The Underworld Podcast - EL MAYO ARRESTED! Was he betrayed by Chapo's son?!?!

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

Bombshell out of Mexico, El Mayo (!!!!!) is in US federal custody after arriving on a small private plan alongside El Chapo's son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez. What. The Hell. Is going on. How does the most elusive, powerful narco kingpin in Mexico's history, whose avoided arrest for decades and operated like a ghost in the shadows, end up being gift-wrapped for feds? Alongside 1/4 of Los Chapitos? In this hastily thrown together episode, we try to get to the bottom of exactly what's known, what isn't known, and what is actually happening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. Welcome back to the NWL podcast, the radio program where two journalists who have reported around the world on things of criminal nature, myself Danny Gold and me amigo, Sean Williams, take you on a journey through the global criminal underworld of past, present, and future. As always, you can find bonus episodes on Patreon.com. slash our world podcast or sign up on Spotify and iTunes. No cold open this week, no updates on Sean's life of Domestic Bliss. We are just going to get right into it because even though the concept of an emergency podcast is not something that actually exists, I think, you know, we threw this episode together very quickly because of what happened late last week. Might be a little all over the place. It's definitely not what we normally do, but so many people wrote to us to ask about

it. So kind of, you know, we had no choice. So obviously if you do it, you're doing yourself down. You're doing yourself down. This is pretty amazing stuff to do over the weekend. I'm going to say that. So obviously, you can listen to this podcast. I'm sure you've seen the news. Probably the biggest underworld news since we've started doing this podcast, El Mio Zimbada has been arrested and is in U.S. custody. Almeo was arguably the most powerful drug trafficker in the world. And in our opinion, maybe the most powerful cartel kingpin in Mexico's history. He's 76 years old. He's never been arrested and has been a top-level Mexican drug lord for decades, which is just not something. Like, these guys don't usually have a long time on top.

You know, it's a couple of years, maybe a decade before they're thrown in prison or murdered, more likely. We just did a two-part series on him. You can find those back on May 7. and May 14th. We're not going to go over his entire resume. Go back and listen if you haven't before. But yeah, this is a shocking news because frankly, it just didn't seem like the U.S. was ever going to be able to touch him. And it seemed a lot less likely that he was going to get touched in Mexico. Basically, all of his contemporaries, anyone he came up with or that has been on his level has been killed or jailed by now, most famously, his co-founder and partner El Chapo.

Yeah, this is like what, the Super Bowl, the Wimbledon final, the World Series. of Underworld podcast news stories, which is I'm pretty sure how the agents will have explained it to Mayo on the tarmac, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Also, also arrested is Joaquin, who is El Chapo's son and one of the leaders of the Chapitos. That's the four sons at El Chapo, who got into the drug business and run a faction of the Sinaloa cartel. We also literally just did an episode on the rise of Los Chapitos. It came out on July 9th and their fentanyl Empire and everything that went into that. So yeah, we're not going to go super in depth on them here as well and how they exist, basically. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things that you can tell if you read

in the media, right, that they don't really understand the Sinaloa cartel. They don't mention that big split between the two sides of it. But, um, no. Yeah, I've seen that a bunch, even in like really prestigious newspapers, which is pretty, pretty crap. But, um, yeah, I haven't done much on this, uh, this week, because I'm pretty lazy and this is like, this is more your turf, I guess, the Latin American cartels, but I did manage to catch up with Van der Felberg Brown of the Bookings Institute in D.C. yesterday. She knows like a ton about pretty much everything to do with organized crime around the world. And we're going to put the full, I think it was like 25, 30 minutes interview up on Patreon for subscribers there. But we're also going to sprinkle in a bit of her

thoughts on this show as well because she's like really great at connecting all the dots of this big, big drama. Yeah, if you don't know her work, it's phenomenal when she gets into everything. And we're also going to use a lot of great reporting by Luis Chaparro. He's, you know, the go-to guy on this stuff, in my opinion. We've had him on before. If you don't know him, look him up. Go sign up for a substack, subscribe to his YouTube, and support him because he really gets the inside stuff, you know?

But yeah, okay, sorry, we went on and on right there. But back to Joaquin, Jr. He's kept a pretty low profile, you know, and as of the four Chapitos, he was the only one who had a $5 million bounty on his head instead of a $10 million bounty. Sinola cartel member said that that was by design and he kind of let his brother Ovidio, his full brother actually. Remember the Chapito's, it's two sets of full brothers that are all half-brothers. You guys, that makes sense, right? He let Ovidio be more of the face of the operation.

He wanted to kind of play the background, almost like El Mayo. However, Yaquine was definitely in the mix and new reporting out of this arrest seems to indicate he was the Chapito in charge of the financial side of the business. He's been likened to a CFO pretty much. You know, maybe we'll write to him in prison and see if he can help us out with monetizing the podcast or get ideas on how to move these t-shirts. Underworldpod.com, click on the merch tab. But yeah, here is what we actually know for a fact along with all the speculation and some

theories on what is actually happening. We have El Mayo and Joaquin Jr. arriving at a small airstrip in either Texas or New Mexico and being taken into U.S. custody. The video of the plane is online. It's on the air strip. when two men walk up to the plane to greet the arrivals. There was also another video which shows about 15 or so, presumably their law enforcement officials,

and five or six SUVs waiting at the airstrip. A lot of people are arguing about where the plane actually took off from. Some people are saying Sonora, others say different parts of Mexico, and a lot of people are also arguing about whether the plane landed in El Paso or a different small town in New Mexico. You know, we did most of this research over the weekend and on Friday, We're recording it on Monday, so some things may have changed, but I don't really think where it landed is like super important, but here's where things get interesting. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times are reporting that Joaquin Jr. tricked Elmayo into boarding this private plane.

It's a beachcraft 2000 with twin propellers, which is, you know, kind of lame. I thought Elmio would be in a G6 or something. They're saying he tricked him into going on that. He was going to go look at clandestine airstrips, while the New York Times says he was going to look at real estate assets, which could be the same. thing. They describe it as a multiple month FBI and Homeland Security investigation. It was a joint operation. And most of the rest of the media is echoing this reporting. CBS News is saying that, you know, they're citing U.S. government sources that Joaquin cut a deal for himself and to help out, he was trying to help out a video who was arrested and then extradited early last year.

Now, in the English-speaking big outlets like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, Reuters, places like that. A lot of what they're printing is coming from anonymous sources in the government or in law enforcement. And I'm going to speculate here, but let's just say, I'm not really buying what those places have been saying. And, you know, we try not to completely speculate here and, like, conspiracies, all that. But we're going to get into why this kind of doesn't make sense. So as I mentioned, a guy who is deeply sourced up and focused on the cartels is Luis

Chaparro. He's reporting a different story. And shout out to him because he's just, he's in the mix. I mean, this is the guy. He's always breaking big news on this stuff. and hopefully we can have him on the podcast again soon. He reports that there was a meeting brokered by a bunch of lawyers in Texas who are presumably cartel lawyers with the U.S. government,

which could have been DEA, FBI, DOJ, even the CIA or all. Who knows? At this meeting, Elmayo himself was there and two of the three remaining Chapitos who weren't in U.S. custody. Remember, Ovidio the fourth brother involved. He was arrested last year. He's in U.S. custody. At the meeting were Chapo's sons, Jesus Alfredo,

and Joaquin Jr. And some other high-ranking cartel guys, including some of El Mio's guys, too. To reiterate what Sean said and what we've said before, the famed Sinolawa cartel has kind of fractured into three different factions after Chapa was arrested and sentenced in the U.S. One is led by El Mio, another by Los Chapitos,

and the other, I believe, is led by Chappos' brother. Yvonne is the rumored top dog of Los Chapitos, and Mayo Flacco, who was El Mio's son and heir apparent. They were not at the meeting. But this alleged deal was offered to them as well. And just a reminder, three of O'Mail's sons and his brother have previously cut pretty sweetheart deals with the U.S. government and all of them are already out of U.S. custody, which is kind of insane because they are high-ranking cartel guys.

Two of O'Mayo's sons currently reside in the U.S. We'll get into their deals in a bit. Now, this alleged deal offered, you know, it was a pretty simple choice, right? Do you want to stay in this game where you'll likely soon be killed or jail? for life, or do you want to take a deal, get freedom again eventually, and keep some of your stacks of cash? Joaquin Jr. and Omayo said yes, the others said no. Don't you think it kind of like craps on this high value target thing? If they keep saying

they're going to cut the head off the snake or whatever and they just kind of cut deals with and let them out of prison in like five, ten years? I don't know. It just doesn't really stack up as a tactic. Well, I mean, two of those guys testified against Chappo. So that's part of the reason they got those sweet deals. And I think also, too, one of the reasons why if this deal theory ends up being correct, which I think it is, why it happened is, you know, why would they just give up all of a sudden? These guys know what they're getting into, right? And they've been doing it for years, fentanyl, right?

The U.S., the last couple years, especially I think the last two or three years, has gotten a lot more aggressive because of fentanyl. And the Chapitos are heavily involved in fentanyl production. I believe El Mio is involved as well. I guess they would have led to that arrest of the general as well, right, in the Mexican army that happened recently, that high-ranking guy. Right, right. I'm losing his name. But yeah, that would have been a really big coup for them. Yeah. And if you think it's far-fetched that a meeting between top cartel guys and the U.S. government would take place. You know, we've talked about this on a bunch of other cartel episodes we've done. We've detailed some of these past meetings.

During the Sinaloa cartels, various wars starting in the 2000s, there have been documented meetings between them and the DEA where the Sinaloa cartel was giving. info on their enemies like the Tijuana cartel. Here's a quote from a Reuters story that came out after this recent arrest. Quote, Matthew Allen, a former special agent in charge of HSI's Arizona division, that built indictments against

Guzman Lopez and other Sinaloa cartel figures, said both Zambada and Guzman Lopez had had periodic conversations with U.S. officials about surrendering over the years. And years ago, when El Mio's oldest son, Vicente, who was originally the guy was going to take over from his father,

was arrested by Mexican authorities, he was in a Mexico City hotel room talking to the DEA. And the DA admits this meeting took place. About that meeting, there's always been two competing narratives. One from the DEA that Vesante was just giving dirt on his rivals. But another story reported by a Mexican journalist is that he was instructed by his dad and Chappo to try to cut a deal with the U.S. government even back then in 2009. There's also a third theory by a famous Mexican journalist, Annabelle Hernandez, that Vicente did in fact

cut a deal with the permission of his dad and Chapo and that he wanted out of the cartel game and to live a normal life. And that his arrest, it was all theater and a secret deal had been hatched for him to do a little bit of time

and then go free, which obviously when we're looking at what happened last week, you know, very similar situation. Potentially. He's actually been out for a few years already

after being extradited in 2010. I believe he was released in 2019. So just to bring it all back to Louise's reporting, it's entirely believable that this meeting took place. You know, if you don't think the U.S. makes these deals, obviously Tokyo Vice, that's based on a true story that Jake Edelstein reported. We've had him on as well.

That guy, Tozawa, not only cut a deal, but got a new liver, and that's 100% true. So that was them cutting a deal with a powerful Yakuza boss who then didn't even give them great information. There's other Mexican journalists and even some think tank types that cover cut tiles closely that are speculating that a deal was made, not necessarily exactly how Louis said it went down, but just in general.

And once again, some of these Mexican journalists, their entire careers are just covering cartels, sometimes for decades. You know, there's a lot of rumors and insane stuff that I've seen going around, but a lot of these guys do have good sources inside the cartels. Though, like we said, there's been a whole bunch of nonsense on Twitter and other competing narratives. Chuck. There's also a big question that I think I just touched on it before about what going after so-called high-value targets, HVTs, like Mayo actually. does to benefit Washington's fight against fentanyl in particular, right, which was last year responsible for almost 75,000 overdose deaths in America. Like, that is more than liver disease, gun violence, road accidents is really, really chronic at this point. And actually, by removing

Mayo, US authorities might have just fired a starting gun on way more bloodshed in Mexico and beyond, especially between the Sinaloa branches and its nemesis, the CGMNG, the Cartel Hellisco Nueva Generacion. So here's what Vanda had to say about that. Look, I don't expect that we will see any significant decrease in the flow of fentanyl as a result of the arrests of El Mio Zambada and Joaquim Loria Guzman. Although they are very important men in the Sinella cartel, they belong to different branches, one led by Elmayo and the other one led by the sons of El Chappo, the previous co-founder of the Sinella cartel. along with El Mayo. The cartel is diversified, and it has many redundancies system. The operational systems that move the drugs have many different cells. There are a lot of other command structures and systems that will continue moving drugs like fentanyl to the United States. However, the very

significant possibility is that we are going to see great increase in violence in Mexico, that could spread beyond Mexico across all of Americas and have repercussions and implications for drug markets elsewhere in the world, including in Australia and New Zealand. And that's because the Sinella Cartel is one of the world's largest, most powerful criminal group, drug trafficking group, but in more broadly criminal group. And it has been involved in a bipolar war with its arch rival, the Cartelichaelica Nova Generation in Mexico, and, across the Americas, and the two groups compete non-violently elsewhere. They have operations in Australia and New Zealand.

Now, the two branches of the Snella cartel that are involved in this telenovela-like development on Thursday, the Zambada branch and the Chapitos branch, have fallen out in recent years, and there has been infighting among them. So the fact that Joachim, one of the Chapitos, so dramatically betrayed El Maito, his putative uncle, his surrogate uncle, to deliver him to US law enforcement, will likely set up warfare between the groups and other criminal groups like Halisco Nova Generation are going to jump into it. In April 2010, Mayo did an interview with the publisher of Processor magazine where he basically

teed this up and he said, quote, one day I may decide to turn myself in so they can shoot me and there'll be general euphoria. But we all know at the end of the day, if they catch me or kill me, NADACambia, nothing changes. Yeah, and that interview, I think, was the only one he's done, if I remember correctly. It was very out of... Yeah, ever. Yeah, very out of character for him, because like we talked about, you know, he is a ghost.

He is a man who does not make mistakes and does not take chances. And again, you know, I'm actually, I'm speculating, but I am leaning toward Elmio making some sort of a deal for a few reasons. The first being, he's been untouchable for decades. He's a brilliant operator. And the DEA even said back in the day, they always thought they were one step behind Chapo and two steps behind Mayo and choppo has been caught what three times I believe yeah so now he's he's getting on a plane that he doesn't control with walking junior

to go look at air strips like it just doesn't make sense the website inside crime who are some of the premier reporters on organized crime in Latin America although I guess they're more like analysts they're reporting that according to their sources Mayo had largely taken a step back from the day-to-day operations in recent years he's also again a 76-year-old man with diabetes and actually, as we learned today, I think cancer, but I'll get into that a little bit later. At the highest level of a cartel, which has been a top for decades,

and he's going to go look at airstrips, like, it's like Zuckerberg going out of her just like inspecting data centers and Bezo stopping by Amazon warehouses to make sure that everything was running tight. Or Musk shitposting on his own website high into the wee hours. I mean, I'm asking those questions rhetorically.

They might have done that stuff. I assume they haven't, but I'm hoping the answer is no. But you get what I'm saying. Also, in the new transcript, I think, of Mayo being, I think, or rain, whatever it was that that just happened. I honestly, there's so much going on. It said that he's so sick that they had to get him a wheelchair at the hearing.

So he's really going to be out here, you know, all hands on in the desert in late July, being like, oh, yeah, nice, a giant strip of pavement and dirt were planes go. I mean, it doesn't, like, come on, that doesn't check out. To reuse a quote from our O'Mio series from the book, The Last Narco by Malcolm Bath, quote, One DEA agent likens him to a chairman of the board who operates solely from the top floor and made the executive decisions. Elmayo knew what to do with the money and he knew how to handle the Colombians. He also knew what was good for business. He was the guy who wants to cooperate and bring people together, the DEA believed.

And this is a book that came out 15 years ago. If anything, like, he's got to be even more removed by now. Whatever your thing, it could be anything. Canva helps you make that thing. A thing. Canva is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design with our magic AI tool things. You can social media your thing. Generate images or videos of your thing. Make decks for presentations to show your thing. Whatever needs to be done for your thing, Canva can make it an even better and bigger thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing.

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he doesn't control and hasn't verified. Like, you don't not get caught for 30 years as a cartel kingpin if you're sloppy. I mean, you can't even make one mistake. And it's been well documented, like we said, that the Sunilawa cartel as a single entity is no more. And that the Chapitos faction and El Mayo faction have been fighting. And that Los Chapitos weren't happy with the Zimbada family because both Mayo's son Vincente and Mayo's brother testified against Chapo at his trial. So what is he doing meeting with Joaquin, Jr., without, like,

50 of his own Sicario is there to protect him. And I think Sean mentioned this, but the New York Times, I don't know if you were implying other papers, they're still describing the Sinaloa cartel as one single entity, which we know isn't true. And they said that Mayo had faced a brutal public betrayal when Vicente testified against him during Al Chapo's trial. But as we also discussed in our Amio episode,

Amio supposedly okayed Vicente to testify against him. When after he was locked up, intermediaries set up a prison call between the two, the DEA fully admits this. So, you know, when it comes to cartel reporting, I trust someone like Luis Chaparro a lot more, and Owen Grillo, another friend of the podcast. He just had a thing that came out.

We're going to talk about this at the end. It came out today, and it's also another fascinating potential theory. The New York Times does say, quote, known as a pragmatist, Mr. Zimbada Garcia, have been in contact with U.S. federal officials on an offer for at least three years, discussing the terms of his potential surrender, according to five people briefed on the matter.

So what we're saying is that podcasts are more reliable sources of information than the mainstream media? I don't, I mean, Luis is. I don't know if we're doing them. Yeah, I don't know about anything else. But yeah, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if Elmio has been in contact with them for way more than three years. The New York Times also says that the DEA was trying to persuade Joaquin Jr. to turn himself in since 2019. The video of the plane landing also seems a little off.

You know, we see two men going to greet the plane. Louise says it's one person from the FBI and one from the DEA. everyone agrees that this is the plane. My question is, one of America's most wanted men is being greeted by two people. You know, I've seen them arrest white-collar criminals with 20 people

and guns out and tactical teams and the whole nine yards. You know, I've seen more cops on my block for a fight between teenagers. But for a cartel kingpin, two actually, it's just two guys walking up without weapons drawn.

It kind of just doesn't compute. No, that's a really interesting point. You might know the difference between these like three-letter agencies more than me, but I read some yesterday that this is primarily a homeland security investigations like hsi operation and apparently that's a bit of a coup for them over the DEA or the FBI I'm not i'm not really sure how

all these agencies work with each other but but that was saying that i read that might be sort of a little interesting tidbit yeah i'm actually surprised if that it wasn't the DEA so that's actually really interesting and i'm also not i don't know what the MO is right now with this you know going after cartel guys what homeland securities involvement is you know i haven't really worked with them ever. So I honestly have no idea. I guess there's like tons and tons of people trafficking now, right, that's done by the cartel. So maybe that brings in Homeland Security. I'm not sure. To quote Inside Crime here about that, several sources within the U.S. government who had knowledge of the operation but were not authorized to speak on the matter told Inside Crime the pair

orchestrated their handover to U.S. authorities. Inside crime, you know, those guys are very well connected, especially with government officials to a degree I don't even think the big newspaper can match. And on Luis's substack he just published, which again, go subscribe, he said he's been in contact with one of El Mayo's grandsons, who said his grandfather was very sick, getting close to the end, and all he wanted was to see his sons Vicente and O'Mio Gordo again, and both are in the U.S. Just to quickly touch on the deals Mio's kids and brothers have got in, Vesente and Amio's brother were both exorited to the U.S., I believe in 2010 and 2012. Both have been out of prison for a few years already,

someone even snapped the picture of Asente at a U.S. airport. I think it was Dallas, not that long ago. And Mayo's brother is apparently starting a music career. So yeah, I mean, definitely look for that on Spotify when it drops.

They really didn't do that much time, all things considering. But again, they did both testify against El Chapo, who was the most wanted man in the world at the time and someone who the U.S. government really wanted

and really wanted to put away for a long time. there's another Elmio child, Serafin Zimbada. Jeez, these guys have a lot of kids. It's hard to keep it track, you know? He was caught with enough weight that his minimum sentence should have been 10 years, but he got sentenced to 5.5 and was out in 4.5 as a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa cartel, doesn't appear to have testified against anyone, but he also disappeared three months

into a sentence from the prison database, which could mean, you know, he did provide something of value, needs to be protected, maybe he's in Wittsack. It's all very, you know, this stuff is not as transparent as you would assume it would be, especially with active investigations going on. This is a kid, too, who his godfathers when he was born were Amato Carrillo Flentes, who was the leader of the Juarez cartel at the time, and Benjamin Ariano Felix, who was the leader of the Tijuana cartel, basically narco royalty. So, four point five years. But yeah, I mean, these guys, they are not staying locked up for long. I don't even think we know where Serafin is right now. I also think there's a good possibility,

Mayo cut some sort of deal, you know, with him thinking of his family. You know, he's old, sickly, near the end, far outlived all his colleagues, probably didn't expect to live this long. And when I say his family, I mean like, you know, obviously the three of the four sons have deals, but he also has four daughters that aren't in the drug game. But they're working on sort of the financial side of the Zimbada family fortune. They have a lot of legitimate businesses at this point, real estate,

also I'd like to leave some money laundering through those businesses, But normally, if these businesses were started with drug money, they could get taken by the government. Unless, of course, there's a deal that allows them to keep some stuff and a whole lot of money. But yeah, there's also reports. I think Lewis reported this that El Mayo's last wish was that the U.S. government state that he didn't turn himself in to instead say that he was captured or tricked. And as I'm writing this, Elmio's lawyer just said in court after Louise reported this, that, quote, Elmayo did not surrender voluntarily and pleads not guilty to all charges. Elmire's lawyer also released the statement to the LA Times where he says that

Elmayo went to go meet Joaquin with very little security and that six guys dressed in military fatigues tied him up, placed a black bag over his head and threw him in the back of a pickup truck where Amio was tied down on the plane and then only Joaquin, his pilot and Elmio were on the flight. There was a photo of him released where it looked like his wrist was bruised and he was wearing what looks to be a Ugo boss shirt, which is irrelevant, but pretty funny to have Omayo caught wearing a shirt that just has boss on it. Also, like, what is happening with his nose? It's all kind of collapsed. He looks like a Mexican Michael Jackson. I mean, 76 years old,

living that life could have been booze, could have been cocaine, like who knows. But I don't think what's, what's it called? You're shaming in first looks. There's a term for that, right? Yeah. Yeah, I'm not up on it. Yeah. I'm sure that's cancelable. It's not very nice, Sean. Not very nice at all. All of this again, it just kind of sounds ridiculous to me. These guys were the heads of two factions of a Mexican cartel that were not getting along. Now, I'm not a cartel boss, but I don't think you stay alive too long in that world if you assume the other guy is acting in good faith. So yeah, we have, you know, we have U.S. officials feeding to all the major media outlets that Maya was tricked to getting on this plane.

And now the new story is that he was kidnapped and had little security as he's going to meet the heads of the cartel he's currently fighting with and also someone who has a grudge against him and his family because his brother and son testified against their dad, Al Chapo. It's a little song and dance action, a little misdirection, if you ask me. But again, I am speculating without real evidence. And look, you know, listeners to this podcast know, I don't usually speculate wildly or I'm not into conspiratorial thinking with stuff like this. But this whole thing is just messy.

I could very well be wrong to. I think hopefully we'll soon find out, but who knows? It would actually make sense for El Mio to go along with this. You know, Joaquin orchestrated the whole thing story for a few reasons. It's not far-fetched that he would have wanted to help out the Guzman family. He started off very loyal to Chappo for decades. They had the strongest cartel partnership, not including family members, I think, the most successful one ever, too, in the drug worlds. When Chapo was in prison from 93 to 2001, Miao kept sending him a lot of money, kept him in the loop, kept them at the top when he didn't have to.

You know, they kind of had some antagonism later on after Sean Penting and with the kids testifying. But again, they were arguably the most loyal cartel bosses to each other ever. And this helps out Joaquin. He's definitely getting a good deal. And it likely also helps out the other recently incarcerated Chapo son, Ovidio, who was just removed from the prison database for some reason. It says he was released on July 23rd. I think that could mean he was moved prisons to or into WITSEC. It could mean switching.

There's a lot. We don't know. And you know, just as I was saying this, I kind of realized July 23rd was Tuesday. Mayo and Joaquin are arrested on Thursday. So they just happen to move him from prison for security purposes, which is the official story, two days before Joaquin and Mayo are in custody. I mean, I don't know. This could be a peace offering from Mayo in a way to the remaining Chapitos and the Mayo faction. Now I assume being led by his other, always having remained free son who is known as Mayo Flacco.

Maybe prevents a further war because it's Monday as we're discussing. this. And as far as I know, Sinoloa is not convulsing in bloodshed, which I imagine, if Mayo Flaco and the Mayo faction of Sinolaoa believe Los Chapitos had just set up El Mayo would be something that would be happening, right? I assume that would mean all out war. Not only would Myofonka want revenge for his dad being tricked and, you know, just completely set up and brought to the U.S., but if he didn't do anything, they would look incredibly weak, not just to the other factions of Senaloa, but to their main rivals, Halisco, New Generacion. So, yeah, I mean, let's talk about what the motivations of Joaquin Jr. could be.

I think it's pretty obvious. Obviously, he doesn't want to end up in prison forever like his dad and his brother Ovidio or be killed like his older brother, Edgar. So why not could a sweet deal do some years, maybe help out his brother Ovidio. One thing that bears mentioning, too, I think, in the wake of Los Chapitos essentially building this massive fentanyl empire, the U.S. authorities have gotten much more aggressive. They are pissed and they are directly gunning for Los Chapitos in a way that, you know, if they were simply moving cocaine and meth, I think would not be the case. I'm sure the heat is on in a way that it hasn't been on before. You know, Joaquin might have just been ready to throw in the towel and work things out as best he could. He's already in too deep to retire in Mexico.

The U.S. has this 5 million bounty on his head. And Almencho and his boys don't care if you're retired. You're still going to be a target. And we know Joachin kind of thought he was this like, smarter, more elevated brother, and this kind of seems like it might be the smart play for him. One important thing to keep in mind, everyone's reporting has not made mention of the Mexican authorities being involved in any of this. In fact, I'm pretty sure they've denied knowledge of it, to quote Reuters one more time, quote, Mexican security minister Rosa Rodriguez

said that Mexico was informed of the detentions by the U.S. government, but that Mexican authorities did not participate in the operation. And not to get too much into politics, but the current Mexico president, Amlo, no fan of the gringoes. And I also imagine a lot of high-level Mexican officials right now are Googling the phrase countries without extradition treaties. Mayo is said to be the most politically connected Kempin in Mexico currently and maybe in history. You don't avoid arrest for decades without it. And a lot of people who said, well, you know, who would a kingpin like Amayo even have to

implicate in terms of said people being a bigger fish? You know, if he wanted to actually cut a deal himself, well, you know, High-level Mexican officials, that could, or military officials, anything, politicians, those could be the people. And I'm sure they're very concerned right now. And, you know, Mexico is always pissed when the U.S. is operating on Mexican soil without really bringing them in. So this is not good for their relations. Save now at Whole Foods Market. It's the summer splash event with great everyday prices on 365 brand ground beef for the grill and ice cream for dessert.

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then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. And if you recall, Mayo got into the trafficking business with his brother-in-law, who had alleged ties to both the CIA and Cuban intelligence

and was an extremely shady dude. And on Maya himself, you know, he's also kind of been shrouded in mystery and is quite shady himself. So it would make sense his trafficking career ends in such a shady way. Yeah, and like beyond that even, there's been a lot of talk about Mayo

saying that I didn't really know about actually being in bed with Russian intelligence in recent years, especially since Russia's been going around the world causing sort of more criminal chaos with underworld groups, be it through the GRU, that's military intel or the SVR, that's basically the CIA of Russia, or non-state actors like Wagner or Wagner, I'm not sure how to say that still, which you've done a bunch of stuff on recently. But here's what Van der had to say about the potential intel coup from this capture. And he's also the man who knows where the corpses are among the former and current Mexican government officials, security forces, law enforcement officials. He is potentially a gold mine of information on corruption networks in Mexico.

And to me, the most important thing that US law enforcement can get out of him, despite the fact that his arrest will likely trigger a lot of violence, is precisely this intelligence on the Mexican government. Now, separately, El Mayo has been rumored to have connections to Russia. These rumors have increased, especially in the past several years, though, you know, no really detailed evidence or even detailed information really has been out there in the public domain. So I don't know whether it's true or not, but I've been hearing that in my trips to Mexico regularly and increasingly so in the past several years. But, If that were the case, I think that would be a good enough reason to try to bring him to the US

to prevent any possibility that Russian intelligence establishes connections with him, and more broadly to counter efforts by Russian intelligence to develop networks in Mexico. Since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Russia has been running around Europe, cultivating connections to criminal networks across the continent. Russian intelligence has long used criminal networks for a variety of purposes, but since the invasion of Russia, this has now become much more institutionalized, to use various criminal deals and criminal rackets such as drug trafficking to generate money for clandestine operations of various Russian intelligence services,

and also to use criminal groups for the conduct of sabotage, assassinations, threat operations in Europe. And, you know, obviously, Russia would be enormously tempted to mount similar operations in Mexico. Two years ago, the head of U.S. Northern Command testified in the Congress that there are more Russian intelligence officers in Russia than anywhere else in Latin America, and that there were significant concerns about their espionage activities and potentially what kind of connections with criminal groups they sought. This had been dismissed by the government of Lopez Obrador,

who considers himself a friend and supporter of Putin, who has repeatedly endorsed Putin even despite Putin's egregious invasion of Ukraine. So certainly the presence and freedom of action that Russian intelligence has had in Mexico has been a significant national security concern for the US. And if this were to develop into linkages with criminal groups, that threat would grow even more. I think, you know, one thing I'm thinking about, and again, I don't know the details here,

but I assume El Mio and Wachin Jr., definitely at Wachin Jr., have intricate knowledge of fentanyl coming from China and precursors coming from China and have a lot of information they could potentially give up involving people involved in that from China, people that are trafficking it, people that are making the deals, the go-between, the money and all that. And that kind of seems like something the US would prize heavily. I mean, you've done a lot of work on Chinese money laundering and fentanyl stuff. Like, what do you make of that? Yeah, I actually spoke to a guy last night who was like a forensic accountant.

And he was like an attach back in Beijing, like years and years ago. And he said, it's really, really interesting what could fall out from this capture. Because I kind of assumed that Chinese and Mexican groups had kind of met each other, going way, way back, you know, like going back to like the weed trade. the meth trade for fentanyl, but he was like, nah, this is shadow banking in China is so massive and everyone uses it so much that it's just an accepted part of legal trade there. So they would have just met Mexican cartel leaders probably through legitimate business in South America and Latin America, and then taking it from there because the cartels are so kind of all-encompassing.

So this could be like a really, really, really big deal if the US wants to, I mean, there's a political question of if it can really do this because it would cause so much problems. But whether it wants to kind of tie Chinese legitimate trade directly with the state to the illegal kind of precursor flow, and that would be massive. And Mayo definitely will know where the sort of bodies are with all of that stuff. But that's kind of a million dollar question, right? Because if they really want to stop Fentanyl, you've got to stop the stuff getting into Latin America. And they cannot do that at the moment. Yeah. And I mean, if Joaquin Jr. was the CFO type that he's being portrayed as, you know, the money guy, he's going to have some information too because they were

heavily, I mean, Los Chapitas were heavily involved in fentanyl. They were kind of, I think, the biggest players almost. So they're going to, he's going to have some, some interesting things that he could potentially give up to get that deal shortens. Everyone seems to agree the no deal people and the deal truthers like us that this is going to change nothing actually in the drug cartel world. in terms of stuff coming in, though it kind of sounds like maybe it potentially could have an effect on fentanyl. They kind of think, I think most people sort of think both factions of similar cartel will be somewhat okay.

Yvonne's the top dog and the Chapitos and Hayes de Sofredo too, they seem to be in firm control of their faction. And while they took some heavy hits as of late, they still seem to be chugging along. And the Mayo faction, which presumably people would think would be more at risk, since their legendary leader is now out of the game, seems to be like it could be okay as well. as we said above, Mayo had stepped away from the day-to-day operations from the last couple of years to leave Mayo Flaco and some highly trust the lieutenants in charge. And apparently the Mayo faction of the Sinola Cartel has a deep roster of experienced people ready to take the reins. But again, if this actually was a situation where it was a setup, Mayo was essentially tricked by a Chapito.

and I could foresee some sort of bloody war between those two factions because that's not something that they could abide by. Now, just a little bit on Mayo Flacco, who was basically taking control of his faction of the cartel of Mayo's faction. Much like his dad, information on him is extremely scarce. Even on cartel rumor websites, there's not that much on him. There's information from a 2015 federal indictment, and according to the DA, he was in charge of drug smuggling from Asia for the cartel,

He also apparently likes fancy cars because the DEA confiscated two Lambeaus and McLaren and some other stuff from him. But I'm sure they all like that sort of stuff. But yeah, much like his dad, he's keeping it extremely low profile. So yeah, this could be a situation where, you know, it's just kind of like a symbolic arrest. You get the top dogs and not much changes. But like we said, it could go the other way. If they're going to be giving up stuff about Chinese precursors, money, money laundering with those guys, the money trade, all the fentanyl stuff,

I mean, that could really play things out. Either way, this is kind of like a feather in the cap for the U.S. law enforcement agencies that were involved, everyone involved. You know, they're going to use these arrests to advance their career. They look great. They're part of this historic arrest.

They can dine out on forever. And I don't know if you guys have heard. There's a, there's an election going on in the U.S. Sean, have you? Oh. Yeah. So, you know, we don't really get much about it. Yeah.

So fentanyl, I mean, that's a huge. issue, that's definitely going to be a heavy attack line on the current administration, the border two. So this kind of gives them maybe some leverage to counter those attacks. Yeah, it's all about narrative, right, on the political side. And it's like you saw Merrick Garland coming out with his grandiose stuff about like, you know, half an hour after they made the arrest. But it's pretty politically hard to pass. I mean, like, you'd think Morena, which is the left-wing populist party of Amlo and his successor recently won their election there, Claudia Scheimbaum. you think they would be more comfortable dealing with a Democrat White House and not just because

their ideology is closer, right? Boulder crossings were at their highest under the last Trump presidency and the thinking in most quarters in Mexico from what I've read is that the Democrats are more likely to work with counterparts in Mexico City rather than against them and trying to get crossings and drug crime down. But like, I'm not saying whether that works better. I'm just saying that's pretty much how it's viewed. And then you'd think that the timing of this arrest is useful for the Democratic campaign. like you say, it's a direct counter to the soft on crime attacks that Kamala Harris is going to come under. But there was a lot of, you know, it's worth mentioning that actually this sort of happened before a little bit.

Like, there was a lot of cooperation between Obama and Peña Nieto in 2016 when El Chapo was arrested. That was just a few months before that year's election that Hillary Clinton was, well, was widely expected to win, but of course didn't. But then this year has seen a DEA probe into links between cartels and Amlo's administration. And like Vanda said before, Elmio really, really knows where the bodies are buried in terms of corrupt officials and state leaders. So the Mexican government is claiming it knows nothing about the arrests, like you said before.

So political speculation is, I think it's just all going a little bit too far at this stage. I mean, we could just come out with the same old tinfoil stuff about Clintons and Pelosi's and whatnot that other podcasts have done from what I've seen. But yeah, I don't know. This is all like super, super fresh. And there is tons and tons of political stuff going on behind this arrest.

But it's probably best to see how things pan out in the next week or two, right? Yeah. And to be fair, I know we are speculating a bit here too, but I think that speculation is grounded in reality. And coming just as we're about to record another frequent guest on the podcast and someone I always look to to make sense of cartel stuff, anything criminal Mexico, really. Owen Grillo. He just published a new report, I believe, on his substack. it kind of throws the turning himself in theory out the window. I'll just read the opening paragraph of it.

It's on a substack, again, another that you should definitely subscribe to if you want to stay up to date on all this stuff. The drug lord El Mayo was lord to a meeting in Sinolao estate capital, Kulia Khan, that was supposed to be with Joaquin-Gusman Lopez as an envoy of the Chapito's cartel faction and a prominent Sinoloan politician. Mayo came from a hideout in the mountains of Durango to Kulia Khan about a week earlier to see doctors about a cancer he is suffering from, and then went to the rendezvous. Grillo describes an ambush

and that Mayo did have bodyguards who may have been killed and cites as the source a former member of Mayo security who was incarcerated. Mayo was then driven to the airport to an airport loaded up and flown to the U.S.

The source also told Grillo that U.S. agents were at the house where the ambush took place. So again, you know, take everything with a grain of assault. Owen says to do that as well. This is a wild one.

It's kind of, I think, you know, in between. the tricking him just to get on a plane and what we were saying that well I guess not even in between but this seems believable to me as well I don't know if U.S. agents would be on the ground there that seems a little wild for them to do

especially in the age of social media so it's unverified adding to what Grillo says that a Sinaloa and politician that one who was supposed to be at the meeting with El Mio hours after the capture he was ambushed and killed

which means like I talked about earlier there has already been some retaliation from Mio's faction If this is true, what we're hearing here, I think the bloodshed is only getting started. But, yeah, I mean, there's just so many questions right now. We're going to try to keep up on this. I think we'll try to get Luis to talk. Maybe we'll try to get Owen to talk, those guys.

Yeah, for sure. And we've got that, Vanda Fell Bar Brown, that interview going up on the Patreon. Patreon.com slash the Underworld Podcast, Spotify, iTunes as well. You can subscribe. And, yeah, this one, we're a little all over the place this one. but we want to get something out quickly because everyone just wanted to hear something. So hopefully this makes sense when you listen to it. When the job gets tough, you need equipment that's built to handle it.

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