, the driver would have never tolerated a busload of screaming children.

However, his employer, Vicente Guerrero, paid very well. Unbeknownst to the passengers, the night before, the bus's carriage had been raised and the undercarriage loaded with over 800 kilos of cars. Once the kids had been dropped off at the zoo, the driver drove the bus to a commercial vehicle auto body service and repair station. There, Alfredo Rios, a Houston-based distributor, had the product removed from the belly of the bluebird. The kilos were then placed in secret compartments within half a dozen vehicles, which were placed on a car hauler bound for Atlanta, Georgia. Just before 3 p.m., the driver arrived back at the zoo to pick up the special needs kids

and their chaperones. With their tummy stuffed, with cotton candy, and the strings to their balloons clinched in their hands. They climbed onto the bus for the ride back to the school. None the wiser. One week later, drivers in Atlanta were assigned a vehicle, and they went about delivering the to distributors throughout the southeastern United States. Diaz's cell rang as he tossed his textbooks into the back of his Jeep Cherokee. Central Florida's 2006 summer semester began within days. Diaz had been in the U.S. for nearly a year, attending classes, while waiting for O'Le to feel comfortable enough to cross the border. I'm at the house, said O'Le.

Diaz was taken aback. He had no idea O'Le had re-entered the country. You're an O'Cala? He ignored the question. We have work to do. Over the next week, Diaz and O'Lei rented two stash houses. A week later, vehicles began arriving with roughly 50 to 60 kilos of coal every two weeks. The product was handed off to a single associate on

assignment, $29,000 per kilo, anywhere between 10 to 15 kilos at a time. He then distributed the product to dealers throughout Central Florida. On average, each kilo represented a profit of $4,000 to $5,000. Diaz was 20 years old, and I was making between $25,000 to $30,000 a month. After four months, the car stopped coming. On September 5, 2006, a federal grand jury in Texas indicted Vicente Guerrero for conspiracy to import and distribute several tons of nine days later, he was arrested by customs agents as he entered the United States. Shortly thereafter, Guerrero learned that Rios had been arrested months earlier and had secretly been cooperating with law enforcement. Between the arrest of Cardenas and Guerrero, the Gulf cartel's ability to supply its

distribution network was crippled. The Beltran-Lava organization was one of the principal factions of the Sinaloa cartel. The faction oversaw the Federation's Affairs in Mexico City, along with the Mexican state of Sonora and Guerrero, which included, among other plazas, the city of Acapulco, Guerrero, and its strategically significant seaport. I flew into Mexico City in December 2006, Diaz tells me. Ole's contact with Vicente Guerrero's organization in Houston had disappeared. Whether he'd been arrested or killed, Diaz couldn't say. Regardless, they needed product, and Oleg, unlike Diaz, couldn't easily travel across the border

to meet with the cartel. This is when I started flying back and forth between, Acapulco and Houston and Orlando. This is when I seriously got into trafficking. Diaz took a bus from Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City to Quir Navaca, where the young narco met with Olai's cousin at the Marriott Hotel. He'd arranged a meeting with a member of the Beltran Lava organization and Quere Navaca, an affluent enclave located an hour south of Mexico City.

There, Olai's cousin introduced him to Rafael Avilis. Super outgoing surfer type. Avilles was a lean, shaggy-haired Central American in his 30s. Very hip guy. He didn't appear to be the type of individual that would be involved in drug trafficking. According to Diaz, Avillas strolled into the meeting in flip-flops and said, You need coca, I get you coca. The conversation was short.

There was no haggling over the price or delivery schedules. It was $4,000 per kilo in Alcapulco, Mexico. or $23,000 in McAllen, Texas. Understand that the source of the various cartels originates from the fields in the Andes Mountains and the Jungle Labs of Columbia. The product is then transported to Venezuela. There, it's distributed in multi-ton loads to various Mexican drug cartels. Back in the mid-2000s, a kilogram of carcin would cost $2,000 in Venezuela, with a minimum purchase of 1,800 kilos.

Each time the product was moved, it incurs additional costs. In Acapulco, that same kilo cost roughly $4,000. The closer the country got to the border, the more it cost. Once the product got into the United States, it had increased tenfold. I need the contact number, Diaz informed him, and a password. The code was simple. Once back in Florida, Diaz simply had to call the assigned number and talk about arranging a trip to Disney World or a fishing trip.

and the other party would know to meet his driver in McAllen. The price of the product was set, but the amount of kilos was based on availability. One week later, after returning to Florida, Diaz made the call. Ole sent a driver to McAllen where he rented a motel room. The driver, another one of Oleg's cousins, left the vehicle in the parking lot with the keys in the engine. Someone with Beltran Lava's organization picked up the vehicle and drove it to a warehouse. There, mechanics dismantled it, fitted it with 50 kilos of course, and reassembled the vehicle. Two days later, the car, swollen with product, was dropped off in the motel's parking lot.

Two days after that, Oleg's cousin, once outside of Orlando, called Diaz to retrieve the vehicle. I'd meet him in the parking lot, or at his house, says Diaz. The going rate was $900 per kilo for transportation. I'd hand him $45,000 in cash, pick him. up the car and drop off the at one of the stash houses. Diaz would then hand off 10 to 15 kilos to Olegs distributor. Days later, he'd collect the cash and repeat the process. Two weeks later, we'd send another driver, and it all started over again. Every few weeks, Diaz would fly cash into Mexico. He'd stay with Oleg's family for a week before returning to Orlando. While in Mexico, he would

socialize with Avelis in Quirnavaca, accompanying the drug trafficking surfer out to exclusive nightclubs and expensive restaurants. After a few months, Diaz was introduced to Avile's boss, Jose Jorge Balderes Garza, known as JJ, whom Diaz would later learn reported directly to Arturo Beltran Lava's chief lieutenant, the infamous Edgar Valdez Villarreal, aka La Barbe. Unlike Avilles, whom Diaz got along well with, JJ was nothing but trouble, confesses Diaz.

This guy epitomized the cowboy mentality of a reckless drug trafficker. I wanted nothing to do with him. Although Diaz never particularly liked JJ, he valued his relationship with Avelis. Unfortunately, dealing with Avelas meant having to deal with the J.Js of the underworld also. I think of myself as a nice guy, but J.J. was the type of guy that had have you shot for looking at him wrong. Diaz continues. The guy was insane. He was all about status and power.

Fortunately, Arturo Beltran Leva himself lived in Quirnavaca, and he forbid any nonsense in his own backyard. That typically kept guys like JJ in line. By the spring 2007, Mexico was embroiled in a full-on narco war as the Sinaloa Federation fought to take over the Gulf and Juarez cartels' distribution routes. The fighting along the border for control of the key plazasas, had turned the country into the murder capital of the world. While the Zetas alone were able to hold their plasas in northeastern Mexico,

the rest of the country fell under the Federation's control as Chapo Guzman and Arturo Beltran Leva eliminated their competition. Diaz had been befriended by several young guys while partying in Quir Navaca, Juan Pablo, a chubby outgoing Mexican kid, and Dane Zipersky. He was the son of a wealthy American from Wisconsin who was attending the technology of Monterey. It's a university for privileged Euro-Mexican kids.

Dane was a chick magnet, but a babe in the woods. The guy was always getting himself into trouble. To Diaz, Quirnavaca, with its leafy streets and gorgeous mansions, was paradise. I loved the place. It was a totally different world. It was like living in Beverly Hills. Quirnavaca is where Mexico City's elite. maintained their weekend homes, and by that spring, Diaz and his crew of friends were partying

at the Grand Hotel and Aldridge, the most exclusive nightclubs in the city. The clubs were stacked with attractive upper-class women, politicians, actors, and famous musicians. Diaz's dirty blonde hair and fair skin gives him the appearance of an Anglo who just so happens to speak conversational Spanish. The Mexican girls loved me. As a young narco, making a name for himself. Diaz lived in the moment. Sexual promiscuity was part of the lifestyle. Soon, a Mexican girlfriend was one of several beautiful women he spent time with. However, none of his Mexican friends suspected he was a narco. They were a bunch of spoiled rich kids, confides Diaz with a laugh. They were quick to believe I was just another rich American. In mid-2007,

Diaz moved to Mexico permanently. He was spending more and more time. time with Oleg's family and his friends. Moving there felt like the right decision. I liked the culture, and I had a family there that loved me, says Diaz. O'Le had just finished building this huge house in Quirnavaca. I had my own room, friends. It felt like home. Plus, as an American, he was able to travel freely between the two countries, arrange deliveries of product, rent stash houses, distribute product, and move the money for the cartel. This is where D.E. the TSA's story begins. The TSA agent asked Diaz to step into an interview room off of the large security area in the Orlando International Airport.

It was a strange request and his adrenaline immediately spiked. Diaz had made the trip into Mexico, while carrying cash, over a dozen times, and he'd never been so much as questioned by security. Once in the small, eggshell-colored room, Diaz was asked to play place his book bag on the table. The X-ray machine picked up something, admitted the agent. It's probably nothing. Unfortunately, for Diaz, less than 30 seconds later, he discovered 20 tightly bound rolls of U.S. greenbacks held in place by thick rubber bands. Huh, grunted the agent, as he stacked $200,000 in cash on the table. It's not nothing. While Diaz sat in the room waiting for the DEA to arrive, his stomach's scummit.

squeezed into a ball of anxiety at the thought of losing the cartel's money. The DEA agent that showed up to question him was polite, but insisted that the money wasn't going with Diaz to Mexico. But it's my money, pled the 21-year-old Narco. He tried to convince the agent that he'd made it painting houses and landscaping. It's not drug money. You can't just take it? Actually, I can. He informed Diaz that he wasn't buying his explanation.

However, he did state that if Diaz could prove where the money had come from, the DEA would gladly return his $200,000 of landscaping money. Look, I'm not sure how deep you're in this thing, said the agent, but now is the time to get out. The money's mine. I made it working. The agent cut him off. It's cartel money, kid. He told Diaz he'd seen a hundred individuals just like him. Some of them disappear, others are murdered. These are vicious people, kid.

The lucky ones end up in prison. He handed Diaz's card and a confiscation form and walked out of the room with the cartel's $200,000. Diaz contacted a lawyer who informed him that without proof the cash had been obtained legally via canceled checks and tax returns, there was no way to retrieve the funds. Diaz was concerned when he arrived in Mexico.

Mexico without the cash. People have been killed for a lot less. Oleg, however, took it in stride. These things happen, he conceded. Although the cartel didn't like losses, they were willing to overlook them, provided the individual could prove the money had been seized by law enforcement, which Diaz could prove. I'll talk to JJ, continued Oleg. He'll let us work it off. You sure? Of course I'm sure. After the loss, Diaz began taping the cash to his waist, wrapping himself in cellophane, or packing it in his luggage. In fact, roughly a month later, Diaz and Janil Duran, a hot Dominican girl he'd known since high school, flew into Mexico with $100,000 in cash. $50,000 of it was strapped around Diaz's waist, and, unbeknownst to

Yanil, the other 50,000 was tucked inside of her suitcase. I never told her what I was doing, admits Diaz. Just that I wanted her to meet my uncle, and do you. some sightseeing in Acapulco. World-renowned for its famous cliff divers, Acapulco is Mexico's playground for the rich. I started making trips to Acapulco with Avelas, the drug trafficking surfer. Also, I had started developing friendships

with some of the rich kids in Quirnavaca, who'd I'd party with down there. It was the best of both worlds. Understand, behind the facade of wealth and glamour, Acapulco was also a haven for the underworld, whose members would travel south for a good time at the bars and strip clubs. Located in the southern state of Guerrero, the Acapulco Plaza was firmly in the control of the Sinaloa Federation, the administration of which was handled by the Beltron-Lava organization.

Diaz got his own place in Costa Azul, Acopoco. I was driving a silver S-type jaguar, hitting the clubs, partying with my friends, says Diaz. then I'd fly to Orlando to meet the drivers or to Houston to coordinate the transportation of the product. He admits that things didn't always work as expected. Sometimes these guys wouldn't show up. I mean, just cause its organized crime doesn't mean things ran smoothly. You're not dealing with professionals.

Ole once had a white 1987 Chevy Suburban fitted with 60 kilos, over a million dollars of product. He then arranged for a driver to take the suburban along with six illegal to Florida. They got caught during a random stop, states Diaz. It turned out that the driver's operator's license, as well as his visa had expired. Also, the vehicle wasn't registered in his name. The suburban was impounded, and after like four months, it was put up for auction. On a hunch, Ole had Diaz hire a licensed auto dealer to go with him to the police auction. We ended up paying $1,000 more than the suburban was worth, because this other guy kept bidding on the thing. But when me and Oleg cracked open the dash and the quarter panels, the

was still there. I couldn't believe it. In late 2007, Olegs' cousin Jorge Hernandez got married in the Alcapulco event center near the Playa Princess area. In attendance were half a dozen of the Beltron Leva syndicates upper echelon, including, among others, Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a drug lord known throughout the underworld by the nickname La Barbe. Valdez Villarreal was a Mexican-American from Texas who imported tons of into the U.S. while ruthlessly working his way up the ranks of the Beltran Leva organization, U.S. Attorney Björn-Pack would later claim in court. Valdez Villarreal was known as La Barbe because of his light complexion,

blonde hair, and blue eyes, giving him the appearance of a Barbie doll's male companion. Valdez Via Real was Arturo Beltran Leva's chief lieutenant. He'd taken control of the organization's operations in Alcapocco. Although he was considered one of Mexico's most wanted criminals, Valdez Villarreal arrived at the wedding in a conspicuous six-su-v caravan, surrounded by armed bodyguards. Other than JJ, who was the equivalent of middle management, it was the first time Diaz had interacted with any of the higher-level members of the organization. I got introduced to Barbie at the wedding.

According to Diaz, the drug lord was someone serious, dangerous, much more dangerous than Avelis. Once he learned I was an American, though, he was actually kind of friendly, Diaz grinned. I think he liked being around another gringo. That evening, Diaz, Avilles, and JJ accompanied Valdez Villarreal and his entourage to the nightclubs, palladium, and Mandara. Walking into a club with Barbie was like being out with the president. People were tripping over themselves to serve us. The owners cleaned out entire sections of the clubs so that Valdez Villarreal could have a private area at a party.

Later, he took the group to Provado, an after-hours club that stayed open all night. The women there were expensive prostitutes, every one of them more beautiful than the next. Valdez Villarreal arranged for 20 of the women to provide entertainment. By then, says Diaz, we had been out all night. There was booze and girls. once Barbie and his friends started switching off and doing all kinds of crazy stuff,

that's when I knew I had to get out of there. The situation was out of control. According to Diaz, these guys lived their lives as if every day was going to be their last, and for many of them, it was. One week later, the Sinaloa cartels enforcers threw severed heads into an Acapulcoal nightclub as a warning to the Zetas to keep their operatives out of Federation territory. I'd seen bodies in the street, admits Diaz. You'd hear gunfire sometimes, but I was lucky.

I was never involved in violence like that, but I knew it was out there. One of Diaz's friend's brother, Umberto, a rich kid that thought it was cool to hang out with narcos, was at Club Paladium and Acapulco when nearly a dozen Zetas entered the club. They gunned down nearly 20 Cinelloa associates, along with Umberto. He was in the wrong place, wrong time. Officer Russell with the Ocala Police Department noticed Diaz's Chevy Blazer swerve out of the gas station at an excessive speed. It was slightly after midnight on April 17, 2008.

Immediately he flipped on his lights. Diaz heard the whoop-whoop of the cruiser's siren before he noticed the light. Fuck, he hissed to his buddy, Christian San Francisco. who was sitting in the passenger. Diaz had $150,000 in a backpack resting in the back seat, cash that belonged to the cartel. He and Oleg had just finished reimbursing Aveles for the $200,000 seized by the DEA. This is so bad.

He'd been drinking, although he doesn't believe he was legally intoxicated, and his license was expired. There is no way the officer wasn't going to. to search the vehicle. Diaz grabbed the bag in the back seat, turned to Santana, and grunted. I'm gone. No, no, don't do it, he replied as Diaz pulled the SUV to a stop. He shot out of the driver's side and took off running. He heard the officer screaming, however, he didn't slow down. Diaz jumped a wooden fence, ran across a highway, and entered an apartment complex. He shot through a wooded area and entered a suburban neighborhood.

Eight responding patrol units swarmed the interconnected streets as the canine units German shepherds tried, unsuccessfully, to pick up the suspect's scent. Diaz spent the next hour underneath an Econoline van listening to the helicopter's blades whipped through the air and the dogs barking in the distance. When all was quiet, he slipped out from underneath the van and hid the backpack in a thick of palmettoes. Somewhere, around 2 a.m., Diaz, covered in dirt, and scratches, walked to the nearest street, and waved down a passing Ocala police cruiser. The officer rolled down the windows and asked,

You the guy we're looking for? Yeah, that's me. Diaz was charged with driving on a suspended license, resisting arrest without violence, and obstruction without violence. He was ordered to serve four months in the Marin County Jail. The situation in Mexico took a dramatic turn for the worse while Diaz was inside. Earlier that year, Arturo Beltran Leva's older brother, Alfredo, was arrested by the Mexican Army in Kluwikan, Sinaloa. The high-profile arrest of a key leader was followed by the arrest of 11 Beltran Lava operatives in Mexico City.

Arturo was aware of Chapo Guzman's tactic of using law enforcement to eliminate his rivals, and he firmly believed that Guzman was behind the betrayal. The arrest undermined the long-term alliance between Guzman and the Beltran Leva brothers. As a result, they publicly accused Guzman of having delivered Alfredo to the authorities over a business dispute. Whether Guzman was responsible for Alfredo's arrest, as Newsweek would later claim, is not known. What is known, however, is that the Beltran Leva organization and their allies formally declared war against the Sinaloa cartel, fracturing the federation. Shortly thereafter, Arturo had a secret meeting with top members of the Los Zetas in Quirnavaca.

There, they agreed to forge a new alliance. The Beltran Leva brothers and their defecting allies moved swiftly to avenge Alfredo's arrest, assassinating Guzman's son, Edgar Guzman, who was killed in a grenade attack in Kuleakan in May 8, 2008. The same day Arturo's gunman killed the commissioner of the federal police, Edgar Mion Gomez, who had served as the spokesman for Alfredo's arrest, as well as other senior government officials. The result was some of the worst bloodletting seen in Sinaloa. The killing of Guzman's son and key lieutenants brought massive retaliation from Guzman with both sides

suffering losses of hundreds of men. The break between the Beltran Leva brothers and the Seniloa cartel was officially recognized by the U.S. government on May 30th, with President Bush listing Arturo Beltran Leva as the leader of his own cartel and designating him and the organization as subject to sanctions under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Act. Upon Diaz's release, he retrieved his blazer and drove straight to the wooded area between the apartment complex and the neighborhood where he'd hid from the police. Surprisingly, Diaz's backpack, filthy and moist from the elements, was still tucked in the foliage. I couldn't believe it, recalls Diaz. No one had found it. A few days later, I flew to Mexico City with Yanil and the cash.

Once Diaz arrived in Quirnavaca, he quickly discovered everything had changed. As soon as I got to Avila's house, I knew something was going on. There were armed men patrolling everywhere. Although, Aviles greeted the young American narco, warmly. family, Diaz could tell he wasn't the same laid-back surfer dude. He had dark rings under his eyes, like he hadn't had a good night's sleep in weeks. Aviles explained that the Beltran Levas were at war with the Sinaloa cartel and that the killings of Chapo Guzman's son had brought massive retaliation. According to Aviles, hundreds of men had been killed that summer alone. Chappos spending a fortune on manpower, he's got teams of hitman operating everywhere. looking to knock off any of the Beltran Leva brothers or their lieutenants.

Everyone's on a war footing. It's getting bad, Aviles explained. He whispered that people were concerned that Arturo had overplayed his hand by killing Guzman's son. We can't fight everyone. The Beltran Leva's organization was now based in Mexico City, and they were focusing on keeping control of the southern plasas. Avillas warned that it wasn't safe in Quirnavaca,

and that Diaz should move his operation. South, the Acapocal, where Barbie had control over the plaza. I really felt bad for him, states Diaz. He couldn't just up and leave like I could. Understand, I was just a distributor on the American side. Nobody, really. But Avilis, he'd hitched his wagon to the Beltran Levas. He was stuck.

Before returning to Orlando, JJ provided Oleg with the contact information for Jesus Teharina Garza, one of Beltran Leva's operatives in the United States. Garza's organization was responsible for distributing the cartels in Georgia and Florida. Loads of product were shipped via tractor-trailer from southern Texas to Marion County in South Georgia, where Garza maintained his base of operations. As it turned out, Garza was already doing business with Domingo Rodriguez-Maderos, Oleg's cousin by marriage. Once we realized there was a family connection, it was all good, recalls Diaz. Garza would supply Ole with loads up to 100 kilos,

which Olay and Diaz would then distribute to their customers in central Florida. We didn't have to worry about getting the product transported from Texas. All that was handled by Garza. Much to everyone's surprise, the Beltran Leva organization and their allies, including Los Zetas, were able to fight the Sinaloa cartel to a draw. By then, the Zetas had split with the Gulf Cartel and had merged with the and had merged with the Beltranleva organization, creating the second most powerful syndicate to the Federation. Although the Beltran Leva organization lost control of their territories

in Sinaloa and Sonora, the organization gained control of the southern plasas and the center of the country, Mexico City, and the state of Morelos. Because of their alliance with the Zetas, they had gained access to the plazas in northeast Mexico, including the reynosa, Metamoros, Nuevo Polarero and Tampico drug corridors. Thus, for Diaz and Oleg, nothing changed over the next 15 months. They bounced between Mexico and Florida conducting their affairs while the war between the cartels raged on. Oleg coordinated the shipments of product from Mexico City, while Diaz coordinated the deliveries with Olegs' cousin, Tradriguez Maderos. By this point, Diaz was handling both the distribution of the product end as well as collecting the proceeds.

He was also responsible for transporting the cartels' money. In December 2009, the Mexican government began an offensive against the Beltran Lever organization. On December 11th, a unit of naval special forces backed by attack helicopters raided a house in a luxury-gated community outside of Mexico City. There was a shootout and three gunmen died, but Arturo Beltran Lava and a group of his security forces escaped. Nearly a week later, the Mexican authorities tracked Arturo to a luxury condominium in a

suburb of Quir Novaca, where they trapped him inside. Arturo's men counterattacked, firing machine guns and throwing hand grenades. While Arturo's security detail were firing out of windows, he called his old friend Valdez Villarreal and asked him to send a team of hitmen to help him break out. Unfortunately for Arturo, after conducting some surveillance of the siege, Valdez Villarreal told Arturo, his situation was helpless. Give yourself up. I'll never give up, replied Arturo. Never. Unwilling to surrender, Arturo and his men engaged in a two-hour firefight before the Marines stormed the building, blowing everything apart. Arturo was killed in the shootout. Three of his

bodyguards also lost their lives. A fourth committed suicide. Diaz was in Alcococo when he learned of Arturo's death. Over the Christmas holiday, he discussed it with Oleg. He wanted to know what Arturo's death meant for them. He told me that Arturo didn't know us, didn't give a damn about us, and wouldn't have hesitated to sacrifice us if it were in his interest. According to O'le, that was the nature of the business. O'le said that Arturo's death didn't mean a thing

because whoever took over would still need men like us to work on the American side. the cartels and their endless fights to control the plasas would continue so long as the Americans craved drugs and there were young men like me, American narcos, who were willing to risk their freedom for money, status, and sex. Step out of the vehicle demanded the Policia Official to the female driver of the White Ford Escalade. His partner stood behind the vehicle to the left of his Federale Policia cruiser. his hand laid atop his holstered weapon. Diaz sat in the passenger seat nervously glancing between the officer's blazing maglight

and the rearview mirror. There was nearly $200,000 in the book bag resting at his feet. Again, the officer stated, Out of the vehicle. The driver, 28-year-old Merrilluz-Viles, pulled her government-issued credentials out of her purse and flashed it at the police officer.

Diaz had met Merrilluse at a pool party months earlier. She was well-educated, and, although Maralus was Mexican, she spoke fluent English and possessed the silky black hair and pale skin of a Spaniard. Due to her father's position in the government, Maralus had been appointed youth director in Acapulco. The position came with a certain amount of prestige. She'd just picked up Diaz from the airport. He'd barely had time to strip off the cash and tuck it into his bag

before the polizia pulled them over. Merrilluse held the credentials up to the officer's face and sighed. I'm Merrilluz-Valez, a director with the government. Why are you stopping me? The most likely explanation was the police officer had seen the expensive SUV and were hoping to extract a small bribe. Instead, the officers quickly apologized for the mistake. I did not realize, obviously, you can go, director. Merrilluse's family was wealthy, and according to Diaz, who was 23 at the time, they didn't have anything in common.

All she cared about was that I was a good-looking American, said Diaz. That was a big deal. It was a status thing for her. After Arturo's death, his brother, Carlos, took control of the Beltran Leva organization. Two weeks later, however, Carlos was captured by the Mexican federal police in Kalua. Shortly thereafter, the organization became plagued with internal strife. Edgar Valdez Villarreal, La Barbe, disputed the cartel's leadership after Ector Beltran Leva was elevated to El Hefe de Hefees, or the boss of bosses, a position Barbie

wanted for himself. In-fighting for control broke out, with one faction being led by Valdez Villarreal, while the other was led by Hector Beltranleva. Diaz was leaning on the brass rail of Palladium Nightclub, a week before Valentine's Day. The 23-year-old was there with Olae and Avilis. J.J. and his crew were also there along with a man known as El Indio, Geraldo Alvarez Vasquez, a prominent narco who was allied with Valdez Villarreal in the battle for control of the Beltran Leva cartel. That evening, Indio was entertaining El Cantante, Dagoberto Jimenez,

the narco who was responsible for negotiating purchases in Central America on behalf of Valdez Villarreal's organizing. organization. Katante had traveled to Acapulco to meet Valdez Villarreal and Indio. Diaz wasn't privy to their discussion, nor did he even know why he was out with them that night. All Ole had told him was that they were going out to a club. In the middle of dinner, Diaz excused himself. While standing at the urinal, he noticed that two men in suits had entered the facilities. They stood point at the door until Diaz had finished and exited the restroom. He then noticed them following him through the nightclub. Concerned, Diaz walked out of the building, and sure enough, the two suits followed him outside. They stood at a distance,

idly waiting for him. At this point, Diaz didn't know what to think. He immediately rushed into the club, found Olegs, seated at the table with the others, and pointed out his stalkers. Olegs advised Diaz not to worry. The men were bodyguards. They work for India. They're here for his protection and his guests. Oleg explained that there were over 20 guards in and around Palladium. Simply being with Indio could get us killed. Should I introduce myself to him? asked Diaz. No, grunted Olegs, dismissively. He'll be dead soon. They, the Beltran Levas, are looking for him. Indio drank all night. At nine in the morning, he was so intoxicated that several of his bodyguards had to carry him out. They loaded their boss into one of six white

suburbans, and the caravan took off. Ten weeks later, on April 21st, 2010, Alvarez Vasquez, El Indio, was arrested in Quirnavaca, along with 18 members of his security detail after a fierce shootout with the Mexican Marines. Then, four days later, El Catante, Dagoberto Jimenez, was arrested in Mexico City. One by one, Valdez Villarreal's allies were getting knocked off by the authorities. These were the lucky ones. Diaz was back in Orlando, some four months later, when he heard the news. His friend, Raphael Avilles, had been killed by one of the Beltran-Leva hit teams

hunting down Valdez Villarreal's associates. Avillas and three of Valdez Villarreal's other distributors had been decapitated. Their corpses were then hung from a bridge in Quairnavaca. Hanging with the four decapitated bodies was a narcomanta, a banner which stated, this is what happens to all those who support the traitor Edgar Valdez Villarreal. I was sick about that, says Diaz. I like the virus, a lot.

But Ole said I had to get used to losing people. It happens a lot in drug trafficking. Later that month, on August 30, 2010, Valdez Villarreal, La Barbe, was captured by the federal police near Mexico City. Five months later, on January 18, 2011, Jose Jorge Baldras Garza, aka JJ, the lieutenant and chief financial operator of Barbie's faction was also captured. Diaz and Ole arrived in the parking lot of a target outside Orlando as the Florida sun scorched the asphalt. They were early for the meeting with Domingo Mingo Rodriguez, Oleg's cousin by marriage.

The DEA had recently collapsed Garza's operation, and Mingo, who had worked directly with Garza, was handing off his Okala customers to Ole and Diaz and returning to Mexico. Mingo introduced Oleg and Diaz to a couple of black drug dealers, brothers he'd been working with. Nathaniel and Casey Schuller had been distributing 20 to 30 kilos per month for nearly a year. While standing in the parking lot, the men discussed prices, $29,000 per kilo and quantity. We started them off with 10 kilos on consignment, pronounces Diaz. They wanted as many as we could come up with. Before the meeting ended, Nate made a comment regarding one of their brothers. He said his brother was the black sheep of the family.

He was a lieutenant at the federal prison just outside of Ocala. The first deal went smooth. The brother took possession of the product and a week later they handed over the cash. Oleg and Diaz felt comfortable and a week later the process was repeated. Diaz and his older brother walked through the front door of their uncle's house, standing in the living room was a middle-aged Hispanic woman. None of us had seen our mother for more than ten years, admits Diaz. I'd always thought she was dead.

They hugged and cried. He and Jose weren't upset. They were just glad she was alive. But they did have a lot of questions for her. While talking with her, I realized that she was a little slow, he says. As a kid, I'd never noticed it. After disappearing, she'd worked for KFC for the last ten years. She didn't have anything, no car, no house, just a shitty apartment.

They spoke for an hour, and we made arrangements to meet her a week later. Diaz picked his mother up at her apartment in Palatka, a one stop-like town not far from Ocala and treated her to Chili's. According to Diaz, it was the nicest restaurant in Palatka. Over skewered shrimp and Coors light, Diaz asked. Why'd you leave me? The question had been gnawing at him since the night at his uncles. You don't have to answer if you don't want to.

She looked down at the tiled tabletop, ashamed. I thought, I thought you kids didn't love me. The answer hardened him. He felt angry at the foolishness of her response. Even a dog, thought Diaz, wouldn't abandon its puppies. That's the best you can come up with after 11 years? He'd have rather heard she simply couldn't afford to feed, cloth, and house them.

Diaz would have accepted anything within reason. I have plenty of money, you know. He pulled a stack of bills out of his pocket, then confided that he was an international drug trafficker. But she didn't seem to understand the severity of the disclosure. It's dangerous, he added. I could go to prison. Oh, well, just be careful.

The entire conversation felt wrong. Diaz turned cold, emotionally detached, and he longed to be in Acapulco. Interestingly, during the weeks that I've interviewed Diaz, every time I bring up his mother, he became emotional. After all of these years, the mere thought of her abandonment brought him to tears. Diaz randomly pulled up local drug arrests on the Okala Sheriff's Office website. In late June, he punched in the name Schuller and a black male's booking photo appeared. The brief description explained that on June 11, 2015, Casey Schuller's vehicle had been pulled over by sheriff's deputies. He later learned that the traffic stop had been requested by the DEA.

During the search of the vehicle, deputies discovered a kilo of marijuana and a significant amount of cash. Understand, Diaz didn't deal with Casey. he'd only met him once. He'd dealt with Nate. However, the photo looked familiar. He turns to Oleg and asked, Do you recognize this guy? Jesus, that's Casey, replied Oleg. At the time, the two brothers owed Oleg and Diaz $94,000, most of which was the cartels. Diaz called Nate for several days with no success.

Then sometime in late June, Diaz pulled up to a pump at a gas station. station near Orlando. As he pushed the nozzle into his blazer, he noticed Nate, not 15 feet away, pumping fuel into his land rover. He looked terrified when he recognized me, says Diaz. I asked him about the money, and he admitted that his brother had been arrested. He told Diaz that some of the money had been seized and that he'd used the rest of the funds to hire a criminal attorney. Diaz was unmoved by his brother's legal issues. I told him, we need that money. That's cartel's money. He said he could pay, but he needed time. His brother was in the federal detention center,

and Nate couldn't be sure that DEA wasn't watching him. But he'd get the money. Nate spun Diaz and Ole another week, eventually agreeing to meet at a stash house in July. Diaz told Nate that he needed to figure something out. If you don't come up with the cash, it's going to be bad. These guys are going to send someone to your house, and they're not going to ask nice like me.

I know that, okay? I'm trying, replied Nate, as desperation set in. I just need some more time. Nate, unbeknownst to Diaz, was wired. Worse still, the DEA was listening in. Ole was making tacos, and Diaz was on Facebook on Wednesday, August 24, 2011, when someone pounded on the front door. Oleg turned the handle and a DEA agent, wearing a Kevlar vest, slammed it wide open.

Suddenly a dozen more agents swarmed inside, yelling, get on the ground, while pointing assault rifles at the two narcos. They were handcuffed and shown an indictment charging them with conspiracy to distribute more than five kilos of cars. During a search of the house, the agent seized over $75,000, but no drugs or weapons. Diaz and Oleg were transported to the U.S. Marshals Holdings Center in Marion County. One month later, Diaz was released on bond.

Oleg, who was in the U.S. illegally, was remanded. Diaz's federal criminal defense attorney, David Wilson, advised him to accept a plea deal and cooperate. Talk to the prosecutor and the agents. The first one to talk gets the best deal. There's not going to be any deals, replied Diaz. No drugs have been seized, and Oleg certainly wasn't going to cooperate against him or the cartel. All they've got is me talking about collecting some money. It can mean anything. I'm going to trial.

The cartel lawyer nodded his head, as Diaz explained the federal government's case surrounded by Ole's sister and two other Mexican women. Paquita, Oleg's sister, had flown in from Acapulco for an appointment with Thomas Thad, an attorney who was highly recommended by Olai's associates in the cartel. Thad had gotten several drug traffickers charges dismissed in the state of Florida. Paquita didn't trust the public defenders representing Olegal. Olai and Diaz. She wanted private counsel. Bakita told Diaz to ask Thad, how much cash would it take to make the case go away? Diaz informed her he didn't think it was a good idea to ask the lawyer that. He'll freak out. Ask him, she demanded. Ask him. She wants me to make the case go away.

She wants to know how much would it take to do that. No, no, no, replied Thed, slightly unnerved by the question. He explained that although bribes were common to Mexico, he explained that although bribes were common to Mexico, it doesn't work like that here, especially in the federal system. Paquita, ignoring the attorney's response, wanted Diaz to tell him she'd pay whatever it took to get her brother out on bond. Then, she confided, I can get you both out of the country. That sent the lawyer into full-blown panic, and he informed Diaz he couldn't represent him or Oleg.

The trial was scheduled for January 23, 2012, and Wilson was pushing Diaz to take a deal. You've got less than a 50-50 chance at trial, he admitted during an attorney-client conference. He showed Diaz the government's key evidence, a video and several phone calls made by Diaz, wherein he asked about the money. It looked bad. Wilson spoke with the U.S. prosecutor, Tyson Duva, and she agreed to five years. Oleg had accepted a deal for 11 years, and he told Diaz to consider taking the five, so Diaz took the deal. Unfortunately, of plea hearing, when the judge asked him how he pled, Diaz, afraid that he'd be taken into custody right then,

had a change of heart. He leaned into the microphone and said, Not guilty, Your Honor. His attorney dropped his head on the defense table, and the prosecutor glared at him. She was furious. Weeks later, once again, Diaz's attorney convinced him to accept the plea, but at the last minute he changed his mind.

The following week, Diaz canceled a second change of plea hearing. The prosecutor was so angry she told Wilson, no more pleas were going to trial. Day one went well, Diaz tells me. On the second day, though, I rode the elevator up to the courtroom with Nate and Casey Schuller. I couldn't believe I was standing in an elevator with the two idiots who'd set me and Olai up. They were wearing pastel suits. It looked like clowns. Nate testified that Diaz was a huge drug trafficker working out of Acapulco, Mexico.

He told the jury Diaz had supplied him with nearly 300 kilos of which, which, according to Diaz, was a grossly inflated number. They didn't have any drugs, just some money, says Diaz. But my lawyer was right. It didn't look good. On the third day of trial, the judge gave the jury the case. They deliberated for about an hour. Then they found Diaz not guilty of several of the counts, but guilty of one count of conspiracy to distribute. His bail was revoked, and he was immediately taken into custody. At Diaz's

sentencing, on May 1, 2012, the government asked for 14 years. The judge, however, after listening to Diaz's attorney, lay out the tragedy of his client's childhood, declined. She teared up when she gave me the mandatory minimum 10 years, says Diaz. She said she said she, She didn't think I deserved it, but her hands were tied. By the time I met Diaz at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in central Florida, it was the summer of 2017. He'd been sent to a federal camp in Pensacola following his trial. There he got into a fight and was transferred to a prison in Oakdale, Louisiana, and eventually

to Elkton Federal Correctional Institution in Ohio. In October 2016, he was transferred to Coleman, the same prison where Nathaniel and Casey Schuller's brother worked as the compound officer. I see him every day, admits Diaz, but he doesn't know I'm the guy his brother's put in prison. Diaz is scheduled to be released in March 2019.