The Underworld Podcast - El Mayo Behind Bars: Cartel War, Conspiracy and Narcopolitics

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

Earlier this month, Sinaloa Cartel mastermind Ismael Zambada García, aka El Mayo, was sentenced to life in prison for his role in growing one of the world’s biggest criminal empires. But while Mayo’s story may be ending, he leaves behind a mountain of unanswered questions. What actually went down on the day of his 2024 capture? Were US agents on the ground running the show? Who ordered the death of a major politician that same day? And who will come out on top, in the brutal Sinaloa civil war that has raged since Mayo was taken into American custody? A bumper show featuring Mayo’s attorney, a legal expert and Mexican investigative reporter Luis Chaparro. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast with Benjamin Boster. If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the I Can't Sleep podcast. I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. Each episode provides enough interesting content to hold your attention, and then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. That's I Can't Sleep with Benjamin Boster. When you listen to Nobody Listsens to Paula Poundstone, the comedy podcast, you learn stuff. I've been learning to throw a boomerang, because this is the kind of thing that really gets the listeners engaged, you know.

Interviews with people who will make you smarter. Does the amount that you learn protect you from cognitive decline? Paula don't know. Can't people just listen to the show? Can't they just enjoy a delightful treehouse? full of information and I think I'm bleeding. Join us and be a nobody. July 20, Brooklyn Federal Courthouse, New York.

A full house and for good reason. It's sentencing day for Ismail Zambarra Garcia, aka El Mayo. The Sinolawa Cartel Kingpin captured two years previous. A man who instills fear and respect across North America, but physically a shadow of his former self. Mayo, 76, is drawn, gone. His formerly dyed black hair and mustache replaced by a snowy white beard. Ay cabron, Maya utters.

Ah shit. As he sinks into his chair, suggesting he's having trouble even moving. Mobility, however, might be the least of his problems. In August 2025, Maya would pleaded out to a raft of charges that would make Tony Montana blush. Racketeering, conspiracy, content. continuing criminal enterprise, the headlines among 17 drug trafficking and violence raps. Given the weight of evidence against him, it was either life or lethal injection. Mayo chose life. Judge Brian Cogan is ready to hand out Mayo sentencing.

Before that, though, the narco has a short sermon plan. I did not go to trial because I did not want to deny the truth, he says. Then, acknowledging the narcoe civil conflict that has raged, since his arrest, he adds, quote, too many lives are lost. It destroys families. It thrusts youths into a life without a future. Nobody will win this war. Cogan then reads out the old man's sentence, life without the possibility of parole. Plus a $15 billion forfeiture, the second highest in US legal history behind the 171 billion cop by frauds to Bernie Madoff in 20. 10. Journalists scribble everything furiously in their notepads. Mayo shuffles uncomfortably in his seat.

Now it's the turn of the prosecutors to speak. Elmayo was the world's single biggest drug trafficker this century, says New York Eastern District Attorney Joseph Nosella Jr. outside court. I hope that Elmio's life sentence brings some small measure of comfort to those families who have suffered so much pain. Drug kingpins die in prison. Elmayo's fate is to die in prison. Elmio helped transform the Sinaloa cartel into one of the most violent and prolific criminal organizations, adds DEA administrator Terry Cole. Under his leadership, the cartel produced and trafficked massive amounts of deadly drugs and industrial scale. But then, a nod from Cole. This story isn't over. An operation of that size, he says, could not survive without violence and trafficking alone.

Corruption was essential to Elmire's criminal enterprise. He used bribery, influence and intimidation to shield the cartel from justice, both within Mexico and beyond its borders. Today is a great day for law enforcement, adds Cole. But let me be clear, this sentencing is not the end. It's just the beginning. He's right. Mayo, the Sinaloa mastermind, will surely die in captivity. But there are dozens of questions unanswered.

What happens to the world's largest drug cartel now? Who's running the criminal show? And what does an unsolved political assassination on the day of Mayo's capture tell us about Mexico's narco's deep venal ties to the country's political elite? This is the Underworld podcast. Hello and welcome to the weekly podcast that dives into the 5Ws of global organized crime. Who, what, when, where and why the hell aren't we bigger than all the other shows out there? I am Sean Williams, Consetti and Buenos Aires, Ocintina, and I'm joined by Danny Gold in New York City. I am, well, I was going to say, I'm over the dingy fever.

I'm not sure I am. definitely over the half term and I'm over the World Cup. Things are looking medium. B plus. How about you? You know, I'm over the summer. I'm ready for fall brother and I've been experimenting with vibe coding video games. So if you, like for some personal projects, if anyone is good at that, email me.

I'd love to do that and not the work that I'm supposed to be doing. All right. Sounds good. Danny wants out. Speaking about positivity, if you like this show, we have tons more out of Patreon for less than the price for coffee a month. merch at underworldpod.com and we do love to hear from you

at the underworldpodcast at gmail.com yeah we're on all the socials now too Patreon.com slash an oral podcast to sign up or you can sign up on Spotify or on iTunes follow us on YouTube's Facebook all that other yeah all the stuff where we have to do it

yeah feel feel free to drop us some absolutely batshit opinions on all of those platforms anyway Banta over, I'm declaring about a free zone, only cartels and criminal conspiracies from here on in. As you just heard in the cold open, you, the guy I'm in the ear of, Elmayo received his long-awaited life sentence a couple weeks ago, drawing a line under one of the most spectacular captures of the past decade. You also just heard how the 76-year-old literal grey beard of the cartel world has had a change of heart since he was kidnapped across the US border. on July 25th, 2024, pleading for an end to the internecine violence that has gripped what's left

of this in a lower cartel since. Violence, in part, being conducted by his own children. So, yeah, I guess you can say that pinch of salt right now. Yeah, going from pretty much King to staring at the same four walls every day of your life does usually engender like a change of heart. Yeah, you've got to keep staring at the same four walls for at least 20 years. and then your standards will start to slide, as I can tell you. Anyway, whatever.

Well, I don't know what I was talking about. Anyway, I wanted to do a special show today, not just on the particulars of Myos case, but what's going on in Siloara right now, some of the murkier elements of Myers' capture that are threatening to cause a diplomatic war between Mexico and the United States, and what DEA Administrator Cole got into in that statement,

I just read out about the connections between narcos and politicians in Sinaloa and Mexico at large, which includes a political assassination carried out on the day of Mayo's capture and a potential cover-up that goes all the way to the top. We did do a brief discussion of some of the thornier issues and the political intrigue in one of our stash houses, I think a few months ago, right when he was captured, maybe a little bit afterwards. But this is, I think, a much more thorough rundown that you're giving. Plus, you know, the kids, they love the cartel episodes, which remember. reminds me, Sean, be sure to Google, what are the Albanians getting up to right now for your

next episode idea? We want to hit that. The Albanians do it? Yeah. We want to get that viral. There's just a massive picture of a guy holding a kebab knife and a line of coke. But anyway, yeah, I will do that. Actually, we should do an Albanian episode. We haven't done one for ages. We haven't even mentioned them. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, let's go for it. Okay, anyway, back to Mexico, an actual reason that I have to say that we're covering conspiracies that go all the way to the top. I can actually do that this week without being one of the dozens of podcasts that just shoots their mouth off at any old nonsense. What a joy. Because this is a legit show by legit-ish people who do actual journalism, I've interviewed three guys for this episode.

There is Luis Chaparra, a reporter and friend of the show, Frank Perez, Mayo's longtime attorney, and Steph Cassella, who is, an expert in asset forfeiture who spoke to me about that magic almost two round to be true, $15 billion figure. Plus, how law enforcement is increasingly going after the proceeds of crime, something you don't hear much about, but is obviously a massive part of heavyweight cases like this. You know, our ratings have slipped a little bit. So I told Sean, I said to him, I says to him, I says, get someone on the show to talk about acid forfeiture because that's what our fan base wants to know about.

They want the intricate details of the paperwork involved, the sort of, financial dealings and how that works. But I will say getting Elmio's lawyers, like a pretty good get. And, you know, if they need help with that money, we can, they can sponsor the podcast. Don't just Instagram your crimes. Broadcast them on your own podcast. Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. This whole episode is a shout out to the Sinolaa cartel to please advertise on that show. Both factions. Yeah, both factions, actually. We could be the peacemakers from here and in. So I can hereby swear promise on everyone I knows life that you are going to learn more about Mayo and Sinaloa from this podcast episode that you will from reading 100 news articles about the case. And if you don't believe me, email in

and I'll personally wire you a single dollar. And if you want to know about Maya's background, his rise and is full. We've done a couple of episodes after the past few years. So just search Maya wherever you get in the show and you can find all about that after this. Shall we get into this thing? Yes, yes, I think we should. So let's start with the capture itself. Back in 2010, Maya was interviewed by a Mexican journalist who was asked if he was worried about being taken captive. The idea of being jail gives me panic, he responds. I'm not sure I have what it takes to kill myself. I'd like to think that I do and that I'd take my own life. Well, as it turns out, Mayo's fate is far too sudden and spectacular for him to get the chance.

It is July 25, 2024, just before 11 a.m. Mayo has been invited to the Wettos de Pedrigal Ranch, just outside Sinolawa State Capitol Kuliacan by Wacking Husman Lopez, one of the four sons of El Chapo who formed the Chapitos faction of the Sinolawa cartel. Now, the Sinolaa cartel has had a history of schisms going all the way back to 2008, That year, the three Beltran Leva brothers had split from Sinolawa after the arrest of Alfredo Bertrand Leva, aligning themselves with the ultra-violent Los Etaes. Leader Archer Beltran Leva is killed in a naval operation the following year.

And in 2016, after the, I think it's the third and definitive capture of El Chapo, So Sinola broadly splits into between the Chapitos, who are four of Chapo's, God knows how many sons overall, and the Maisa led by Mayo. You know, I need to point out that Sinolaa cartel was a cartel in like the essence of the word, right? It kind of was already in the same. In the same way, yeah. Yeah, they were already separate factions. So this split, this is not a violent split, right? This is just like a separation.

And they still work together and they still are sort of very united at that time. that of course changes a couple years down the road but this is not when we say split we don't mean a split into like a civil war and war factions we just mean that you know they ran their operations separately yeah and i think around this time people start calling it like the sinolaa federation instead the cartel because it's kind of a broadly allied group of sort of organizations that are under the sinola umbrella um but that goes out of fashion a few years after that for whatever reason Anyway, a further flashpoint is the January 2023 arrest of Ovidio Guzman, one of the Chapitos, and his extradition to the United States to face a host of major organized criminal charges.

Now, the Americans have a gigantic bargaining chip, either by squeezing info about Mayo out of Orvidio, who's staring down the barrel of life without parole, or by getting Orvidio to put pressure on his Chapito brothers to find a way to get into the state's El Mirovido. whom a US official describes as the quote, cherry on top of multiple operations to put major Sinaloa figures on trial. This pressure ratches up even further in February 2023, when a federal jury in Brooklyn finds former Mexican public security official Hinao Garcia Luna guilty of five charges of taking bribes from Sinaloa,

including one count of taking suitcases stuffed with $3 million, dollars, not once, but twice. This is a major, major coup for the Americans and sends a message that even top public officials wound into the cartels will not be able to hide under diplomatic cover. Back in Sinaloa, tensions have been boiling over not only between the Maisa and the Chapitos, but between rival politicians alleged to be taking backhanders from either of them. So on July 25th, just before 11 a.m. Elmio shows up to the Huerta's depend, Rangel of Ranch, having been invited by Wacking Guzman to this high-level meeting. Here is a statement from Mayo himself, quote,

I was asked by Waking Guzman Lopez to attend a meeting to help resolve differences among the political leaders in our state. I was aware of an ongoing dispute between Ruben Rocha Moya, who is the governor of Sinolawa, and Hector Melessio-Quen-Ugida, the former federal congressman, mayor of Kuliacan, and rector of the Universidad Autonomousin de Sinaloa, the UAS, over who should lead that institution. I was accompanied by four security personnel, of whom two stayed outside the perimeter. The two who entered with me were Jose Rosario Eras Lopez, a commander in the state judicial police of Sinaloa, and Rodolfo Jerez, a long-term member of my security team.

We will come back to these key players later because their fate is one of the most important things about this entire story. But Mayo, he trusts Wachin. He knows the 38-year-old. He's known him since he was a little kid. So when Waking tells Mio they're going to meet these politicians, then hop in a private plane to check out some real estate. Mayo has no reason to say no. Yeah, I mean, it's an important reminder that it be your own people, Sean. And another important message that we kind of always talk about was that like, you know, these guys,

behind the glamour and the glitz of organized crime and being this powerful, you know, so-called codes and loyalty and all that, you know, 99% of them basically end up betraying lifelong friends or family members. It's almost get me. 99% is exaggeration, but like a healthy amount somewhere,

more than 50% will end up betraying people like this that they've known their entire lives. People they've known since kids, family members, everything like that. Like it really is just a dirty, dirty game. There's no actual.

I think that number gets up around 100% for this episode. And I personally, I would be suspicious of anybody related to our video too, because he is in US custody at this point, and he is singing, and his nickname is El Raton, the Rat. So, let's think on my... Since when has that been his nickname? I'm not sure, actually.

I think it might be quite old. He does look a little ratty if you look at him. It's a little skinny, Isn't El Roton actually the mouse? Well, hold on. Now you're making me question my Spanish, which is the worst thing. I think I'm right, bud. Oh my God.

Leave this in. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Is it? It's the mouse, dude. Probably because he's the mouse. He's the cute little guy. Nah, dude, it's the mouse. Oh, Rata is rat.

Raton is mouse. Wow. Are we going to keep this in yet? They'll just keep it in. It's embarrassing as heck. In embarrassing. Embarrassing. Ay.

Upon. Okay, cool. Anyway, Mayo, moving quickly on, he thinks he's completely safe, but he is not. In fact, the entire thing is a raton trap. Here is Maya Ken quote. As soon as I set foot inside of that room, I was ambushed. A group of men assaulted me, knocked me to the ground and placed a dark colored hood over my head. They tied me up and handcuffed me, then forced me into the bed of a pickup truck. During this entire ordeal, I was subjected to physical abuse, resulting in significant injuries to my back, knee and wrist. Oh, no. I was then driven to a landing strip around 20 or 25 minutes away, where I was forced onto a private plane. Wacking removed the hood from my head and bound me with zipped tires to the sea. No one else was aboard the plane except Wakene, the pilot, and myself. And he goes on, quote,

The flight lasted around two and a half to three hours without any stops until we arrived. arrived in El Paso, Texas. It was there on the tarmac that U.S. federal agents took custody of me. The notion that I surrendered or cooperated voluntarily is completely and unequivocably force. I was brought to this country forcibly and under duress without my consent and against my world. All right, we get it. Yeah, you should have just stuck with one of those phrases. Anyway, in actual fact, it seems that Maya would have been flown to Santa Teresa, New Mexico. Probably would have been better off in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica. I might go there for the winter.

Yeah, I might go there for the winter. That sounds great. I think I'm going to just choose to continue picking up child's shit. Anyway, this is the version, this Mayo version. It's the version of events repeated by the world's media in the immediate aftermath of the arrest. Not just of Mayo, but also Wacking and the pilot, who is a shadowy figure known only as Handel. CBS Reuters, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, they all report that Wachin has set Mayo up, cut a deal for himself and his incarcerated brother Ovidio in return for

the septuagenarian drug lord Mayo. But how much does this really check out? Wachin at this point is one of the most powerful criminals in the world. He's still got plenty of political cover, thousands of foot soldiers, billions of dollars in drug revenue and access to most of the logistics and manpower behind whatever you might call the Sinaloa cartel. These aren't generally guys who don't back themselves to run from justice or not obliterate their rivals.

So why is Joaquin freely turning himself into American law enforcement and turning in Mayo? The guy is known since childhood. I mean, I doubt I'd be submitting myself to a federal trial, which famously has a conviction rate of around 95%. So would you as a listener of this show and not a multi-billion dollar owning like murderous cartel guy? Probably not. More likely is that US officials are orchestrating this whole thing on the ground. Something Mexico has accused the states are doing since the very, very beginning.

Then Mexican present, Amlo of hugs, not bullets, fame or infamy, requests a full report from the Americans, something, of course, that he never gets. When AMLO is replaced by Claudia Scheimbaum later in 2024, the Americans continue to play games, refusing requests to see the plane and, according to her, providing Mexican counterparts with fake registration documents. I mean, you can understand the outrage, I guess. If this is some Sicario movie-style operation with HSI and FBI agents carrying out of kidnapping on Mexican soil, it is a massive breach of sovereignty, of course. It is also a massively useful thing for Shinebound to wave around.

as her relationship with U.S. President Trump disappears down the gutter. According to security expert David Salcedo, it's something the Mexican government cannot, quote, let's slide, as it involves, quote, the capture of a Mexican national on Mexican national territory by you, United States agents. Yeah, I know we disagree on this, but at this point, at this point, like, it's not 10, 15 years ago.

At this point, I'm just like, somebody's got to do it, because they're not doing it, you know? I just relate to facts. I'm just a simple report. It's a tough call. They're caught in a tough situation. Sympathetic, you know? They got the drugs down there.

They got the consumers over here. And it's like, but you got to, you got to, the guy, they got a rocket launchers. But you got to, somebody got to do something, you know? Somebody's got to do something. I think we can verse something. Somebody's got to do something. Yeah. All right.

I'll let that one go. Yeah. I'm avoiding opinions since I basically blew a few. watching that Argentina-England game. Man, too cool. I hate that guy. He's an idiot. Anyway, Ken Salazar, U.S. ambassadors in Mexico at the time of the capture,

has written in his own memoir that, quote, the United States had no prior knowledge of this abduction, which is a mad, boring thing to write in your own memoir, man. But the FBI appears to have undercut this somewhat when it recently put the plane used to fly Mayo on display at that Santa Teresa Airport, Hando had just flown to.

A sign next to the plane, right, says that the arrest with a result of something called Operation Air Kings when FBI officers, quote, successfully execute a highly complex, secretive and daring arrest of two of the world's most wanted fugitives, which, if nothing else, is funny.

Myos arrest has given Scheinbaum another chance to wave about the sovereignty card. She's launched an official investigation into Operation Air Kings, which is the operation that has a name and a museum piece, but which didn't officially happen. Last month, Mexico's Attorney General announces that, quote, if recent reports are confirmed, then all signs point to three serious issues. A series of violation of Mexican and international law,

a pact made outside the bounds of the law, and a lie told by a US diplomat, which would constitute a breach of the cornerstone principle of good faith in diplomatic relations. I'm going to add a fourth in there that all of your politicians seem to be taking backhanders from the mob, which is quite scandalous. Anyway, Joaquin Guzman has said in his own plea agreement that the US government, quote, did not request, induce, sanction, approve, or condone the kidnapping. But we know that Ovidio was speaking to the DEA at the time the kidnapping was being concocted. I just don't buy it. That doesn't make a lot of sense at all.

Here is Frank Perez, Mayo's lawyer, speaking to me last week. Right. Well, Joaquin is his godson. So he had, he trusted him. He thought he was going to resolve a political matter. And he was kidnapped. So he was surprised. He thought they were just going to throw him off the plane.

He thought, yeah, it was the end for him. I mean, this is, like, I've done my share of interviewing mob lawyers, and they know how to turn a phrase. Like, we just, let's everyone, grain assault here. This is a literal car. tell lawyer, so he's going to say some things, but like, you know, treat it like we treat, I think police reports, like healthy, healthy amount of doubt with everything that it said. You know, something that's interesting about Frank Perez is that he's actually been on both sides.

He used to be, I think he was like a Texas prosecutor. It's always a lot of the fat attorneys. Yeah. Yeah. The fact attorneys always starting out like that. Interesting stuff. Anyway, here he is talking about the capture. I don't think the U.S. account is clear.

He was, wasn't arrested. was kidnapped. When he was kidnapped, there was a hood put over his head, he's knocked to the ground, he was beat up, put on a plane, giving a drink, something to put him to sleep, and brought to the United States. Once he arrived in the United States, there was agents there waiting. So what happened or how they appeared? That's still a mystery at this point, I guess. I mean, once someone is in the United States, the court has jurisdiction. As you recall, Mexico expelled many individuals, and they complained about it, but once you're in the U.S. Seoul, the court has jurisdiction. Now, my understanding is that Joaquin Guzman was charged with the kidnapping, so he did get

ramifications for doing that. So, yeah, when he pled guilty in Chicago, that was part of the conduct. And I believe there's also another investigation into the kidnapping. because several people were killed in Mexico. Another fascinating part of this case is that $15 billion forfeiture. Going hard after the proceeds of crime is a shockingly new thing. I mean, some countries don't have any statutes at all on this. Actually, the majority of countries don't. The US only put property forfeiture legislation on the books in 2010, for example.

And how do law enforcement and courts follow the money on a case like Mayo's? To find out more, I've spoken to Steph Kasella. who is probably the biggest expert in the subject in the United States. It's not an exact science. And in fact, the cases use that phrase. They say that determining the amount subject to forfeiture does not require mathematical exactitude. It's a good faith effort. And the government and the court would generally take the most conservative approach to avoid any unnecessary litigation.

So how do you come to a figure? When we're talking about a drug dealer, there are various ways and they're not mutually exclusive. They might complement each other. You would use informants. Who on the inside knows how much traffic they were doing in drugs and what the prices were and how that money was received and how it was distributed and how it was used and reinvested to obtain more product and so forth. You might combine that information with what is generally known to law enforcement. enforcement in terms of what street prices are. If you were able to determine that someone moved so many

kilos of product a month to the United States, and you knew what the street value was of that product in the United States, you could come up with a retail number. If you knew what the wholesale price was to distributors in the United States, you could come up with a wholesale number. You would extrapolate from any known numbers that you had. If you knew that he or his organization realized, I will pick a number out of the air, $10 million a month, and they did it for 160 months, then you would multiply. As long as your starting point was accurate and you had a good faith reason to believe that the numbers remained constant over a period of time, then you could extrapolate. And just before we move on, I think it's worth hearing what Mayo's lawyer Perez says about the

judgment with the caveat again that he is, of course, Mayo's guy. Let's hear it. It's that that's symbolic. There's no way to recover that money. They can't. I mean, they're calculating something that happened over 50 years, including what, uh,

his partnership with Chapo, and maybe there was that much drugs that was moved in that period. It's, it's hard to calculate, but, uh, Mr. Simba doesn't have any assets.

There's nothing in his name. You know, there's a war going on in Sinaloa. You know, what he did have. I mean, some of it was destroyed, burned, maybe they're selling it to support the war. I don't know, but there's no way that's

going to be recovered. So I guess that is what you'd expect. I mean, the drug laws lawyer trying to keep the government's hand off his client's cash, but Steph Casella admits that chasing the money is going to be a very tough thing to do, and not just in this case, right? So let's hear from him again. Maybe it's there, but I did not see a list of any specific assets that have been recovered. It looked like only a money judgment for $15 billion. I say only $15 billion. It's an uncollected judgment at this point until and unless they come up with specific assets, whether it be real property, investments, cryptocurrency, businesses, whatever it might be.

But they're going to have to trace that in order to recover it. The good news is it doesn't have to be traceable to his crime. Now that they have the $15 billion judgment, they can recover anything that he owns to satisfy that judgment without having to prove that it's tainted. They just have to respond to anyone else who claims and comes in and claims that it belongs to them. We can't forfeit a third party's property to satisfy El Mio's judgment. And so there'll be a proceeding where others will come in and say, no, no, no, that's not his property. That's my property.

Now, those may well be shells, straws, you know, trusts, who knows, the whole gamut will inevitably unfold. But they first have to find some assets to go after before that process even begins. One of the things we urge law enforcement to do is to make a focus on the money part of the investigation from the beginning rather than making an afterthought after the person is apprehended or convicted or being sentenced. It's often at that point, number one, too late to find the money because it has disappeared into the wind in the interim between. the time it was earned and the time all of this legal process took place. And also, just as a practical matter, in terms of resources, every prosecutor knows that the federal agents with whom he or she works, whether they be FBI or DEA or IRS or whatever,

move on to the next case once the arrest is made or the conviction is obtained and no longer have the interest in pursuing the assets that, is necessary to come up with hard evidence as to how much money and where it is and how its and whose name it's held and all of that. And so for all of those reasons, you want to start from at the beginning. You're investigating the person in terms of his connections to organized crime, the nature and scope of his organization and how you're going to prove the criminal activity took place and that he is responsible for it. But at the same time, you want to be looking looking for what property he has purchased, what his lifestyle is, whose associates are,

who may be in the know with respect to his assets. Does he have lawyers, accountants, investment advisors, and so forth who have invested the money for him? Does he use false names? Does he have businesses that are shell companies incorporated in foreign jurisdictions, offshore jurisdictions? Has he shown a proclivity to convert to cryptocurrency? and if so, you know, how is that, how might that be traced?

All of that should be ongoing in the course of the criminal investigation and not left till the end. I find this kind of stuff fascinating. I mean, I hope you do too. It's surely one of the few things you can do to actually try and stamp out a lot of this stuff. And like Steph says, crypto is now giving authority is a massive headache when they're already behind on forfeiture to begin with. the bad guys do not know sovereign borders. Law enforcement, the beginning and the end of jurisdiction depends on sovereign borders. And so a quarter of the way through the 21st century and we're still trying to figure out how to deal with the fact that the bad guys can move the money anywhere they want around the world. And now in the more recent years, not even moving it across borders, but moving it out of real space into cyberspace. Nobody even knows where is a crypto asset. in terms of in whose jurisdiction it is. And so if it even exists,

and so for all of those reasons, we'd have to modernize those statutes. This brings us on to the second and way bigger scandals surrounding the capture, which is the death of Hector Melessio Quinn Ojeda, businessman, former mayor of Kuliacan, and at the time of his death, head of the city's biggest university,

which I thought, with over 150,000 students, was gigantic. But of course, I looked this up, and there is a university of Bangladesh with almost 3.5 million students. How does that even work? Can somebody please tell me? Anyway, Quinn is a very big deal. And the other guy at Mayo places at the ranch on the morning of his capture, Ruben Rocha Moyer, is an even bigger deal. Since 2021, he's been the Sinaloa State Governor.

And according to Mayo and others, the two men are in a political dispute. Mayo says over who should run the university, we're not entirely sure. Let's just part the strange fact that two major narcos are mediating a dispute like this. It has been going on for years, Quinn battling with Russia over who should be placed in major roles across Sinaloa. On July 20, five days before the meeting, Quinn posts a video to YouTube in which he makes direct accusations against Russia, that he's corrupt, that he's making illegal intervention. into the running of the university, and that he's sitting on millions of unexplained dollars, meaning, of course, that he's on the payroll of the Sinaloa cartel. These are not things, you'll be unsurprised to learn, that politicians usually broadcast in Mexico.

On July 26, the day after the capture, the Sinaloa Attorney General's office reports that Quinn has been shot dead by robbers at a Kulia can gas station the previous evening. It releases a video which apparently shows an armed man approaching Quinn's vehicle from a motorcycle and shooting through the window. True? No. Mayo says the gas station story is bullshit in his letter, published that August. I am aware that the official version being told by Sinola State Authorities is that Ectur Quen was shot in the evening of July 25th at a gas station by two men on a motorcycle who wanted to rob his pickup truck. That is not what happened. He was killed at the same time and in the same place where I was kidnapped.

Hector Quinn was a long-time friend of mine and I deeply regret his death as well as the disappearance of Jose Rosario Eras Lopez and Rodolfo Chárez, who no one has seen or heard from since. Those two guys again, by the way, members of Maya security who accompanied him to the ranch that day, the 25th. Quen's body is cremated before an autopsy can be carried out, and Mexican media are already talking about a massive cover-up by the time of October 2025, when the federal Attorney General's office announces that it has discovered bloodstains at the ranch, which appear to back up Mayo's story. At a property located at Wirtos de Pédrigal, Kulayakan, hemantic evidence was found that has been determined with complete precision to correspond to the ex-rector of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, it writes. The Federal Attorney General rejects the Sinaloa Attorney General's gas station story, adding that Kwen was killed, quote, many hours before that attack took place.

What's more, federal authorities then find blood on the dashboard of the gas station's story, gas station vehicle, which corresponds to the Ordofo Chaydes, one of those two bodyguards of Mayo that day. The federal government then declares it as enough evidence to prosecute members of the Sinaloa State Attorney's team for this cover-up. A coolie I can judge then refuses to issue warrants for their arrests, and the Attorney General resigns. So pretty crazy conspiracy right there. Wait, so this conflict, is there like a separate, like the, they're fighting over the

the school, is that separate from a narco conflict? Like, are the narco's tertiary to this, or are they actively, is it actively about that? No, I think this is all bound in together. I mean, Quinn is out there saying that Russia is taking cash directly off the cartels. I mean, it seems that each man has picked his side of the Sinaloa, right? Quinn with Mayo and Russia with the Chapitos. Or maybe, uh, Joaquin is just making this, like, outrageous statement of civil war, basically, by taking Mayo and then just popping off.

two of his bodyguards and the guy that he's friends with. Either way, it's like something straight out of a movie. It's crazy. By the time all this is coming out, of course, a civil war is raging between the Chapitos and the Maisa. Bodies are dropping like flies, and the streets of towns up and down Sinola have been turned into war zones. This whole time, Rocha, the state governor, is denying he was even at the meeting with Quinn, Joaquin and Mayo, but so-called Narco Mantas cartel banners pop up across the state showing pictures of Rocha and other political leaders alongside Chapito members. In November 2025, an expo in Kulia can is cancelled after one of the banners threatens Rocha and his family. Reports by the journalist Annabelle Harandes

then explicitly accused Russia's 2021 political rise as having been bankrolled by the Sinaloa cartel. And in April this year, the LA Times reports that US officials have denied Russia a visa. Quote, Rosha Moyer is one of a number of top politicians viewed as protected by their associations with Lopez Obrador. Among the many threats to Russia Moyers' political survival was the outcry about the 2024 shooting death of his one-time chief political rival, Edgar Melisio Quen, Ohida, a former lawmaker and university rector. The crime remains unsolved. Mexican federal prosecutors concluded that the state inquiry into the shooting was a sham.

Among the inconsistencies, according to prosecutors, state investigators compiled a fake video meant to conceal where, when and how the victim was slain. The resulting uproar forced the resignation of the chief Sinola prosecutor, but Rocha Moya, their boss, remained in office despite calls for his resignation. Since then, the Sinaloa Civil War and its connections to Mexican politics have spilled into other states. Top lieutenants are constantly being caught or killed, with the U.S. law enforcement all over the situation. Remember, the Sinaloa cartel was designated a terrorist organization last year,

giving U.S. authorities way more bandwidth to go after than militarily. I mean, that is exactly what led to Helisco cartel, Kingpin El Mentiono's death this February. Here is Luis Chaparro, Juarez born journalist and chief of the outlet, Pierre de Notta, or footnote, for more. And we'll put the full interview, by the way, up on the Patreon for our subscribers because we love you and we want to kiss you on the lips. So at IKEA, we make things just for college life, like the Rosenmandal blackout curtains in gray. They say you can't put a price on sleep, but we. did for the low low price of $49.99. Why are you in my room?

Shh, go back to sleep. You have a big exam tomorrow. Shop back to school at IKEA. We have this civil war that broke right after they kidnapped El Mayo from Sinaloa, brought him over to the United States of Fated Justice. since then Ovidio and Joaquin has been waiting for their hearings advancing their timing court

they still have no sentence they're still waiting on a sentence we're still waiting to hear what's going to be the sentence for them we know for a fact that Obedo Guzman is now under some sort of protection witness program although it's not precisely the witness protection program El Mayo Zambada was just

declared guilty he was sentenced to life in prison and now he's only fighting no to go to the same prison or any similar where El Chapo is locked in right now, which is ADX Florence, one of the top of secret prisons in the United States. Meanwhile, in Sinaloa, this war is still going on. It's been two years, two years of killings, two years of murders, two years of errors made by the Ziccarios killing innocent people, two years also of involving Mexican politicians, including Sinaloa governor who's now indicted by the United States for drugcraft and tortures.

major of Culliacar, Juan de Dios Olivas, as well. He's also indicted by the United States for the same reason. And several other Mexican politicians, the war between Los Chapitos and Los Mayos started three, almost four months later after El Mayo Zambada was kidnapped from Sinaloa. But since then, it's been nonstop. Plus, taking account that they broke an alliance with the Cartel, Luisco, Nova Generation, those Chapitos, made an alliance that the government and several other sources first tried on a night. Then the Mexican bomber man confirmed that it was actually an alliance. El Munch is now dead. The alliance is out. It's dead.

They're still fighting. They're fighting in Kulakan. They're fighting in several other parts of Sinaloa. The fighting extended all the way to Baja California to other states like Sonora, Durango, Chihuahua, Chiapas. So now this war is not only in Sinaloa, it's in almost all of the Mexican territory. And it seems never ending. Men keep dying, arms keep flowing, money keeps flowing. And it seems unstop.

At the very beginning, right after L'Mayo was kidnapped and the violence began in Sinaloa. I remember talking to members of both families separately, of course. I spoke with some of the Guzman family still in Sinaloa and some of the Zambadas family still in Kulakhan. And I asked them both, what would it take for them to stop the violence? And they said either Ivan, Archibald dozman and Jesus El Prado will have to be dead

or arrested in the United States or El Malyito Flaco has to be dead or arrested in the United States for the war to stop. I'm not sure that is true. recently when El Mayo Zambada received his sentence he wrote a letter, he read a letter to Judge Cogan where he said

no one will win this war. This is a war that makes no sense and he basically asked those fighting still in Mexico to stop the war because no one will ever win and many more will die. It is right now basically an annihilation

of both sides. I remember when the Sinaloa cartel try to break into you that Juad Juarez, which was basically the headquarters for the Juarez cartel back in 2000, by the end of 2008, 2009, 2010, it was a ruthless war with many, many killings for four years. They didn't stop fighting. At the end, no one won. No one declared the city for them all.

And what happened is they basically annihilated themselves. Then you had a bunch of little alliances between the Juarez's capital. cartel and the Sinaloa cartel, and then a bunch of little cartels, mini cartels, branches of the Juarez cartel, La Lina, La Lina, La Empreza, Artistas, this and that. And the same happened with the Sinaloa faction that were in Zioch Juarez. I think that's going to be the future of the Sinaloa cartel. The Sinaloa Cartel used to be this one major international drug traffic organization, or let's call it a criminal enterprise.

Right now, it's split into two factions. from those two factions, there's going to be a bunch of little branches along the way as years keep going. By the fourth, fifth year of these war, there's going to be a bunch of branches. And the Sinolao cartel that we knew is never

going to be back again, that Sinaloa cartel that we knew before. So apparently the Carter-A-Tarizco-N-Logana nation also is kind of going to shed while the Sinaloa cartel is still fighting. I think the Cluey flashboards are going to be a bit far from drug trafficking. I mean, drug trafficking, they're going to be wrong, still a very important

source of income for cartels. But as the war keeps growing and everyone tries to capitalize what's happening with the Zinolo cartel, with that of Almenchal, the smaller criminal groups like Santa Rosa of Lima, which is mostly a local regional cartel home to Santa Rosa de Lima, operating mostly in Guanajato. They're capitalizing on other sources of income like natural resources, mining, water, also government contracts contractors. They are trying to get more and more government contracts to build highways, schools, hospitals, etc. So they can keep earning that money. But they also are outsourcing their security forces, the group of cicarios, to foreign mining companies landing in Mexico.

So let's say there is a Canadian mining company trying to get silver from Guana Hualo or from Sakatecas. And these guys are outsourcing their power to protect that mine, to establish a security zone, and they're

cashing in big. So I think natural resources, land government contracts, human smuggling are four new source of income that are probably even higher right now than drug trafficking. They ask for ransom to the mining companies.

And if they don't comply, they just killed all of the mining workers and try to put the mining companies out of Mexico. And again, this is happening without the Mexican government doing anything to actually, or the bearers minimum, to actually go against these guys. But the new generation is kind of, I guess, Cartel Nepo Babies, the second or third generation cartel leaders. It seems that they don't even inspire the kind of respect from anyone in the public that their ancestors might have done, these kind of campasinos, these kind of guys who grew from nothing to become leaders of multibillion dollar empires. Do people have any respect for these people?

Is it just kind of terror at this point? I think that's the perception that it's been through all the years. When El Chapo was like up and coming, people to leave the same about El Chapo. They would feel that he had no respect for how things were made before with the eldest. But it's always kind of like the same stuff when the Guadalajara organization first began flourishing with El Netto, Fonseca, Miguel, Angel Felix Gallardo, Jeffer de Jepete de Jets, Rafael Caro Quintero. They were youngsters. Some of them, like the eldest guys will believe they don't know what the hell to do. They're just ruthless. They're violent.

They don't care. They don't have values, if whatever values means, a drug trafficking organization. And that's something that it's been ongoing forever. Because I think that's the perception of the people that they think that the elders are always more, or less violent, less erratic, you know, more like put together and they know what they're doing. And they were drug traffickers, not killers.

They have always been killers. All of these guys have always been rats. all these guys have I was being killers. They killed innocent people. They'd write to women. They killed children. All of these guys. They're exactly the same.

What I do believe that changes the game completely is the balance that had El Mayo Zambada with the Cidalo cartel, but also with other criminal organizations. El Mado, El Mio Zambada, don't get me wrong. He assaults or a rat. He's a killer. He's a rapist. He's a criminal. And now he's paying for.

his crimes. But he believed, he genuinely believed in a balance, in war is not good for business. He didn't care about violence, about innocent lives. He cared about business. So he was like a negotiator between all parts. El Mayo was called several, several times to negotiate between politicians, to negotiate between different cartels, to negotiate between his own cartel, to negotiate between families. So whenever every single power in Mexico had a fight, they will look for El Mayo to be a middleman and to get things straight. He was an expert negotiator after he was captured after he was taken into the United States. Now regarding to different kids and the perception of the people, in Sinaloa particularly, if you asked before the war, what's going on with

Los Chapitos, what's going on with Los Mayos, everybody, every local will tell you, we're fed up with Los Chapitos. They don't know how to treat people. They don't know how to maintain their power without killing innocent people. They just want to do their will. And really, a lot of people didn't like Los Chapitos, right?

They were fed up because they were perceived as NACA juniors. They're not, they didn't make an empire of themselves. They're just inherited while El Chapo did. same goes for Los Marios with a difference that every single son of Olmeo Zambada, other than the Mayito Flaco, were negotiating with the United States, were already in jail or negotiating or free in the United States after negotiations with the United States. So this marriage between the state and the drug tribe, the criminal organizations in Mexico, has been forever. There's no existence of one without the other one, sadly. But when El Mayo Zambada was kidnapped, that was probably the clearest proof we as Mexicans have, that there is no doubt that these guys operate together.

The meeting was going to be between El Mayo Zambada, Joaquin Guzman Lopez. The idea was to negotiate and to mediate a meeting between Rubenro Chamoja, actual governor of Sinaloa, and the Melleher. which was a known politician who also wanted to be a governor for Sinaloa at the time when Ruben Rocha Moya won. There were rivals. There were enemies. They hated each other forever because they first, they were compadres.

And eventually they went to war because of politics, right? Something very usual in the political aspect in every single part of the world. The question was like, why was O'Mayo in the middle of this meeting? Why was he trying to negotiate between both of them? Well, El Mayo said himself in a letter that Melesio Cuen was his comrade. That's where they killed my compadre. If you remember, the general attorney's office of Sinaloa, they tried to play a very idiotic idea of how Maleso went down, right?

Yeah. They did all these fake video of a robbery in his pickup. They used his actual pickup truck to go into the, a gas station. They used a fake cicario who shot a fire to the vehicle. And that was all fake. Just to make us believe that Melenzio Quinn

died during a robbery, which is, again, they go deep inside the relation between criminal organizations and the state is very, very rooted in Mexico. And we're only talking about one state, which is in a lower and only because the Mayo Zambada was

Kitama, Melisuken was killed. But if we talk about Michoacan, if we talk about Chihuahua, if we talk about Chiapas, if we talk about like terror and leave for all the other states, you start like getting the band-aid out of your eyes and say like, oh man, these guys are really running the country. Seems like an exaggeration, of course, because you will say like, well, you still have a president, you still have governors, we have several elections. But at the end, we are on the verge of the new elections for governors in all of Mexico.

Mexican states, right? And the killings already started. They're killing candidates for governors to let you choose between the only two options. They themselves want you to choose. They're paying a lot, she tons of money to the campaigns of these politicians. So they win and now they owe a favor to these criminal organizations. It's why we, in Pia de Notta, along with two other journalists, Oscar Valderas and Miguel Angel Mesa. We started this project called Narcopoliticus.

We have this website, Narcopolitics.com, and the teams of the three of us are investigating actively politicians from the smallest little municipality to the chief of police of that municipality to the president, to governors,

etc., etc., etc., and trying to find their links on paper, on trail, Not by, like, we hear someone said, no rumors. We need to have, like, confirmed investigations either in the U.S. or in Mexico, paper trail, et cetera, to say these guys are in bed with criminal organizations. And as of today, we have found more than 40 different anarcho-politicos currently operating in Mexico with proofs, with documents, with paper trails, with sources that there is little deniability for themselves to say, I don't know what you're talking about. Again, it's not me saying in my newscast, well, I heard from something.

It's documents. It's in that active investigation. It's the FBI, the EA, the Fiscalia General of the Public in Mexico. It's bank accounts. It's photos, videos of them getting money, of meetings, et cetera, et cetera. A bunch of evidence. And still, the Mexican government is saying Mexico, it's not run by these guys. Well, at least 40.

And we're just three guys and their teams finding. evidence on 40 politicians currently embedded with criminal organizations. I wonder if we had the resources of an actual fiscalia of a general attorney's office or of an agency like the United States, right of the resources, we could definitely find many, many, many more all the time. So it's brutal what's happening in Mexico. Like Luis just said, this civil war has made the situation in Sinola way more violent, unpredictable, and led by this new generation of Nepo babies who command fear without necessarily the respect of their Campesino fathers. Michael Ferrarra, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago, involved in the case against

Mayo's eldest son Bicente, aka El Bicenticiro, has echoed this. Last week he told an LA Times report to that, quote, For the narco juniors, they've never lived in a real world, they've lived in a world where their fathers are in complete control. For them, it's logical. They just employed death and destruction. They don't know any other way to hold on to power. There's got to be like third and fourth generation narco juniors by now, no?

I mean, some of these families go back 60s, 70s. Yeah. I mean, would you watch like the real housewives of Kulia Khan or, I don't know, narco needs a wife? They did those shows. I mean, the US had grown up Gotti, which was a show about Gotti's kids, our grandkids and kids. Oh, my God, I didn't even know that.

There was also a mob wives show, which is a reality show. Israel had some reality show where like they like they take one person from like one set of like one type of life to another like it would mix like a secular guy with a realist guy and they took a no they took a model and she lived with a mafia family like that was active. I think they can show like garbage routes and afterwards she was like it was like it's not like you see on TV like it was like like the sopranos like it was all those sparranos was you know I don't think you want to live with them and she was like it's it's pretty scary. but yeah they've got it man my wives is crazy there are all sorts of reality show stuff like that so it's out there but yes the real housewives of Kuli Khan I would

I don't have to watch any of those others I would 100% watch that can you send me the link to that is really one because I want to watch that like yeah I forgot what it's called someone if you guys know email us because it's definitely a thing that that happened that is nuts anyway yes for decades Maya had been able to evade capture

because he was known as a peacemaker a deal maker a guy who preferred to corrupt officials for cover rather than killing fleets of narcos, politicians and civilians. Of course, there is a decent amount of myth to that too. Mio has always had an armed wing ready to carry out bloodshed on his behalf. Famously, he commanded the feared Sicario group Los Antrax, the Anfrax, and Los Ros, the Russians. Although, you know, knowing my Spanish this episode, that could be anything, I don't know. These are not nice guys. In fact, they are quite bad. You know, I think the peacemaker thing was really about how he kind of handled things diplomatically instead of psychotically.

Like he still, you know, he still got people killed. Obviously, he was top of the most powerful cartel in the world. A lot of people killed. Very violent. But it wasn't like some of these other guys, like for fun. And it wasn't always his first impulse. And he was very good at smoothing things out between rivals to like, you know, move forward without murdering 400 people. Yeah.

I mean, that's the, like, you know, Los Zetas and Mencho kind of. M.O., right? Just like hiring people to turn, terms sort of like victims into mush and things like this, and just picking people off buses and beheading them. But yeah, that's not what he did. Apparently, he's also a bit of a politics nerd as well. I mean, I guess it's easy to get swept up in the horse race if billions of your own dollars depend on it. Me, I'm watching question time to see if I'll ever pay back my student loan, but I'm way cooler, of course. What is happening now however, is that the Latin American cartel world, it's going even more underground, right? It's splintering among groups in Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, without these famous

narco chiefs of old. As Insight Crimes, Victoria Dittmeyer said, quote, you saw actors that had a more invisible modus operandi. We actually called them at Insight Crime the invisibles, precisely to avoid this increased law enforcement pressure and pressure from rival groups. So we We've documented in Colombia now how many of the actors, their key to the drug trade today, maintain a completely legal facade and not necessarily linked to an armed organization, operate more like brokers, more on the business front rather than the territorial criminal wars, which also gives them a degree of protection. So it could be interesting to see if we see that also evolve in Mexico under these circumstances,

which actually will be really interesting, especially, I think as we've got in them with a bunch of recent, shows the Brazilians especially are moving in, like massively on cocaine among Latin America, all of which leaves us just a couple of little loose ends to tie up. One of them is the identity of Handel, the pilot who, according to Wacking Guzman, was the only guy besides him and Maya on that plane bound for New Mexico. As is often the case, Owen Grillo has done some cracking work on this at his site Crash Out Media, which reports that the 32-year-old, who is named an official documents both as Maoro Alberto Nunez O'Hira and Alejandro O'Hara Abila, had confessed all the way back in April this year to have worked with the Sinaloa cartel for over a decade, flying planes loaded with cocaine and guns. Handel also claims he ran communication for the Chapos.

I mean, I don't think that means PR. I think that means, like, I don't know, signals to other guys. That is until February 2025 when Mexican soldiers arrest him after a shootout and that August, so last August, hand him over to the US as part of a huge transfer of prisoners. Do you think they're hiring for a PR position? Are you looking? I mean, benefits have got to be incredible. There's equity? Come on.

Is there equity? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. I don't want like some, I don't want to kind of like T. TV guy thing where you get a percentage on a future payout. That's what equity is. I want the ready. Oh, damn. No, I just understand the concept of equity.

Okay, all right. I thought these guys were big on cash. That's what attracts me. I just want piles of cash. Anyway, are you getting the timeline here? Hando is arrested last year and transferred to the US months before he pops up as the pilot ferrying Mayo into US custody. What's more, according to crash out, quote,

remarkable, he would have participated in a cross-border kidnapping yet being released by US federal agents without charges and traveled back to Mexico. I mean, this is insane. First of all, this is great work, but he's got a story to tell, huh? I mean, is he free right now in Mexico? He better be, I don't even know, like in hiding or have left Mexico already, right? Like, I can't even imagine. I think he's, I mean, that guy has got so much plastic surgery, show you it's like a fucking

cat or something. Like, I would not be, I would not be in the hemisphere, let alone anywhere near Mexico right now if I was... Yeah, I mean, look, in an ideal world, we're getting you a plane out to find this guy. I don't know, like, you're going to Chihuahua or something. Just put the Patreon to good use. Let's get Danny on the road, meeting Handel, the pilot. God, what a great episode that will be. If anyone's listening, pay for that flight. So, anyway, yes. There you... have it. We'll probably draw a line under Mayo from here on, but the similar Civil War is obviously something we're going to come back to frequently. It's not going away. In fact, in many

ways, it is getting a lot worse, and the connections between it and Mexican politics are causing the entire country to buckle. Watch this space. Do not Instagram your crimes. Sign up to all our social channels. Buy our shit. Watch our YouTube's. Do your job. Be nice people. And we'll see you next week. It's great. It was a great ending. Terrific. Thank you.

Yeah.