Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Kingpin Reveals How The Cartel Really Works...

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

Kingpin Reveals How The Cartel Really Works...

For the entire decade of the 1990s, this was the most powerful group in Mexico. These are the kind of things you see in the movies. Yeah. This is actually that. You fight for control of the ports. You fight for control of the border crossings. Other key assets are key corrupted political officials. You know, the thing about Mexico is power doesn't come from weapons or product.

Power comes from... Let's do it. Let's switch with sides. No, what are you talking about? Let's do it. Go. Okay. Okay, well, do your intro. I don't have an intro. The intro is we just start talking. Because this, remember, the lower third is going to slide out. And it says, you know, Pierre Racini, former L.A. Kingpin. And then it'll go, shoot. But see, so you, we don't even have an intro. I don't think Rogan doesn't. Somebody suggested, oh, I know it was Julian. My buddy Julian

suggested, he goes, he said, we don't do interest. anymore, Matt. He said, we're not doing intros anymore. He said, Danny and I talked about it. We're not wasting time on intros. We just go right into it. So, okay, Julian, that's what we're doing. So that's what I started doing. Save this a few seconds, except for this nonsense right here that we're okay. Go ahead. So you're not going to say anything at all on this morning? No, we're starting with the case. So we're starting. All right. So we're going to be discussing the creation of the Mexican cartels and how they've evolved over the years, why they've evolved and the controversies within them and the wars and the whole thing. We're going all into it. Yeah, we'll be discussing

the genesis of cartels and how they develop. It's perfect. Yes, let's do it. I'm excited. All right, well, 50 years ago, there were two cartels operating in Mexico. It was the Guadalajara cartel, which controlled the bulk of the border region, and then there was a Gulf cartel. In the mid-80s, an arrangement was made between the Colombians and the Mexicans in order to use Mexico as a transshipment point. In fact, we discussed this during an earlier podcast.

Right. Okay. Well, that relationship lasted for a few years before the Mexicans got smart and said, hey, we want to be paid in product for our services. This in turn prompted Mexicans now to be able to begin developing their own, distribution basis distribution operations within the American market right and so for the first time what you had were Mexican kingpins with their own American

based distribution networks and so this allowed for the Guadalajara cartel to begin increasing revenue because it's much more profitable one and not only smuggle the product on behalf of the Colombians but the value of the product increases exponentially once it hits the American market right and so for instance, the leader of the cartel, Felice Gallardo, was an individual who amassed the first multiple billion dollar wealth. And this was back in the 1980s.

And he created a structure with an entire second tier of up-and-coming younger generation guys who later on went on and become famous. Men like Chapa Guzman, Huo Palma, you know, Natradorna, all these individuals ultimately went on to become initially his second tier and later on the leadership of the subsequent organizations. Now, what happened was in the mid-80s,

there was a tremendous amount of law enforcement scrutiny, particularly coming from the Drug Enforcement Administration. So there was a meeting held in Acapulco in 1987, where Felice Gallardo essentially delegated authority for different regional outposts to five different groups. Later on, these are the five different groups that ultimately went on to become separate cartels.

But initially, they were just responsible. They were like the local franchises. Right. And so he kept for himself and his family the Crown Jewel, which is the city of Tijuana. The Tijuana San Diego Corridor right there is very convenient for introducing contraband into the United States.

30 miles outside of Tijuana, you had the border of entry called Takate. That was Chapa Guzman's. Then, in Mexicali, went back to the Arianos, Phyllis' family. And then from there over, you had a group from Sonora, which is Caro Quintero's organization. Then you had the group in Juarez, which was Amaro Carillo's organization. And so essentially from Tijuana to El Paso, you had five different groups that were responsible for handling the importation of material into the United States. Now, the most competent of those five groups

was the one led by Chapa Guzman. Now, the difference between Guzman and the other individuals was the other people had direct family members involved. Nepotism. Just straight up nepotism. Whereas with Guzman, you know, he was competent. See, in that world, unlike the corporate world or being some drone work at an Amazon,

it's, if you drop the ball, you get killed. I was going to say, I feel like competency is reliant on murder. That's the great filter in that community. And so everybody understood that if you were working for Guzman and you lost a load, curtains. Right. And so it weeded out the incompetence. And so he had been able to develop a reputation, even amongst the Colombians, where they would drop off a load of Mexico,

and before they're playing out back to Colombia, he'd already have it in L.A. And so nepotism is great, but you put the people in power or you entrust them with the authority to exercise so long as you know they're going to get the job done. Right. So nepotism is great for loyalty, but it doesn't necessarily translate to competency.

Yes, well, like so when Felizcairto said, well, we're going to give Tijuana to my nephews, but we're going to give the Colombian's product to Guzman, because they knew he was going to get that product across the border without suffering any losses, whereas the nephews could handle the weed. Right. And so that went on until about 87. Eighty-seven, he delegates everything to these various little groups. Now, in 1989, Felizcairto gets knocked off. And those five regional outposts devolved, just a fragmentation, where it ultimately breaks down into five SIFRA syndicates,

which became the modern structure of the five cartels. Right. Can I ask a question? Sure. You're saying Guzmonde was in charge of the Sinaloa cartel. But... Well, at the time, there was no cartel. He was based...

Okay. So we were really... Okay, sorry. So we haven't gotten to Zabata yet. Oh, no, no, no. Back in 87, Zabata had nothing to do with this. Oh, okay. Sorry, go ahead. Remember, when they divvied up the territory,

he's in 87, it was the border crossings. Okay. Understand, Sina Loa is not a border state. That's why later on there was such a disadvantage because there are a thousand miles from the border. The other four groups are border adjacent. Right. Okay, keep going.

And so I thought you had skipped something. No, yes. And so initially he gets entrusted with this port of entry. So that means that all contraband coming through that particular port of entry goes through him. Right. He controls the toll. Not only does he push through the product that he's responsible for,

but he also charges all the other organizations to use his bridge. Right. It's called Bezo. And so where later on he felt as if he kind of got shafted was he ended up with two of the smaller parts of entry. Like the nepotism kicked in a couple of years after this meeting. Because when Gallardo got knocked off, all of a sudden it was a mad rush. People were grabbing and holding on to what they had previously been assigned. Well, he'd been assigned two small ones.

The nephew's got the crown jewel, Cardizio's got a beautiful one in Mavillaredo and El Paso. You know, like all the other guys got the plums. He got the scraps. Right. And so, and the second disadvantage he had also was the fact that he was young. You know what I mean? He's 33-year-old, 34-year-old man. And so when you're dealing with men in their 50s, it's difficult.

for a 55-year-old to treat a 33-year-old as an equal. Right. And so although he was competent, he suffered from several disadvantages. One, his youth. Two, he also suffered from the fact that he, like I said, Sinaloa was not a border state. Now, what was interesting

is prior to Belis Gallo getting arrested and illustrating the earlier point, there was a trafficker named Hector Palma. But O'Palma was much older, you know, 15 20 years older than Guzman. And he was another individual who was an extraordinary smuggler.

And Palma was responsible for handling a lot of the loads for Felice Gallardo. And Palma would go through, he partnered up with Guzman to go through his port of entry. You know, competence finds competence. Right. Well, back in the late 80s, there was a load that ended up getting knocked off, like, you know, multiple tons shipment, which were late 80s, 87, 88, those were big loads. It wasn't until later on that you started seeing the much larger loads. And when you suffer a loss like that, the organization is responsible for the loss. So now Felix Gallardo's got to pay the Colombians. Now he's not going to pay full price, but he may end up having to pay the Acapulco price, but it's still coming out of his pocket.

So now he looks incompetent and it's costing him money. So Waddo Palma and his business partner get called to account. The partner gets killed. where the Palmer gets spared. However, Palmer now found himself excommunicated from the community. Well, they don't give an opportunity to try and make it up? No, he essentially got expelled. Right, because, I mean, a lot of times they don't just whack you. A lot of times, they'll say, like, if you can, you know, we're going to let you make it up.

You know, if you get hit again, then you're done. Now, Felizcaro had turned into a monster by that point. Okay. And so, Palma gets spared, but he's essentially on the outs. and you know how when we're in prison, everything in prison breaks down, usually along racial or ethnic lines, particularly at the higher security level institutions. Right.

And if you find yourself excluded from your particular community... Now you're a... Now you're potentially victim of being preyed upon. Right. You don't have anybody back yet. You're a lone wolf. Yeah. Yes.

And so that's the circumstance that he found himself in. And unfortunately for Palma, his wife was manipulated into falling in love with another trafficker some Venezuelan guy he fills her head full of these pipe dreams they're going to take off together they're going to live together happily ever after

she withdraws like eight to ten million dollars worth of homeless money from the account grabs the kids and leaves with the Venezuelan well turns out the Venezuelan was put up for this mission by the Arianos and Felice Gallardo so they get the wife and children down to Venezuela

they decapitate her and kill his children so now they send a box to what Obama not good that's a bad he opens up it's a bad

that's a yeah that's okay so here's guy like his wife's gone his children's gone his money's gone he's freaking out what the hell's going on

he gets a box all right like UPS delivery opens it up there's a severed head there's a V8 He grabs the VHS tape, pops it into VCR, and the children had been taken to a bridge in Venezuela.

Oh, I remember this. And they tossed the kids off the bridge. And so, of course, they filmed the children plummeting to their debts. You know, young children, too, like eight-year-old, nine-year-olds. Yeah. And Palma, of course, one, absolutely loses his mind. Right. And so this is like 1988.

The following year, early 89, Felice Gallardo gets knocked off. He's now sitting in custody. But Weta Obama goes and joins a partnership with Chapa Guzman. They make an alliance. Okay. He's in his 50s. He knows some guys in Colombia. He knows some guys in Venezuela.

He can reestablish the ties because once Felice Gallardo got knocked off, those little satellite groups, they didn't have connections to the Colombians. They worked for him. Right. He dealt with them. Can I ask a question? Sure. 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. You said that Palma was kind of excommunicated. Why did they come after him? If they wanted to kill him, or they just...

Pure spite. Okay. And he... The individual who killed the wife... wife was an associate of the nephews, the Arianos. And so he knows that, he knew that Feliz Gallardo ordered it, but Gallardo is essentially in protective custody in prison. Although he's technically incarcerated, he's still running his family's organization.

He's operating with cell phones. Remember this is now 89, 90, you had cell phone technology, whereas they were not able to be gotten to. So when Wado Palma reaches out the Chopper Guzman, they make a new alliance saying, hey, look, I'll handle the supply side because he knows some guys down in South America. You handle controlling your toll bridge, your port of entry.

Chopin Guzman wisely selected Chappo Palma to be his partner. And for the first five years of the cartels history from, let's say, 1990 to 95, Wadopalma was actually in charge. All right. He's the older of the two. He had the gravitas. He was able to go

and obtain the source of supply. More importantly, from Guzman's perspective, he knew that Weta Palma was the one man who would never cut a deal

with the Arianos. That murder, the killing of his wife and his children sealed the deal, yeah. meant that there was never going to be

a negotiated settlement. It wasn't a business arrangement but we'll give you X number of dollars per unit, settled the debt, no.

That killing actually triggered a war that lasted for 20 years. It didn't end until 2008. Thousands of men died behind the killing of his children.

That was initially the precipitating factor. And so when Guzman selected what Obama, Obama was like, look, I'll get the supply, you handle the smuggling, and I'm wiping out those guys. Right. Tropa just stood back. And that's the genesis of the Sinaloa arrangement.

Now, there were other groups operating in Sina Loa, Zambada, Espada goza, belted on Laiva. They said, hey, well, you've got the toll bridge. We'll just all use you. Right. And then they just, what do they just pay? They pay Pizzo.

Yeah. But these guys, they formed like a little, there's always strength in numbers. And so those organizations that were local to him, they bandied together. Now, what they did is initially you had the one state of Sinaloa, and within a year or two, they'd already moved out to about a half a dozen states.

And that's where they stayed for a debt. decade. You had Halisco, Colima, Nayadi, Mitro Khan, and Durango. Well, all of the organizations in those territories came to Guzman's group and said, hey, we want our product taken across the border. Now, they charged them. Yeah. So that's a second revenue stream. You're making your money, importing product for the Colombians. You're making your money, distributing the product you get as payment to the Americans. And now you're getting the payment from all the other subsidiary organizations that want to use your toll bridge.

And that was the genesis for Sinaloa. On the other hand, in Tijuana, they had a life arreilly. Sinaloa got to about six, seven, eight tons of Colombian product per month.

In Tijuana, they started out with 20 tons. They were three times bigger. For the entire decade of the 1990s, this was the most powerful group in Mexico. They were literally 15 miles from the border. Right. And so they gave them direct access to Southern California and San Diego.

Whereas Sinaloa, they were 800 miles to their port of entry. From there, they got to go to Los Angeles. Or they've got the second port of entry, which is in Agua Pireeta, which was by Douglas, Arizona. That's on the New Mexico border. That's another 10 hours. so these guys had enormous disadvantage one they weren't a border state couldn't do anything about that but two they were assigned and inherited two very you know not very beneficial order crossings they're small given to smallness it increases the probability of getting detected right because

they're very little traffic you know in tijuana you got 50,000 cars every day they just can't they just can't search all they can't even search a fraction of They can't, they can't. Look, the success rate was about 99%. Right. It's pretty good for a product that has such a huge markup. Markup, yeah. You know, let's take a look at it. Like, if it's eight metric tons, that's 8,000 units. Well, in order to get 8,000 units across the border, even if it's only 40 units at a time, that's just 200 cars. Right.

Harder going to find 200 cars out of a sea of 50,000. Right. And let's say they break it up over the course of two days. You can always give them somebody. Well, no, they do. They'll give them somebody. They do. They do.

Look, they've got a bust over here. The, the, the, um, the, um, the, uh, the, the, um, the, uh, the, the, uh, the customs or whatever, they're, they're excited. They're all over here and you, choo, choo, choo, right through. Yeah, that's the, that's the, they call it's a torpedo. Torpedo. Torpedo. What, it'll send like a decoy load of, you know, marijuana, right?

Relatively inexpensive. And of course, that'll get all the border guards all running over there. We got a big bust. Meanwhile, they just start pushing through. But even then, they don't even necessarily even need to do that because the probabilities are so in their favor. And it's only with respect to the bigger loads where they'll do the decoys.

But Tijuana didn't have to go with the bigger loads because they just had that free flow of traffic. It's Sinaloa that was at the disadvantage. And so very from the very beginning, by 1991, like 1990 was the full year that it operated. By 1991, you already had Guzman's operatives in Tijuana operating clandestinely and

shortly they got, you know, identified those six got killed. And, uh, now Adianos, you know, they remember when you have control of a plaza, that means you not only have the border crossing, but that means you have the endorsement of local law enforcement. And so your loads are protected. Non-paying participants in the market,

their loads are susceptible to getting confiscated. So that's when you see the police making buss. They're just busing the guys that are on the payroll. Right. And you're saying from the Mexican side? No, the Mexican side. Oh, okay. Yeah.

I can't believe you would suggest that Mexicans would be corrupt. And then the loads that they knock off, after they get the big bus, they take the pictures, blah, blah, blah. Then they turn around, they sell it to the local plaza boss. Right. So it pays to pay for the service. And... Have you seen, I'm going to say it wrong, surrogata or what is, you know what I'm talking about?

Gosh, you got to see this. I'm going to send you this movie. You had to have seen it in Coleman. And there's two of them now. I'm going to send. I didn't watch television. I'm going to send it to you. You're going to be like, whoa, this is great. Or you'll pick holes in. Either way, it'll be fine. You'll like it. Go ahead. Sorry. No, okay, so the point being is once Tijuana discovered that, hey, you've got your operatives in our city, that means they're pushing through loads without paying their pieces. So they naturally, they kill

those six guys and tell Guzman, hey, stop sending your people over. They don't get a fine or no, no, no, so then they get, so a second group gets knocked off, but these are like two high-ranking guys. Well, after these two, that's when Guzman says, okay, now they're going to start shooting it out.

And, they were able to gather some intel that somebody Arianos are going to be partying in Puerto Vallarta because it's now 1992 Right And Chapaguzman sends a hit squad With Werto Palma

40 men dressed up as police officers They show up in the nightclub And What's wrong with filing a lawsuit I don't understand It's always straight to the violence With these guys Well no see that's the

Prior to the killing of Wadu Palma's wife? They would have had a sit down. They would have had, it was, you know, that was, that changed. The dynamic of, of the entire industry. Right. You know, the Adiano's, up until that point, murder was the last result, the resort.

Yeah. Adiano used it as a tool. Right. And, and of course, like I said, Wadolpama wasn't going to negotiate no matter what. And so he sends it. Since these cops, he's in,

dressed up, sorry, dressed up as cops. For all we know, they may have been cops. Okay, yeah. And they shoot up the nightclub, end up killing, like, 12 civilians. They miss. Collateral damage. They miss the Adiano. Like, they get a bunch of it.

Now you're just an idiot. You know, they get the bodyguards. Oh, God. But Adiano's able to, you know, while his bodyguards are fighting him off, boom, he sneaks out the window in the bathroom. Oh, my God. Okay. And so now that was in like late 92. Right.

Now you fast forward to the spring of 93, which was a very significant time. period because you had two events that occurred. For the previous three years, Sinaloa, unlike Tijuana, because they didn't have the high flow of traffic, they went for the larger loads, six, seven, eight-ton shipments at a time. And they'd come up with a very clever mechanism

in which they were concealing the contraband inside food products. They were being brought to Los Angeles. For, you know, Los Angeles is a predominantly Hispanic city. You got a million little Mexican markets. Right. And so they're just importing Mexican goods to sell it these markets.

Well, that's how the material was getting brought into the country. Now, that gets knocked off by the DEA in the spring of 93. A month later, they discovered a first subterranean tunnel. Now, they previously found a tunnel in Douglas, Arizona,

the Agrippietta border crossing, the one that was 10 hours away from L.A. Right. So they said, well, screw that. We're not going to keep building infrastructure out there. they just went and built a clandestine tunnel under Tijuana territory

they were completely in the dark made no money from this venture and naturally that's what kicked off the war they send a group of hitmen to go try to take out Chopper Guzman because Guzman was his tunnel okay he handled the smuggling right Bama handled the supply side

so they target Guzman they send 20 guys so they figure out that it's Guzman and Guzman isn't supposed to be there. No. Okay. Let's making sure.

Yeah. His border crossing is 30 miles outside of Tijuana. Right, right. So. He's not supposed to be in our area. We find out they have this, this. Super tunnel. Fucking tunnel.

And so what do they have? They have engineers that they, where do they get people like, no offense, I can't dig a tunnel that's probably not going to collapse? Yeah, they bring them guys from Germany. Okay. And so they brought in not only the German engineers, but they brought in the craftsmen necessary to create it. Give it to structural integrity.

Give it the ventilation system. Give it the locomotion system. These are, you know, a million dollar. Yeah, enterprise. Yeah. Per tunnel. Yeah. You know, and they'll use, they'll build like an array.

Right. And so you have like a three tunnel set up. So they'll be activating, you know, the Alpha tunnel will be operating. Bravo is on standby. Charlie's mothballed. Right. Bravo, you know, Alpha gets knocked off. Activate Bravo.

Charlie's on standby. You're building Delta. And so they just keep rolling. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. of course, they're not supposed to be doing any of this because it's not their territory. Right. So the Ariano send a group of hitmen

to go catch Japa Guzman. They knew that he was going to be flying out of the airport in Guadalajada. And so when they made the move at the airport, he's driving a particular type of vehicle that they knew the car he was going to be in. So the hitman riddle the vehicle full of bullets. Unfortunately, it's the wrong car.

who's in that car an archbishop from the Catholic Church The archbishop for the Catholic Like that That's like the highest guy in Guadalajara Guadalajara is the second largest city in Mexico And it's also a cultural center for the country

Right Long car And so yeah of course They both happen to be driving like the same White You know Chevy Marquise or some Whatever the hell it was Right

And so they That triggers an enormous response Because Mexico Although very corrupt corrupt is also very Catholic. Right. Like, this is the line that got crossed. Yeah, yeah. So the government's furious. The government's just absolutely infuriated. And so for, on every level, you had the

overland route gets knocked off by the DEA. The subterranean route gets knocked off by customs. This incident with the Archbishop happens, all of a sudden, like we were in L.A., price of skyrocket. Right. They go from 14.5 a unit. Now they're charged in 18185 in a matter of, you know, weeks. But I mean, why? Because immediately a war. Supply side. Yeah, well, supply side issues. Okay. Whenever there's a major disruption, people start hoarding.

Yeah. Okay. Because you don't want to sell something today for 16.5, yet two weeks from now, you can get 19 for it. And so it has this effect where it accelerates. Prices start skyrocketing because until a new setup is established and people know that the supply is back online, it creates an enormous drought type of condition. Okay.

And so once the killing of the Cardinal occurs, Guzman takes off. The government just slams everybody, Mexican government. That's precipitated the price results. Well, when Guzman gets arrested a month later, he gets charged for the killing of the Cardinal. He's like, hey, well, hold on a second.

And I'm the, they were trying to get me. Like, he's the victim here. Right. And so after a little bit of investigation, they determined, oh, yeah, he was the target. This, of course, makes Adiano's public enemy number one now. Grzman, unfortunately, gets thrown in jail anyway. Like, okay, well, you're innocent of this killing, but we're giving you 20 years for the drug activity. So now he goes out of the way.

Boom. But O'Palma at this point is completely in charge. His number two is now Mayo Zimbada. because Palma is spending most of his time in combat. Right. So he's kind of delegating to some of the other guys. Like, hey, you guys handle the dope. I'm over here busy.

And so this continues for another year. That's when you get the second big knockoff. This is a significant event in the backdrop of my case. We're in the autumn on 94. A shipment gets knocked off. And at the Takati border crossing, 10 tons. and uh 10 tons of product that's the that was the last of the big loads that came from senile from that point forward they started using the diversification model you know build a fleet of 200 cars

right 40 units per car and just send the cars what was the 10 tons in was it i don't i don't i don't know what the circumstances surrounding how i was just wondering if it was a truck or if it was well it had to be a truck of course well i don't know i mean i remember what you I don't know if you're going to mention this story about the hollowed-out telephone holes that are getting trucked down. Yeah, but still, that's still trucking. They were using tractor trailers in that particular circumstance, and you're talking about Vicente Guerrero. Guerrero's an interesting character because later on, you know, Guerrero's wife was brothers with the headset. And so, and Guerrero was dealing directly with Ocel Cardinus.

He's an individual that pops up later on in the story because this is Gulf Cartel. but just to complete the thought, they were using tractor trailers with the long trailers used to move those flight posts. Right. You know, these are like, you know, 30 feet, 40 feet in length.

Yeah. And what was very clever about Guerrero's operation, particularly reason why he got slammed with 35 years, was because he, his construction and trucking company were paying the Texas Highway Patrol to provide escorts for the trucks. So the Highway Patrol, so the Texas Highway Patrol is,

they're escorting loads of product coming from Mexico. These concrete, these concrete light poles that are hollowed out. They just stuff them full of product. It was a three tons per truck load. Yeah, so they're, and then you got the sheriff's department. You got the two, you know, like Texas State Trooper in the front, Texas State Trooper in the back, and then a little truck with the wide load.

And so you got police escort, and they're bringing three tons at a time. Boom, boom, boom, going from Brownsville to Houston. Balzy, yeah. 35 years for that. Yeah. And just for being clever? Is that an enhancement? Well, it was the...

That's a 12-point enhancement. It was the, that issue with respect to the Texas State Troopers. And then they had a second run where they were going from... Oh, this is the bus? This is... We were going up to Corpus Christi, and in Corpus Christi, they had school buses that they were using to move the product from Corpus Christi up into Houston. And so, you know, they would take the school bus, go and pick up...

Like, it's kids with, like, special needs kids and take them to... He didn't want to say it. Special needs kids, and, like, they take them to the zoo. So they're all on this bus that's filled with product. They drop them off at the zoo. Spend a few hours. Take the truck over to the truck, to the shop, lift the frame up off, you know, lift the carriage frame off the carriage, access to compartments, pull the material, reassemble everything, get back, pick up the kids from the zoo, run them back down to Corpus Christi. And so it was that double whammy that altered it, Guerrero getting 35 years.

But, so back to with Sinaloa, so in the autumn of 94, that load gets knocked off. Right. Which precipitates them to start going, okay, you know what? we're going to do the smaller loads. Now it requires a lot more infrastructure. Now you've got to have 200 drivers. You've got to have 100 of cars. You've got to have warehouses.

But you can't afford to not sustain these 10 metric ton losses. Right. And so that's where you had to transition over by 95 to where you had the smaller loads. Also, at that point, that's the year that NAFTA took effect. And that really changed everything. because now you had a tremendous amount of traffic coming back and forth and it made the principal border crossings

that much more valuable because you know people focus on the Tijuana border crossing with the civilians or there's a second border crossing that's commercial or the Tijuana one, Nuevo Laredo, those become crown jewels because they've got a enormous amount of trucking coming through and the trucks, you're not doing 40 units,

per car, that's where you had Carrero coming with three tons. Right. They're going through those passes. And that's later on what's going to really kick things off. It was a mad scramble for those type of assets. Because, you know, what people don't necessarily understand about cartels is they group together in order to control certain key assets. So for...

Like areas or regions? Okay, well, in Sinaloa, they wanted control of Halisco because Guadalajada is not only a major metropolitan area, but more importantly, it's the money laundering capital of the world. Well, you need access to those money launderers. Right. You know, once you go outside of the city, literally, there are fields where you've got the trailers for tractor trailers,

you've got trailers parked. Underground. It's just buried in the desert. Filled with cash. You know, you get $1 billion to $2 billion a month coming into Guadalajara in cash. Well, there's an entire infrastructure designed just to surface that capital.

Well, that can't be replicated. So that's a tremendous asset you want to control. Next to Halisco, you've got the state of Kalima. Well, Kalima's got the largest port on the west coast. It's critical. Not only could you bring material in from Colombia, but more importantly,

later on as they start moving into manufacturing, their own product, they need to get the precursors in from China. So Kalimba's got a port, mutual con's got a port, those are the two biggest ports on the west coast. You fight for control of the ports. You fight for control of the border crossings. Other key assets are key corrupted political officials. You know, when after Guzman gets knocked off,

Mayo Zambada steps up, really assumes control operationally for the cartel. Well, he's in a business relationship with a, man named Armando Valencia and another man, Omaro Carillo. Well, from 1993 to 1997, these men put together an operation resulting in the importation of 30 tons a month, just those three organizations. And it was, you know, the most secure importation operation in the history of the world. And it was secured because they had control of the generals, one of which had responsibility for

maintaining the integrity of Mexican airspace. The American government went in, built a state-of-the-art radar system so that the Mexicans can identify planes flying in from Colombia that aren't properly signaled. Well, if you've got control of the guy that's responsible for an operation... Yeah, he lets this one in. He lets that one. That's right.

Meanwhile, on the supply side, you had Sambada controlling the general in Guadalajara who maintained control over that military zone. Well, he had one of his buddies controlling an air base in the Mexican state of Sonora. So now you had planes flying in from Colombia getting greenlit by one general, landing at another military base green lit by the second general. And so when I say general, I mean,

he's got all his colonels, his captains, everybody down the line is getting a piece. Right. So they're getting millions of dollars. a month in payments. Amato Cardillo at his peak was paying about $500 million a year in bribes. That's just greasing the wheels. Right. And so you started getting these shipments where they bought a fleet of Bone 727s, gutted them, turned them into cargo planes, and just started flying airliners. We're carrying 13, 14, 15 tons per load. They're getting greenlit by the general.

You're getting on, you know, when they land, you got the people unloading them are uniformed military personnel. And so it was just an impenetrable operation. You know, that fell apart when the general that was responsible for greenlighting the landings, he gets selected to be their drugs are.

So in 1996, he gets elevated to becoming the chief narcotics fighter for the country. And the whole time, they end up discovering that he's living in one of a model Carillo's, high rises. It was like, what are you doing, man? Right. So, you know, they had to shut down that operation. Right. But they had that

five-year run, where it demonstrated the power of having control of assets. And by having those two generals, they were able to get away with this. Nobody else could do that kind of a thing. Right. And so, now, most of the control, most of the assets they fight over are physical assets. Ports,

border crossings, and in 1995 after that last big loss you had the switch over to one they're going to be sending over smaller loads and two you had the elevation of Zambada essentially taken over control well he fully took over control in the spring because Wado Palma then the head of the cartel gets into his Learjet crashed and he survives the plane crash and so he's able to get away

you know of course the military and everybody responds because they just see an airplane crash they don't know it's what Obama's plane right and so he ends up actually getting away and they find him later on we know convalescing

so now he joins Guzman in prison so you got these two guys out of the way Zimbada takes over and this is the first of the golden eras because he's not caught up in all the bullshit in the drama So while the war continued, he focused more on the business.

And so that's where you saw the massive growth in the senior level operation happened under Zambada. And this is when he had that 30 ton a month operation going on with Carrizo and Valencia. Well, independent of that, he formed another relationship with the guy named Ignacio Coronel. now natural cordonel was operating in halisco well he maintained a fleet of tuna boats and so while you've got the 30 tons a month coming in through the air route he had another 10 tons a month coming in through the maritime route and so now they're hitting on both cylinders in addition to those two you've got an individual named armando valencia now valencia was actually one of the principal players on the supply side in my case. And Valencia,

not only was he, for that era, an extraordinary trafficker, he's the one who brokered together the arrangement between Zimbada and Carillo. He's also the individual that had the visionary to see the value in synthetic compounds. So he entered into a relationship with a guy named Demescua, who was another one of the ultimate suppliers on my case, and they started manufacturing what was essentially... Right. And so for the first few years, you know, they had complete control at his market. And so, you know, Amescua had his connections, which, you know, when Sena Loa selected

Los Angeles. They divided the city up into basically different regions. And so, you know, Zambada, Guzman, and Guzbo Palma had their operations based in L.A. County proper. Like Zambada ran his operation out of my hometown of West Covina. And so West Covina was ground zero, essentially. It's like, you know, how can you say this? The, you know, West Covina is the drug trafficking, what Palo Alto is to Silicon Valley. Right. And those three groups really took over the L.A. County underground drug market. The fourth organization that operated in L.A. was Valencia. Well, Valencia's was down in Orange County.

And so it's Valencia's group that supplied the large quantities of the synthetic material to L.A. traffickers, like the guys in my case. Right. And so the other thing to understand about Orange County is Orange County was home to a large Asian community. Now, we've got three or four Asian clusters in the greater L.A. area. And in the L.A. area, we had four triads operating. Well, the triad that operated in Orange County was a group called the 14K. And so Valencia's group is operating in Orange County.

They developed ties with Chinese ganges. their base in Orange County, now they got to connect in China for the chemicals. And so they started bringing in just tons of precursor chemicals into Mexico, producing the material, bringing it up to Los Angeles, distributing it all through their Orange County distributors.

And the difference between that particular material and the product from the Colombians is that in the Colombian context, the Mexicans are middlemen. They're coming out of pocket a significant amount of money to obtain the material. Then they got to incur the cost with transporting, you know, protection, security, all that nonsense. With respect to the material they're manufacturing, on the other hand, it's nearly all profits. Right.

And so what you saw was an enormous amount of revenue going now to Sinaloa. Without a corresponding increase, you know, Tijuana was still much bigger, the Gulf was still much bigger. but they had all of the synthetic market locked up. And so by 1997, this is where in the United States, it started becoming an issue. You started getting a lot of law enforcement attention where they were saying, hey, we got to stop this stuff coming up from Mexico.

And it just, that's the year that Amescu, and they brought a lot of pressure on it, amescuas gets taken up, he gets busted. So now Valencia's like, okay, well, he's already overseeing this massive, operation with the Colombians. Now he's overseeing this massive operation with

the synthetics. So he forms a business partnership with Nacho Coronel. Well, Nacho Coronel takes it to a level that they didn't think was even possible. He brings in chemists from Israel. And they reconfigured

the labs. They go from producing what before had been previously bulk powder material to now it's more powerful, crystallized form. Right. These are the super labs that are in the jungles, right? Well, in the villages outside of, once you leave Guadalajara, you know, jungle is a misnomer.

It's not necessarily jungles. You know, but the city of Guadalajara. So, they looked like jungles. You saw pictures of the Colombian operations. Oh, okay. Yeah, the Mexican guys don't do it. They just pay for protection. They got that warehouse.

They got that building. And so, yeah, so they have enormous... labs that got constructed primarily, you know, they came in with the Israelis, they came up with the configuration, they developed the formulas, they taught the locals how to use it, and they started producing material on an industrial scale.

And so at this point, you had Zambada, essentially consolidating the Colombian-related aspect. You had natural cordonel consolidating the synthetic aspect. And at this point, Cordonell becomes so powerful. Like, he's literally

the second, if not the third, most powerful drug lord in the Western Hemisphere. Because he's still got Satuna boats, but he's got control over the synthetics, and that's 90% profits.

Well, what about, what about poor Guzman? I mean, he's still in prison. I feel bad for him. Well, remember, don't forget, prison in Mexico is not,

it's not. It's not. No, no. You know, we see pictures. We see pictures. They live better in prison than 90% of the men in this country. Yeah.

Well, he had a buddy in prison who literally showed us, you know, the photo albums. He had like multiple photo albums are this thick, filled with photos of him in Mexican. This is a cartel member who's showing him in prison with photograph. He's photographing in, which is insane. And, I mean, they're drinking Corona. He's bringing in prostitute. he's he his meals are catered yeah they got three every day every meal was catered so they've brought in catered food three times a day they'd bring in hookers for three or four days at a time

they bring a two or three of them at a time then it's all allowed well they're paying 5,000 a week to live on that range yeah they live on so like if you have different units set up they have their own unit like their own area their own section where it's just cartel members yeah and so they're paying 5,000 a week and for that they get the privileges of you know alcohol drugs, women, catered food, they run their businesses from there. He ultimately got charged, dude. When he got charged, it was for running a $300 million conspiracy out of prison. Yeah, he's got cell phones.

He's answering calls. He ended up and he did like a seven, he did 10 years in a Mexican prison of which he had, did like six. Right. He had like seven kids in six years. And then they had to move him to, they. Then they brought him to America to serve his time. Serve the time for what he had done. And he was not happy at all.

Yeah, no. Like all this sucks. Still living pretty good. Still, I mean, not that it's not Mexico, but he's still got all of his food's catered. He didn't go into that chow hall, and this is a special meal. He's got guys cooking for him, doing his, doing his laundry, making his bed. Am I right? No, no, is that, okay.

But, yeah, it wasn't as good as Mexico. There's no hookers or anything. You're not bringing in. Your wife can't come visit you for five days. They wouldn't have the wives come. No. Did he father a couple of kids or something? Yeah, like half a dozen kids.

While he's in prison. Yeah. And so it was, well, and that's the same thing with Guzman. I mean, there's numerous stories, and you can look at, and I'm sure you can watch stories on YouTube, recreating the events, but it's literally, you know, they bring in groups, bands, they're playing corridos for them. You know, they're having 30, 40, 50 people, banquets.

And, but he's still running his business. Right. However, you know, the thing about Guzman, you got to understand is he was actually the smallest distributor of the factions. Right. Like, he was the largest of the smugglers. But Zambada's distribution network was much larger. Valencia's was much larger.

The distribution end is different than the importation. You know, the government likes to just conflate everybody as being drug traffickers. Well, there are different roles within, you know, a divorce lawyer is not a criminal defense lawyer and is not a bankruptcy lawyer. Well, there are different specialties. Well, his primary specialty was overseeing the importation of the material. So now, and the majority of the product he imports, wasn't his right now the government of course said well we're going to attribute 200,000 units to him that's everybody's right 200,000 units that's just getting dumped on the guy yeah but he was also

the more flashy the one that kind of got the public's eye and he got yes you know and that was you know somebody knows about Zimbada like nobody he's he's driving an old pickup truck around Sinaloa, doesn't bother anybody. Yeah, same thing with Valencia. Probably the largest drug trafficker who has never achieved any measure of notoriety. Right.

You know, he's, like I said, dirty tons a month, nobody ever heard of him. You know, like I met him. There's like, what, one or two photos of him? Yeah, there's like one or two photos. I mean, there's a few photos of Valencia.

But, you know, like... Guzman. Oh, yeah. He's posing with people. Like, he's like, go on, you know... Yeah, they got the photo of him with the Hummer, holding a machine gun in front of him.

I was like, come on, man, what are you doing? And so, by the turn of the century, things were hitting on all cylinders on the Sinaloa front. Now, where things get really interesting is what happened out in the Gulf. Because in the late 1990s, you had a man named Ocel Cardenas, and he rose to challenge control of the Gulf cartel.

Now, the golf cartel was much bigger than Sina Loa. You know, Tijuana. is doing 20 tons a month. The Gulf's doing 20 tons a month. Right. You know, Sina Loa is importing a lot of material, but it's going to different groups. Like, individually, these other groups were much more powerful.

Well, Ocel Cardinus made a move to take over control of the Gulf. However, there were various factions within that particular syndicate that were very powerful. And so what Cardinus did is he entered into a relationship with a former military personnel. He was a special forces individual for the Mexican special forces. And he goes to him and says,

hey, look, I need to put together a security detail because he knew it was going to be a rough move. Like, the other guys aren't going to just go along with him taking over. And so he says, I need to put together a security detail. Where can I find some highly trained men? He's like, well, we'll get him out of the military. And so this individual named Desina

and he was a later on became known as Z1 right I was going to say is this Z1 he was the very first Zeta and so he reaches out to his group of associates within the Mexican military and he persuades 30 of them to defect now these are all special forces these are guys that were trained

in the school of the Americas by the Israelis they're trained by American special forces at Fort Bragg and what Cardinals is this that was interesting is he took the very men that were trained for counterinsurgency and counter-narcotics and put them in charge of being his enforcement arm. And he was able to first subdue the other Gulf cartel factions in order to consolidate control. Then, with this 30-man

unit, having achieved its primary objective, he said, you know what, let's scale up the enforcement arm. Now, they end up paying a lot more money per man than the Mexican government. So they get 300 more guys. So now you've got 300 trained men. These aren't undisciplined thugs. These aren't gangbangers. These guys have been straight special forces coming. You know, these are Army Rangers. Right. You know, they all have got military call signs. They've got a military culture. You got the commander. You got the captain. You got the lieutenant. I mean, they maintain that structure. Yeah, you have military tactics.

You've got military tactics, you've got military great equipment. And so you've got this group of 300 trained military personnel led by a contingency of 30 special forces. Then they bring in approximately 1,000 military personnel from Guatemala. So they end up building what's essentially like a 1,500 man army. And Ocel Cardinus unleashes them. they ultimately go on to become famous as Lozettas. And they were a paramilitary force unmatched in the handles of organized crime.

And what they were able to do, particularly in those first few years, struck terror into all of the other groups. Because they just started to rolling through territory. And not only were their tactics superior achieving a high degree of success, they were vicious. They were trained in psychological warfare. So when they attended to their missions, they engaged in a level of savagery to intimidate the opposing groups.

And so this caused enormous panic because they were literally just rolling up ports of entry. Eagle Pass. I mean, like, boom, all the guys in the rest of them in Texas. Now they're coming up against the Waters Cartel, which is in Texas. Meanwhile, another contingency is coming in through the northwest. Sinoloa was operating in Monterey, that falls. They're coming into Durango. And the Ariano's being opportunistic, they decide, you know what, it's form an alliance. So the Dewana cartel

forms an alliance with the Gulf Cartel. They come together and say, you know what, let's squeeze out these guys in the middle and we'll just keep it all. So now, of course, Juarez and Sinola They already had business ties. And at this point now, they're engaged in a fight for survival. Hey, if you like the video, please check out my Patreon. We're going to put special content for some of the stories that aren't quite making this overall arc. Kind of like a little, some side discussions. We're going to put that on Patreon.

So if you join Patreon for $10 a month, you can go and get that exclusive content. Back to the video. Well, I mean, I don't need, I know you're going to get to like the different war, the different Like, you know. Well, now we're going to get to the Federation consolidating. But before, we're still in the late 90s with DeZetta, do you want to make any comments? Do you want to talk about it in you? I mean, I know that they, I mean, I know they're shooting helicopters out of the skies.

I mean, I know that every time that. That was a different group. A different group, was it? Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, I know that, you know, I mean, I kind of know that they were, like you just said, they were vicious and they're, you know, they're protecting. okay what was the one where they protected the guy they caught him in uh caught him in the

caught him in the building and they're sitting troops in to try and surround the building and get this guy and they're firing in the building and he's asking for the zetas to come in or somebody to come in and rescue him and there's a huge fight for like two days or something yeah that's this guy that happens in oh three okay so that hasn't happened yet okay cool well see we're getting to that stuff okay i don't know you know and you know what was what was interesting about the zetas is they had a an esprit of core. And so not only were they advancing successfully, militarily,

they demonstrated to the other groups how important it was to have a sense of cohesion. When their guys got knocked off, they orchestrated major prison breaks. They're going and getting their men out. Right.

They didn't leave nobody behind. Every one of their men got killed, they went and they got back to corpse. And so it created a dynamic that it caused the other groups to say, hey, we got to up our gang. Right. Meanwhile, you know, by the dawn of millennium,

panic had already begun to set in because unless they're able to stop this juggernaut, they're all going to be under the control of the Gulf. At that point, and of course, the Gulf's just going to wipe everybody out because they're going to take over. Right. And so that's when Miles Zimbada,

really out of desperation, came up with the plan that was both bold and simple. And so it was going to be a two-peration, pronged attack against the Gulf and Tijuana. But in order for him to pull it off, he was going to need his Pisa, Chapa Guzman. Right. So now Kuzman's sitting in prison, having the time of his life, hookers, the whole nine.

He gets to call saying, hey, we need you. Oh. Are you serious? So he says, look, we're going to get you. We're busting you out. But I was halfway through this sentence. He's halfway. He's about eight years into his bid.

Yeah, I'm ready to put him for a halfway house soon. You're going to have warrants out for his arrest. You're like, damn it, all right. So they break Guzman out. And Zambada's brother's waiting for him, put him on a helicopter, they whisk him away. Somebody explains the situation and says, hey, we're about to lose everything. He says, I need you for two reasons. One, Guzman was vicious.

Right. Now, he may not have been a wet Obama. Right. But Guzman had not only a willingness to do whatever was necessary, that also included using a particular asset that Guzaman had. And what Guzman had that other people didn't was an attorney named Humberto Lawyer. Oh, yeah, this is good, bro. This is good.

And the lawyer was secretly an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration. And so one of the ways Sinolo was ultimately able to protect themselves was by not only putting together their own military task force but they were able to create an ally with a much more powerful force even stronger than the Zetas, their uncle Sam. And so they were able to manipulate the American law enforcement community. But at the beginning, Zambada says, hey, look, bust out Guzman.

They get together. They decide, okay, well, you know what we need to do? We need to strengthen ourselves. So Guzman and Zambata, they bring in Nacho Coronel. Well, how do they get Guzman up? Yeah, Guzman out. They ended up bribing the warden. Right.

And the number of the officers, they put them in what was a laundry cart, and they rolled them out. Like, just throw some clothes over and let them lay down, wheel them out. And there was like, what, a helicopter or something? A helicopter. Well, I mean, they had to get them in a van. drive them to an airport and they got him into a helicopter and whisked them away. Nice. And so, yeah.

I just admire that. And so they bring on board natural Coronel. They explain, hey, look, you're just in the same boat as us. And Coronel says, all right, I'm in. So now Coronel brings in Armando Valencia, who at this point was his business partner under synthetics. So you've got like four of the guys coming together. Then they bring in Chapo Guzman's cousin, Arturo, Alfredo and Arturo.

Beltran Leva. Another group of Sinolo and Kingpins. Now this group comes together. So these five say, okay, we're going to form our own little group and we're going to reach out to the other individuals that were in trouble. So they reach out to the Carrizo Fuentes family in Juarez.

Amato Carillo had passed away, but his younger brother had taken over. So now they come in with Vesente and say, hey, you're in direct crosshairs. So he jumps at the opportunity to join. Right. So then these six guys hold a conference, a to by 25 other kingpins where everyone agrees to say,

okay, you know what, we're going to form what ultimately became known as El Cartel, the Pacifical. You know, the Pacific Cartel. Right. Or known just within the group as El Federacion, the Federation. The Federation. And so this Federation was essentially a group of 25 to 30 separate organizations

that came together for the purposes of defending themselves against Tijuana and the Gulf, and in particular, does that happen? And so Chapa Guzman, Nacho Coronel, and Arturo Beltran Leva led the military wing. And so they had a group of enforcers just targeting lower level and mid-level operatives for both of the respective cartels. On the other hand, for the leadership, that was the more sensitive information. That's where Zambada had Chaba Guzman contacting Umbar deloya. The lawyer is meeting with the DEA

and the U.S. Attorney's Office, you know, Department of Justice officials in San Diego feeding them information. That information now goes to D.C. See, now, when the Department of Justice contacts the Attorney General's office in Mexico, it's different than it's coming from the local police. Right. Like, they didn't trust the police in Tijuana.

80% of the police officers were on to take. Right. and so there are units within the Mexican government that are properly vetted that they know haven't been corrupted and so when something comes in from like the Attorney General of the United States directly they dispatch that particular unit

they keep the locals in the dark right and Choppelousman's attorney began feeding them the information that allowed them to start targeting the leaders and so in 2002 they set up a trap where Zambada was going to be

be in the city of Monchi vacationing with his family. And they let that information get known to someone they thought was a double agent. That guy feeds the information to the Adianos. So Ramon Adiano and a group of hitmen come to Monchi to assassinate Zambada. Well, Zambada's got his military personnel waiting for him. Right. Including the Federals. So the Federals pull over the vehicle.

They got into a firefight. Right. And all of them get killed. So they took out the second in command of the Tijuana cartel. Okay. The headleader of the cartel shortly thereafter was spending time with the woman outside of Tijuana, who may have been his mistress. They obtained that information. The cartel's paying top dollar for information at this point.

Right. And most of the people that did the betraying were actually women. A lot of the escorts, a lot of the hookers on the side, you know, big six-figure payouts. Right. you know where he's going to be at this day. Yeah. And so they, uh, they were able to get the information on where Adiana was going to be. That information goes to the lawyer to the Department of Justice, the American Attorney General,

calls the Mexican Attorney General, boom, they go get him. A year later, they take out, they write, so they go get him, they go grab him, they go grab him, they arrest him, he's in jail. He's in custody, yes. Okay. And so. So keep, by the way, you got, you got to know, too, Colby, that, I'm sorry. But, uh, like, the lawyers want to.

right so the lawyer is that's why yeah the lawyers going back and forth between he's yeah he's an American lawyer right in San Diego with warrants out for his arrest because he's been laundering drug money and he was the you know the contact on the American side moving cash setting up dummy companies and he's given this information so he's like walking into the DEA headquarters when they got warrants off for their arrest it's like I mean I went you know shortly after I got indicted I get arrested why I called a friend who was a cop who called the F crooked federal agent in my case, boom, they get me released.

Like, those are the kind of moves you're able to make if you've got the kind of relationship where they're going to protect you. So, I mean, that's like... So, you know, in my circumstance, if you maintain a relationship with the corrupt agent, he'll call and say, hey, release him.

Boom, I get released. Whereas on with respect to Lumbertel lawyer, he's in the same circumstance where he's coming in saying, hey, look, I got information. And they know the information is coming from Chapa Guzman. Like, this is Buzman's lawyer. He got charged with Buzman. He's saying, hey, look, Adiano's going to be at this house in this little village or this

little town. Yeah, it's going to be right here. This probably, you know, that probably Tuesday night. And they're like, all right, cool. Aren't you wandered? Like, hey, come on, stop it. I don't put that. We've had enough of that.

And he just walks on out. And so, yeah. And so literally they were able to orchestrate the arrest and essentially decapitate the Tijuana a cartel through information being fed to the Americans who then manipulated their lackeys in the Mexican government to go take out the leadership. And so they were able to remove the leaders through using their enemy. Right. On the one hand, and they were able to wipe out the lower level guys through, you know,

essentially military action. Yeah. In the 18-month period after the formation of the Confederation, there was like 8,000, guys that were T1 operatives who ended up getting arrested. Now the but the leaders, that information came from the Sinaloa operatives.

But when you take out the plaza boss, he loses 50 guys with him. Right. When you take out the lieutenant, they take out 100. You know what I mean? It's just these massive arrests were happening because of the ability of Sina Loa to manipulate the Americans to take out their enemies. Right. And so once the leadership

was decapitated, that created a destabilization. Nazar and the Bada says, okay, boom, sent Hermann Magana. Now here comes Paisa. He comes in with the military wing. And so now it's a battle for the next year.

But by 2004, Magana's got control. Effectively, he's got control to where now they're able to say we're going to push through Osceolo Loa Loads. So now they've got control to the San Diego Tijuana quarter.

Independent of this, you've got the second military operation going out with Arturo Belta and Leva, where now he says, you know what, they're going into Texas. So they attacked the Gulf in their backyard. Well, before that, after they take out Tijuana, a year later, the same circumstance happened where they were able to get the information identifying word ahead of the Gulf cartel, Ocel Cardenas, was going to be holed up at. Now, understand, he's got like 50 Zetas with him. And so the Americans were able to get the information, fed it to their Black is in the Mexican government.

Here comes the Mexicans, you know, like 500 strong. And this was the incident you were talking about. Well, okay, hey, send more guys. Yeah, they have a battle. They have a, there's like a huge firefight. It's like two days. Yeah. That's how much ammunition these guys carry with them.

It's like two days worth of gunfight. You've got like reinforcement showing up. Is that a reinforcement? They just, you know, it was just a need. But obviously you're not going to be able to overpower, you know, an army shows up. Yeah, yeah. All right.

But I mean, they're trying. Yeah. trying. They hold them off for two days, and ultimately they're able to catch Cardinus. He's literally making phone call, like, send more guys, I need a hundred more guys. It's like a little battle going on in this area with the military. And I mean, that's... There are videos on YouTube that have battles. There's a famous battle at the St. Gertrude ranch that was owned by another Cinelloa drug lord who was operating in the Texas side. it's just battles. I mean, it's just literally, you know, dozens of Zetas hold up,

shooting it out with hundreds of police officers. And I mean, like, you would think, like, these are the kind of things you see in the movies. Yeah. This is actually that. I mean, there's just rocket launchers, grenades, they're throwing grenades at each other and it's just, just pure insanity. And so, uh, they end up knocking off Hoseo Cardenas. They take him into custody. And so the same dynamics in play, they sense an opening, oh, now they send Beltran on Lava and with his enforcement group. So now they're running a war on two fronts. And although Sinaloa was technically outgunned,

they had the Americans that were assisting them. And so that was the X factor that the other cartels never really anticipated. And so with the Americans orchestrating the removal of the leadership, the smaller group were able to come in and just start rolling up territory. They were able to push back to disqualing. Zetas, and they were able to take over Tijuana and at least secure their eastern flank. Now, at that point, we're talking 2003, 2004, this starts the golden era for Sinaloa. Because by now, they've got from Tijuana all the way to El Paso.

So there's 17 border crossings. That's all theirs. and they're able to create an organization that the government later on characterized as the largest and most powerful drug syndicate in their history of the world. And that run ran from, let's say, 2004 to about 2010 with a hiccup in 2008. What was the hiccup?

Well, we don't want to get to that far because it's jumping ahead. So now in 2004, this was the first of the scan list moves. you know like you would think that you got to the position where things are stabilizing you know let's just focus on the business they can't do it right and this is where you know guzman's just a knucklehead so he decides hey you know what him his cousin arturo belteran leva and they talked to the guy out in Juarez his name was Juan Jose Espadagoza and you know Espadagoza is an interesting character in that he was an extraordinary trafficker

who served as number two to Amato Carillo. And Amato Carillo's right-hand man, of course, was his brother, Vicente. And so when Amato Carillo is the drug lord who passed away while he was having plastic surgery. Oh, okay. Okay, in 1997. And so...

And they killed a surgeon or something like that? Oh, yeah, it was gruesome what happened to the surgeons. They ended up in 55-gallon drum barrels, cement, the whole nine. And so the, when Al-A-Kalegu passed away, everyone expected Sparagoza to take over. But the brother said, no, no, no, I'm going to be in charge. And, you know, the thing about Mexico is power doesn't come from weapons or product.

power comes from who has access to the politicians and so Amato Carrizio was spending 500 million a year in bribes As Baragoza was handling much of the drug operation Carrizo was handling the bribes in the political protection well his brother was involved in that operation

so his brother is the one who's paying the governor paying the chief of police paying to senator and so after Carrizo passes away the brother's like hey, look, I'm the one who's going to provide the cover. They're not going to deal with you. They're dealing with me. And so Sparagoza takes a step back.

Let's the brother take over. Everybody else knows it should have been him. Right. You know, people don't respect men who inherit positions without having earned him. Right. And that was a classic situation where he essentially got passed over. I was to say nobody looks at a lottery winner and thing

and a stoop businessman Yeah exactly Wow you really knew how to pick those random numbers Yeah you know and so that's the And so It created You know A certain level of animosity

And now they needed each other While they were facing this onslaught From the two groups But now the things they kind of stabilized Guzman, Arturo Beltran And the spot of goes I get together and said You know what

Let's take this other guy out Right. And so Grusman essentially double crosses the heads of the Juarez cartel that they had previously entered into an alliance with. Now, they don't get Vicente, Carrello, but they get his brother at O'Dolfo. So now it just launches another war. How do they get him? What do you mean? They caught him.

Was he the one that was shopping with his wife or something? Yeah, yeah. Coming out of a shore. Yeah. And, you know, high-end shopping mall. And a mall just shoot out. Got him down. In the parking lot.

Not like with the 22, but to the back of the head. Not like a nice sweet, boop. Nope. Like full on, right? Wasn't it like full on? Like machine guns. Machine guns and stuff. Like these guys are, they're not surgeons.

It's not surgical skill taking out a guy. Anyway. And so, yeah. So that initially kicks off what went on to become the bloodiest battle. I mean, within just a few years, what is, was the murder capital of the world. Right. And so they've still got, you know, they're still in war with two other groups. Now they just kicked off one with this third group.

Like it was unnecessary to do that. You know, it was Hitler invading Russia. Right, right. Just stupidity. Just pure sheer stupidity. Yeah. And that's where the... I'm going to say arrogance.

Huberous and arrogance. And so, but they were able to be called. other than increase in revenue that they were getting in, they were able to actually finance this. And so for the next five years, that's where you get this golden era where, you know,

when we think of the Sinaloa cartel, you're thinking 0.4, 05, 06. You know, that was their peak. And everything remained fine up until 2008. Now, in 2008, Alfredo Beltranleva gets arrested by the authorities. And by this point,

the other leaders of the core nucleus, they knew that Chappo was manipulating the Americans. Okay. And so... They're not happy about that. Well, and they're thinking, they're blaming him.

Yeah, yeah. Because he, but he double-crossed, you know, they're all for him double-crossing... The other guy. The Carillo. Yeah, yeah. But all of a sudden, it's like,

well, now the head of this group gets taken out. Like, hold on. second. How do you get, it's him. Right. You know what I mean? So that kicks off and now a struggle between the two. So Arturo, the number two, who was good friends with the guy you were talking about from prison, that was his best friend. Right. Okay. So Arturo decides, hey, you know what, he's going to retaliate. He kills Chapo Guzman's son. So now that, you know, now you're kicking off massive personal vendettas. Right. The kind that are never going to get resolved. Yeah, yeah. you know, someone's going to end up deceased

because there was no negotiated settlement. Right. And so the Beltran Lava faction breaks away from Khorasina Loa. Then a year later, natural Coronel gets knocked off. He gets killed after the authorities went to arrest him. And so naturally, Kordonell's group are like,

hey, hold on a second, this is Guzmanigan. now in reality like Guzman didn't have anything to do with Alfredo Beltran Leva getting busted okay the authorities just apprehended him Arturo launches war

against Guzman Guzman gets Arturo busted right the lawyer who met the lawyer at that point hands off responsibility to Vicente Zamada who was the one that was in the

out in the ocean he was like fishing or something like that's another one at the adiano they catch him later on okay yeah but so this is the same circumstance where the lawyer he's like hey look i've been running back and forth between these guys for five or six years i'm through with my cooperation yeah like i've worked off whatever i have to do i'm going to transfer responsibility to zumbata's kid right and they don't they agree they basically well yeah the americans are like yeah no problem so the zomotas kids got indictments they want him for hundreds of tons right you got DEA agents meeting with the guy. So the lawyer, so the DEA, like or the U.S. Attorney's Office, they all, the indictments,

the warrant, everything for the lawyer, they say, quashed it. You're good. You're clean. You go about your business. Just because he had been running the, he's been running the errands back of giving them all these different guys. Like, you just busted fucking 50 or 100, 200, 200, a thousand guys in last five years. And not only the, not only the number of a guy, but the quality, you took out the head of the Gulf Cartel. You took out the head of the Tijuana car. Like, this is the kind of cooperation that normally the government would give you the keys to the kingdom for. Right. So they quash any problems that he has. He's free and clear now. So now they decide, okay, well, someone has to takeover being the contact man.

Right. Which it ends up being Zimbada's son. So at this point, at, you know, later on the government was like, oh, no, no, we were just hearing what they had to say, but they weren't getting anything in return. Yeah, it was all bullshit. It's bullshit. You know, later on, when Zambata was going to trial, he brought his motions pre-trial because he's claiming, hey, I had immunity. I'm working for the government the whole time. Like, I'm meeting with you people. And just before all that comes out, they fucking make a deal. Well, no, not just that.

They ask to get permission to bring the lawyer, whom back the lawyer. Oh, that's right. That's right. And the government imposes national security privilege, saying, no, you can't call the lawyer. Because the lawyer's going to come in and say, hey, look, yeah, you guys knew what we were doing the whole time. Right. That's going to make the government. That's going to make the U.S. government look really bad. Yeah. So then they end up cutting a deal

with Zumbada's kid. It ends up getting like 14 years. Right. where you should have gotten... You know, like, I get 40 years for being a fraction of the size of Zambada, but they essentially just give him a get-out-of-jail-free card. He also gave him like a billion dollars

or something, too, didn't he give him like a huge? Well, he must do so. Okay. And I'm going to cut you a check, too. They haven't collected yet. Okay. And so, but, uh, so Zambada's kid steps in

to take over responsibility, and so the information is still coming directly from Khorra Sinaloa. Well, they end up getting Alfredo Beltran-Lay, knocked off. Well, it's just five, six months later, the natural coronel gets taken out. And so if you look at it from an outside, like from an insider perspective, who benefits? Guzman. Right. From an outsider perspective, like, it's impossible that all these big guys

are getting taken off in such a short order because suddenly the Mexican government became competent. Right. Because each of these guys are also paying for political protection. Right. So who's powerful enough to overcome their local protection. Yeah. It's got to be coming from the Americans. Yeah, the Americans. And so that ends up triggering the destabilization of core Sinaloa. Because up until that point, they'd had that five or six-year run that was just on fire.

Right. With the death of natural cordonel, this is what ultimately gave rise to the groups that became known as the Halisco New Generation Cartel. So we're going to stop it now because we're going to do another video talking about the history of the new generation up until present cartel activity right sure okay so we'll do that um also if you like the video do me a favor hit the subscribe button hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this and please share the video please leave a comment i try and respond as many comments as possible also please consider joining my patreon we're going to have a specific

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