The Underworld Podcast - The Narco Lord of the Skies: Amado Carrillo Fuentes

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

Amado Carrillo Fuentes was one of the most powerful drug traffickers of the 1990s, moving hundreds of tons of cocaine and amassing billions while forging deep ties with Colombian cartels and corrupt Mexican officials. At the height of his power, he controlled the Juárez Cartel and operated a fleet of private jets, outpacing rivals and law enforcement alike. His influence stretched from Mexico to South America and the U.S., making him a near-mythic figure in the drug world—until his sudden death during a secret plastic surgery left more questions than answers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. Juarez, Mexico, 1995, and a new reality has set in for the Mexican underworld and everyone that has to deal with it. The Guadalajara Cartel, the first Mexican national super cartel, formed in the late 1970s to unify all the narcos under one umbrella, has become defunct. What's now emerged is several different individual cartels led by veterans of the Guadalajara cartel, who sometimes work together and sometimes don't. And sometimes they go to war against one another.

One of those cartels that's emerged is the Juarez Cartel, named after the city that borders El Paso, Texas. And the man with the top job at this cartel is Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the Lord of the Skies, and the nephew of one of the co-founders of the Guadalajara Cartel. He is a man who likes to operate in the shadows. One day, the publisher of Awara's newspaper hears a knock at the door and comes to answer it. He finds two strangers outside his house. We have come here on behalf of a friend. He would like to pay you a substantial sum of money every month.

And in exchange, you will let him review every article you intend to publish about Amado Carrillo-Fueltez, they tell him. The publisher, maybe not understanding who he's dealing with, tells them that he can't do that. The men are calm. They respond, quote, Well, then, since you can't do that, let's try another arrangement. Either you will let our friend pay you a substantial sum of money every month in exchange for which you will not publish anything about Amato,

or you will be killed. The publisher gets the picture right there and chooses a third option. He sells the newspaper. When you're dealing with Amato and the Juarez cartel, there's really no good choices. You see, Amato at this point is the most, powerful drug trafficker in Mexico, with ties to the highest echelons of the Mexican government and military. And all of this is happening as cocaine trafficking is expanding like crazy in Mexico,

with the Mexicans about to replace the Colombians as the top of the food chain. And while American authorities are hunting Amado, they seem to know so little about the untouchable cartel Kinkin. They have three different dates for his birthday, don't know exactly what town he was born in, and don't know if he is a law school graduate or a third grade dropout. And there are only three known photos of the drug lord, and he's rumored to do things like dye his hair and use color contacts to alter his appearance, occasionally even going under the knife to get plastic surgery. To American law enforcement, he's a ghost.

But to the Mexicans, especially those in Juarez, he is ever-present, even, a man to be feared and respected. What the Americans do know about Amado is that he is moving massive amounts of drugs into their country, with tons coming from the Cali cartel and Colom. And they have no idea how to stop him. Mexican law enforcement isn't super helpful, in no small part due to the massive amount of bribes the Lord of the Skies ditches out to any and everyone. See, Amato has been training for this job since he was young.

He's a man who came up under the most powerful and ingenious smugglers Mexico had ever known. He's been groomed for this, almost since birth, and he's really, really good at it. So good, the Americans are running out of ideas on how to stop it. And now, in 1995, it's a great time to be the leader of the Juarez cartel. His rivals in Sinolo and Tijuana are at war with each other, grabbing all the headlines and attention. And the head of the other big cartel in Mexico at the time, the Gulf Cartel is currently the most wanted man in Mexico,

being hunted by both the U.S. and Mexican authorities. This leaves Amido in relative peace, able to ply his trade the way he wants to, bringing in an estimated $200 million a week. But this is Mexico and the narco game. So the good times can't really last, can they? This is the underworld podcast. To the only organized crime podcast that spans the globe and gives you a new story every week.

Brought to you by two journalists, myself Danny Gold, and my co-host, Sean Williams. He's, I don't know, he's British. I don't know. He likes cricket. I've kind of run out of relatively funny and insulting things to say here. Do you got anything to add there? You got anything to add there? Nice. Yeah. Danny, you know, not really grinds my gears, loud roads.

With that kind of podcast now? Yeah, I mean, we're going to have to be. Like, let's get the numbers up. I just came back from this like nice little four-day trip in the north of New Zealand. It was very, very pretty up there. And I planned to do a bunch of calls while I was driving because there was many, many hours on the road. And whoever's making the roads in New Zealand, can they try a bit harder? Because like, those roads are loud, man. Really gravelly. not good, couldn't make any calls,

just had to listen to hours and hours of podcasts and zone out, which was actually, yeah, that was lovely, actually. Yeah, so mountains, waterfalls, you know, whatever. Very nice country, but loud roads. I'm sure the four listeners we have there will be very, they'll be like, oh, yeah, this guy gets it, you know, about the roads. They're going to love this hoodie as well. This is my like speak, Māori language hoodie,

which I didn't realize I was wearing, actually, because I'm going to work out after the show. Nice. Always glad to get insight into your life. Anyway, as always, bonus episodes and ad-free material over at patreon.com slash on the world podcast or sign up on Spotify or iTunes. We do interviews. We do crime news catch-ups.

What else? Underworldpod.com for merch and the underworldpodcast at gmail.com for tips and compensation offers and everything like that. You know, send us free stuff. You don't even have to buy an ad. Just send us some nice linen shirts and expensive sunglasses. We'll hype you up. What else? What do you need, Sean?

What can we get you? you. A new fridge? What's going on? Yeah, I mean, this is going out. I think this episode is going out as I'm moving into a new house. So I would like the following. So just like you can pause this, any advertisers if you want, but I need a dresser or a dining table, an armchair, some speakers, shells, paint, TV, microwave, air fry, rugs, coffee machine, probably a sofa bed, an ergonomic office chair. All right, all right. We need to have a wardrobe. Yeah, this bits going too far. I don't like to cut my jeans anymore, Danny, so I'd like some more jeans. I like football shirts and the car needs a wash.

All right. Okay. Okay. I need a three and a four-iron for the golf course yet. Okay. That's it. Where were we? Right. Um, drug wars, narcos, that sort of stuff. So, we've done plenty of episodes on the Mexican cartel wars. You know, El Mayo, Los Chapitos, El Mencho, Halisco, Acapulco. So go back and listen to our whole Mexican cartel collection, if you're a new listener. And for the real sort of nitty-gritty updates, definitely tune into people like Owen Grillo, um, Lewis Chaparro, who always keep things updated. and depth and know far more than we do about the intricacies of it all.

But we're going back in history right now to a simpler time, a more innocent time, way before a young Sean Williams discovered poppers and electronic dance music and dark, dingy Berlin basements that keep secrets. Yeah, someone gave me poppers like a couple months ago, actually, and yeah, they're bad, man.

They are bad. Are they bad? Yeah, they're very bad, which made me sick. So, Amato Carrillo-Fentez is born in December of 1953 in Sinolawa, which we've gone into before, but it's insane how many of the legendary Mexican traffickers are from Sinolawa, right? The mountainous terrain, all that area, it just breeds outlaws, kind of like White Plains.

He's raised in a big family. Some sources say he had 13 siblings, and U.S. intelligence actually puts it at eight or nine. Nevertheless, they could run like a full-core five-on-five if they wanted to, but not much is known about his childhood. There were definitely major smuggers and narco types hanging around, though in the 50s and 60s, right, it's a much different game. You have sort of these cowboy outlaws, right? Less dissolving bodies in acid and throwing sacks of heads onto nightclub dance floors like it would become.

We do know that he gets a start in the drug game under his uncle, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, better known as Don Neto. Now, Don Netto, we haven't mentioned much at all in our previous Mexican cartel episodes, but he was a major player in the drug trafficking scenes in Mexico in that early generation of cartel bosses.

He's actually one of the three co-founders of the Guadalajara Cartel, along with Rafael Carrantero and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo. Rafael Caracanaro, actually, I think he was released from prison a few years ago. I think he might have gotten re-arrested or died. I haven't kept up on it,

but he's the man who messed up my embed with a high-level cartel guy. So I'm not a fan. You guys, long-time listeners will know about that. Go back and listen to that episode if you haven't. It's a good one. And shout out to Al Durango. I'm sorry, we never got to hang out. I delayed in booking my flight

because I was worried that you might murder me. Anyway, the Guadalajara cartel, basically the first Mexican super cartel that almost every legendary Mexican cartel figure worked for or worked with at the time. It's founded in the 70s. And it's like the first sort of corporate cartel structure, right? They're like shop right and our A&P or Wegmans when everyone else is bodegas. They change the game. El Mayo, El Chapo, all the big time players who would launch Mexico's cartel era came up through them. Yeah, El Chapo, which Danny, of course, is the Spanish now.

I'm learning it for the Chapo. Yeah. Are we still doing that, John? Can we still do it forever? You still are. You still are. So we'll keep it going. Amato is initially sent by his uncle to tent to marijuana fields in central Mexico.

That's when weed is like the big cash crop, but he soon graduates the driving the weed to save houses. But he eventually starts using small planes to smuggle marijuana by himself. He had trained as a pilot. He loves airplanes. He's going to become famous for his use of planes in the game. But you can kind of see, like the dude has all the real narco-interns. shaping him and letting him see the business from all over. Things take a turn, though, when his powerful uncle Don Netto is arrested in 1985 and then

charged with the killing of the DEA agent Kiki Camerano. This doesn't stop Amina though. He keeps climbing that corporate career ladder, making his way to the Mexican state of Chihuahua, where he works under the tutelage of another legendary trafficker, Pablo Acosta Villarreal, aka El Zoro de Ohanaga, aka the Ohanaga Fox, which is just solid old-school outlaw nickname. Ohanaga, it's a border town in Chihuahua. It's a major smuggling area. Yeah, we're going to get a lot of Danny Gold's Spanish pronunciations, but this is solid so far, man.

This is probably as good as you've ever done. I mean, Debbie T.R. Mas photos, you know, I'm on it, dude. I'm getting it. Acosta becomes Amato's mentor and the two become best buds, right? Acosta teaches him all about the drug trade, the border, and most importantly, how to corrupt government officials, which honestly sounds like pretty easy, right? Step one, you give them money. Step two, that's pretty much it, right? I don't think there's anything else to do there. Acosta's key businesses at the time are weed and heroin with Coke only being added in the later part of his career.

So it's kind of like his career arc follows the same pattern as a night out with a young Sean Williams in Berlin. And this is where Amato really learns about the border and how to finesse it. By the mid-80s, Acosta controls 200 miles of the border and is at the height of his power. Meanwhile, Amato is still barely a blip to American drug intelligence, but according to an Intel report around them, quote, Amato was a young, well-educated, slick-dressing trafficker who had been some kind of federal official in Guadalajara. Customs Intelligence had picked up reports Amato had been a DFS agent for five years prior to his arrival in the border town. He was thought to represent powerful Guadalajara traffickers for whom Pablo also warehouse cocaine. That's Pablo Acosta, not Pablo Escobar, which is kind of bad intel. He was never really an agent full-time for the Mexican government.

Maybe he got like some credentials to say he was or something like that, which, you know, wasn't really rare for those guys to do at the time. And the powerful Guadalajara traffickers mentioned in that quote is, of course, Don Netto, Amato's uncle and co-founder of the Guadalajara cartel. So like how dominant is the Guadalajara cartel at this point? Are they the biggest crew? Yeah, I mean, they're like really the only major game in town at that point. That's where all the big cartels are going to come from afterwards.

Obviously, there was like independent organizations. back then, small timers and things like that, but they're the first ones that really form like the cartel part of the cartel, right? Like they are this massive conglomerate with all the powerful people being a part of it. And every powerful cartel that comes afterwards is going to be like, when it breaks up, they're like, they're apart, they had been a part of the Guadalajara cartel. Every name you could think of, right, Chapo, Mayo. If you've seen Narcos, it really captures this era of when all those guys were basically

the ones who were like, we're going to dominate everything. they're responsible for close to 100% of all the cocaine coming into the U.S. at the time. By 1986, Acosta's grip on Ohanaga is starting to slip, and the issue is that he's a crack-ed. Seriously, he's smoking tons of crack and doing a ton of blow, sometimes with a motto, who likes to partake, but is more measured. He's also pissing off the Mexican military, the federalities, the Colombians, and other Mexican traffickers, because you can't really want a complex drug operation when you're a crack-head. Things start to slip up, fall through the cracks. You can run a podcast, though, just so you guys know. He also starts a relationship with an American woman who lives across the border,

a beautiful blonde who just happens to be the niece of a Texas senator, which is wild. Acosta is starting to get noticed, and he gets a lot of attention for his drug smoking at this point. So Mimi, who's the aforementioned niece of a Texas senator, she arranges for him to do an interview with an American journalist where he can downplay his drug activity and clean up his image. Not only did she do that, but she also links up Acosta with an American woman. law enforcement agent to square up a few things. It's there just nothing that a good woman can't do, you know? And why would in a custom meeting with a U.S. law enforcement be happening?

He's actually interested in getting out of the game as long as he can get American citizenship. You know, bring all his money and his family with him and not really do any jail time, which is like, you know, that's what we would call a good deal. And I really wish we had lawyers and agents at Underworld that were like that. I mean, damn. No, it's been five years now. It's going to be, it's just around the bend all those rich. right. I mean, we're doing all right, you know, we're doing good.

Yeah, we're doing it. We're doing right. I could see the sweat on your forehead from here. I mean, you know, and it sounds crazy, but like multiple members of the Elmio family have seemingly done the same recently or in recent years, maybe not all their money, but they're definitely not pouring. Two of the Chapitos, those are chopper's kids, seem to be working on that as well, but we'll get to the current state of Mexico at the end of the episode with a little update if we have time. The newspaper article, the profile, it comes. comes out in late 1985 in the El Paso Herald Post, and it goes viral, or as viral as things date in the 80s. It's explosive, it's this three-part series, and a quote to Costa about payoffs to the Mexican federal police.

He also admits to having planted a weed field with the Army's permission, and it even goes into some of the drug murders he was involved with. It's so explosive that after it's published, DEA officials in Dallas and El Paso, they start making bets about how long it's going to take Acosta to get arrested or killed by the Mexican authorities. Yeah, lordy me, that is good journalism. What a scoop. I guess that's the kind of exclusive you can only get these days if you're what, like a movie star or a racist YouTuber or something. I think you have to be a streamer.

You can't even be just a movie star or a racist YouTuber anymore. Okay. I don't even really know where those borders lie. So, yeah, I'm that bad. Yeah, it's all the same to me, to be honest with you. The fallout comes fast. The Mexican Attorney General honors three federal warrants and gives us a Juarez Federal Police Commissioner, jurisdiction over Oahuaynaga, so he can either kill or arrest

Acosta. The police commander quickly sends a team up to the town, but Acosta and Amado, they're long gone by the time they arrive. In 1987, though, they finally catch up with him, and Acosta is gunned down in a crazy shootout. It's a cross-border raid involving the Federallies and an FBI helicopter's backup, and they launched the attack when Acosta's in a small village. He's backed by his team of bodyguards, refuses to surrender, and there's an hour-long shootout before he's fired. finally killed. I mean, it's real wild west shit. With Acosta's death, it's not a motto who takes over, but his right-hand man, Rafael Aguilar, with Amato second in the hierarchy. A motto, though, maintains a level of independence. The cartel hierarchy wasn't that rigid at that point.

Meanwhile, after the murder of the DEA agent Kiki Kamerana, 1985, Felix Miguel Gallardo, the leader of the Guadalajara cartel, so the guy who ran, you know, everything dictated down to the lesser guys what to do. He goes on the run. He soon recognizes he can't run things the way he used to. So between 1987-1989, a meeting is called of the top Guadalajara traffickers to divvy things up. Amato is there among other Mexican cartel legends. We got the Ariano Felix brothers, founders of Tijuana Cartel, El Mio and El Chapo, the founders of the Sinaloa Cartel, and there's many other notable figures there, real, like, named guys. The meeting is called because Felix can't really function as the top guy anymore, being hunted like he was.

So he divides territories and responsibilities. Amato and Rafael Aguilar get Juarez, officially forming the Juarez cartel. Juarez is, of course, right across the border from El Paso. It's a major shipment point for goods crossing the border. Great smuggling action. And while Juarez is just one city, it really is the end-all-be-all of that middle stretch of the Mexico-U.S.

border with Tejuan on the West Coast and the Gulf Cartel on the East Coast. So Amato is officially one of the hefees. And now that he's basically in charge of Juarez, He needs to figure out how he successfully can get a ton of product over the border, which involves getting the Mexican authorities on board. Every Mexican drug lord has to pay protection money to people in the government, military, federal police, local police, government officials, like everybody's getting paid. Rafael Aguilar, meanwhile, the guy ahead of Amato,

is heard complaining about all the protection money and saying that he's tired of paying. Then he threatens to go public with the names of everyone that he was paying, and you can kind of guess how his story ends. only a few days later, he's gunned down while on vacation in Cancun, and eight of his top lieutenants are also killed, and this is in 1993. Yeah, I mean, this is the thing. If I was a notorious drug lord, I'd just be constantly terrified of saying the wrong thing to the wrong person, or just getting murdered in broad daylight, which is a fair enough fear.

But so many of these guys are just running around, shooting their mouths off, making threats. I mean, I guess it's moved fast and break things, but yeah, different cloth, man. I think too that if you have a lot of gunmen behind you, you kind of feel like you can get away with the saying a lot of things, you know? Yeah, true. Is that how I should approach the next few conversations we have with people on the phone? I think you approach like that already, but it hasn't been working. Working great.

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They even have an app and a browser extension you can download, no account required, no sign-up required. It's completely free to use. Stop wasting money on brand names and start saving with dupe.com today. The man behind the shooting is actually a motto, whether because he sensed weakness and wanted to take over or doesn't like to heed Rafael Aguilar was bringing up by threatening to expose all the stuff. There's also rumors Aguilar was talking to authorities and not sharing enough in the profits. Either way, now Amato is officially the sole man atop the Juarez cartel.

So in the book Drug Lord, a true story by Terence Papa and Trump, Charles Bowden. It's about Acosta, and it's a big source for this episode. The author's write, Quote, Carrillo learned from Pablo Acosta's failures. It was clear to him that a high profile led to his predecessors' end. Thus, Carrillo kept in the shadows, expanding his influence quietly, building on his Guadalajara and Ohanaga connections, and on his relationship with his jailed uncle, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo. He underwent periodic surgery to alter his appearance. And now that Amato was in charge, right? He brings in his brother Vicente to help. run things. Amato also has a close working relationship with O'Mayo, the Sinaloa Cartel

Kingpin, and until very recently, the only surviving free member of that generation of narco traffickers. And Amato and O'Mo are close enough that one of El Mayo's kids would later testify that Amato was his godfather when he was born in the early 90s. El Mayo and Amato also bought a $50 million jet together, and they used that to smuggle drugs. El Mio's brother actually testified at his trial that Amayo brought Amado into an alliance between Mayo, Chapo, and Amato in 1992 where they pool resources and do deals together and use the same pilots. I mean, these three are like the three musketeers of cocaine in America. Think of the contributions to Brooklyn and Bushwick Nightlife that this triumvirate right here

made happen. The amount of like awful 6 a.m. conversations they're single-handedly responsible for. It must number in the tens of millions. Yeah. Where were? Oh, yeah. Okay. So Amato is a master diplomat.

He had previously established a good working relationship with both the Medellijian cartel and the Cali cartel, who he had met through Acosta and his uncle, apparently getting so close to the leaders of the Cali cartel that they would speak to each other on a daily basis. It's still business, though, and they constantly haggled over money and Amato being late with payments. One time, he even had to send three Mexican hostages as a guarantee before he pointed up some millions for a lost shipment, which is just a, that's a tough work assignment right there, you know? Amato gets in so good with the Colombian cartels, he becomes the main Mexican point person after the dissolution of the Guadalajara cartel, operating as a link and also like a broker for the

other Mexican cartel. So not only is he buying like his own Coke to ship up there, he's also working as like the middleman for the other cartels, like Tijuana, who need the Colombian product. In 1994, though, there was an incident with the Cali cartel when a nine-ton load of Coke sent by Cali to Amato is seized by the Mexican Navy. The Colombians, they suspect the snitch in the Juarez cartel, and in retaliation, multiple Cali cartel hitman try to take out Amato when he's with his family out to dinner in a suburb of Mexico City. Two of his bodyguards are killed.

Apparently, because the hitman, they didn't really have photos to work off of. They didn't even know which guy was Amato, who he manages to slip underneath the table during the attack. He comes out unscathed. And soon after this attempt of assassination, though, things are patched up between the Cali Cartel and Amato, which, I don't even know how you patch something like that up. Probably a lot of, you know, my bad, sorry about that. That's on me. Just like that kind of stuff happening.

There's a lot of moving parts in this guy's life now. But yeah, nine tons. I mean, it sounds like a lot. I mean, it is a lot. But do you know what the biggest ever cocaine bust is? It's 225 tons last November, which is around 8% of the global supply, which that must have caused quite. a shock in the

system. But yeah, it was like like narco subs and stuff. It was a huge operation. It's really interesting. Where was that? Who was that? It was like a multi-agency thing. It was like, I think over a dozen countries were involved in it, but they were trying to open up new

narco sub routes to Australia in the Pacific and they captured a bunch of these subs and they found over 200 tons of gear. So I'm guessing, you know, if something's spilling out like this from 9 tons, then there's probably quite a lot going on on the back of that. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure the trade has gone up like insane amounts since then, but that's also

pretty, pretty wild. Yeah. It's a lot. It's a lot. Here's a quote from Tracy Eden, former Mexico City Bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Amato Cario Fuentes learned from the Cali bosses. He ran his operation much like a corporation and got into profit sharing before it was fashionable. He bribed Mexican police chiefs and politicians.

He also had the touch of Tony Soprano, the star of the 18th. HBO TV series, The Sopranos, in that he could go from polite gentleman to a ruthless dog in a minute, which I kind of feel like that's probably a skill set of most high-level narco and like organized crime bosses, you know, not just, not just Tony. Yeah. Yeah, probably like most journalists, too, I would imagine. Another thing Amato really takes from his frenemies and Cali is the use of the advanced technology that they were known for in terms of like surveillance and protecting yourself from surveillance. If you listen to like our Cali Cartel episode, which I think was.

six months ago. They're given the nickname the Callie KGB because they had everyone all over the city paid off as informants. They monitored everything, phone lines, wires, all that, recording everything, and they were always listening. So we're in like the mid-90s now, and it's really the perfect time for Amaduan Juarez, because not only is he in a great position with having the best connection to the Colombians, but his competitors are mired in all sorts of issues. The Sinoloa cartel and the Teukwana cartel are beefing with each other and killing each other all over and drawing attention to themselves. And the other major cartel, the Gulf cartel, is led by the current most wanted man in Mexico at the time, Juan Garcia-Abrego. So the heat is really on them. And Juan Garcia is

actually the first drug trafficker to be placed on the FBI's top 10 most wanted list in 1995. So Amato, despite being a known entity with his own cartel, can kind of fly under the radar a bit and build up his business while all the authorities focus on those other three. And build up his business he does. So with the Colombians, you know, Pablo Escobar, he's killed in 1993, and then the Medellin cartel basically fades away. And then the Cali cartel becomes enemy number one. They've got a tremendous amount of pressure on them. So their power really starts to wane, especially when some of the leaders are captured in 1995. Amato is then able to better negotiate deals with, you know, the weakening Cali cartel and all the success are Colombian suppliers,

because they're not really in a strong position anymore, right? And this is really the turning point where the Mexican cartel guys start to kind of surpass the Colombian guys as the main power brokers in the co-game. It's kind of surprising in a way because the gear is still coming from Colombia, right? So you would think that the guys in Colombia and across the Andes would have some pretty big bargaining chips. And the Mexicans just more ruthless? They threaten to blow their heads off. They just sort of more astute businessman. I don't think it's that they're more ruthless.

And I think it doesn't happen for a few more years. I think it's that, you know, without being able to get it into the U.S. for the Colombians, it's not worth anything. And that's a whole different scale set. And I think that's also when the route changed from, remember, they used to go through the Caribbean, and then it became the route through Mexico. And who's going to be in control of getting it through Mexico? That's the most poorest border area. That's where they can get the most cocaine. It's going to be the Mexicans.

So it feels like, you know, they sort of had the expertise and the strength and the sort of power to sort of call the, the shots in that regard, right? I guess there's a bunch of different places between Colombia and the U.S. anyway, so you've got to kind of navigate all that as well. Yeah, it is interesting, though, how that turnover happened. You would think that the guys who make the product, not the middleman, would have the most power. But it also has to do, I think, with the fact that, like, their cartels, the Colombian cartels

got kind of, you know, destroyed or broken apart way before, as the Mexican cartels were just rising in money and power. It might even be a money thing. I assume maybe they were making more money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense.

And Amato, you know, he has a lot of that power talking about. And despite being known as like a diplomatic narco, he also has a ruthless side. He's still a cartel boss, you know? When it comes to people screwing up on a drug delivery, one U.S. official explains, quote, he immediately orders the assassination of everyone who could have turned the shipment in. And the bodies fall left and right, which, yeah, I don't know, man. I don't know if that's that world for me. I don't think like the, hey, you know, it's my first.

First Day would really would work well there. The Warrest Cartel keeps expanding under Amato. They now have three regular bases in Guadalajara, in Hermosio, and in Torreon. Amato uses a fleet of converted Boeing 727s to move drugs from Colombia to Mexico and then all over the U.S. The smuggling of the drugs into the U.S., it's kind of spread out in a variety of means, you know, trucks, cars, cargo ships, all that jazz, but also a big focus on planes. The U.S. kind of picks up on that eventually.

And they start working with Mexico on a radar network that would improve the trafficking of planes from Colombia to Mexico, placing a former Army General in charge. But Amato being Amato, of course, quickly gets him on the payroll. I mean, this guy is just like finesse. You know, he's slick. He probably wears linen shirts just like I'm wearing right now. Amato loves his planes. He owns several airplane companies and operates the MO of smuggling pretty simply.

The planes, they land at an airstrip in the Chihuahuan Desert, where the Juarez cartel goons and as many as 70 security. personnel, they offload the drugs within minutes. Those planes are then sent back to Columbia, while another plane standing by is then used to fly drugs into Texas. And for the Texas leg, he uses planes that can exceed 500 nautical miles, outrunning the radar plans used by U.S. customs. These planes land in the middle of the Texas desert.

They're unloaded, sometimes with up to 12 tons of coke, and then flown back with $60 million. And that's one trip. This, all this stuff with planes, it earns him the nickname. Signor de los ceilos, a.k.a. the Lord of the Skies, which is, you know, a sick nickname as well. And according to a DEA agent, Amato is able to get Mexican federal protection for his flights going in and out of Mexico, and that the Mexican feds are, quote, doing everything out of there except kick-starting the Narcos planes. That's a pretty amazing quote. Is there a bunch of stuff, like, are there good sources on this guy, like good books out there? Because it seems like you're

pulling together quite a lot of different stuff. So there's not a ton out there on Amato. You know, he, not a lot of books. He was really a ghost with a short reign. There was a great Texas monthly series from 1996. You know, Washington Post and your Times have some stuff. Some of the books are that guy Ron Chepucusack who kind of writes like quick crime books. He is a book out there where he's like one third of it. And then there's that book on Pablo Acosta that I mentioned.

Another book on Al Chap. I forget which one. I'm not sure if it's. But yeah. So there's not a ton out there just on a motto, but it does seem like, There's a little bit known about him, you know? The paid off authorities, they still try to maintain some level of cover, though. Occasionally, they order the seizure of some of his properties, but Amato, he really is like a master of the payoff.

And even when some of his properties are seized in like Sonora, the DEA still thinks the governor there is in deep with him and on his payroll. The reality is no one in Mexico seems interested in actually investigating Amato, and this drives the Americans furious. A 1994 DA intelligence report states that a motto, quote, purchased influence at various levels of the Mexican government, and by establishing powerful connections, he ensured safe passage of his illegal drug shipments through Mexico to the U.S. He was allegedly spending between $500 and $800 million yearly in bribes, which is insane, but he's also making billions of dollars.

And you got to spend money to make money. It's like I always say, Sean. I've got the spending money part down, but the other part, not as much. Amato's corruption, though, it goes so high that he's even linked to the brother of the president of Mexico. Yeah, so how are your Yankees spreads going? Like, are you going to bet on them tonight?

Are they playing tonight? They're playing Kansas City, right? But I don't know, man, like, you should really only be betting on them with frees on the mound because he is insane. Yes, yes. So I've learned that. You know, I went on that spree last week where I lost a ton of money, won it all back.

Yeah, it was great drama on the WhatsApp group. Yeah, yeah. Betting on Max Fried. Yeah, dude, he's the best pitcher in baseball. It's insane. He's 91. His ERA's like 1.85. And he's a plus 800 to win the Sall Young right now because of what's his name,

Tariq Scoobal, who, like, it's not even, it's instead. That might be the best bet right now in the world. But I'm only going to be betting on Freed. And also, like, it's insane that we don't hang out, you know? He's like, best pitcher in baseball, star of the Yankees. New York, you know, he's a Jewish kid from L.A., like, we should, I think L.A., maybe San Francisco, but like, we should be, me, him, and Boris Nafield should be getting Shabbat dinner, like, once a month for sure.

He also looks like Rupert Friend, the actor. He's a very good looking chap. He's, I mean, dude, he's, he's a, he is like, he's going to have an all-time season this year. He's going to get 20-1s with 20 wins with an ERA less than two. I'm going to bet on him every game. Where were we? He's also, he also listens to this show. Do you know that?

He's going to start. He's going to start. I think we might have a couple. mutual connections. I got to get in there, dude. Got to hang out with Freed. I'm flying out. While things seem to be going well for a motto, that all changes when Juan Garcia-Abrego, who we mentioned before, the most wanted guy in Mexico and the leader of the Gulf cartel, is arrested in 1995. Up until that point, Abrago is believed to be the most powerful trafficker in Mexico. He's certainly the richest. The U.S. government estimates that he makes 10 billion

profit alone in 1994. I mean, is that figure real? Who knows? But we do know that he was making billions of dollars. And as I mentioned above, he was the first drug lord to be placed on the FBI's top 10 most wanted, although that actually might have been because he had American citizenship, right? Because surely Escobar had to have been more wanted by the U.S. officials

just by default with everything he was doing. I don't know. Sean, do you know? I guess Escobar was basically a terrorist, right, towards the end. So, you know, bombing planes and blowing up government buildings is going to get you it's going to get you a bit more notoriety. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

It's weird. Who knows? But anyway, with that arrest, it's now a motto that is enemy number one and the most infamous drug trafficker in Mexico, despite all the precautions he's taken and trying to stay off the radar and keep a low profile. The thing is, like, when you're moving that much weight and have just an incredibly dope nickname, you can't stay out of the headlines forever. And a motto is at the height of his powers, with the DEA estimating he's bringing in $200 million every week. How many discounts does USA auto insurance offer?

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They have yellow sales signs on ready-to-cook beef or chicken kebabs too. Level up with savory marinate, spices and rubs, and complete your cookout with a crowd-pleasing cherry pie and their balsamic chicken salad. Available at the prepared foods counter. Get Summer Splash Savings Now at Whole Foods Market. Mexican authorities at that point, they raid a ranch in Senaloa during the wedding reception of his sister. That's in January of 1996. And leading the raid is the country's drug czar. But a motto is tipped off and escapes.

And the thing is, the Mexican Drugsar is actually on a mom. Amato's payroll, hence the tip off. He's so far in bed with Amato that Amato provides him with a luxury apartment in Mexico City. His real troubles, though, actually start with the arrest of that Mexican drugsar, who's actually embroiled them like a different corruption scandal. The Drugsar happened to work closely with the U.S. feds who, you know, they've been talking about how he has all this, like, pristine integrity and all that sort of stuff.

And, you know, once it gets out that the drugs are, the U.S. is working with, that they were complimenting for being honest. that just creates this firestorm in the U.S. media. And of course, Amato's name, his links to the guy are revealed, and the relative obscurity that he had in the U.S., Amato, it's blown wide open. So much so that the few photos of him that exist start being published in newspapers around the globe. And Amato panics, right? He knows everything he's learned so far about staying off the radar,

everything he's tried to do, everything we advise all our listeners who are in that life not to do on the podcast, it's over. You know, he might as well have Instagram his crimes. He goes so far as to offer a $60 million bribe to the military, but it's rejected. And then he travels to Chile on a fake passport. He starts buying up a bunch of properties, setting up fake businesses, presumably with the goal of disappearing there. First, though, he wants to really change his face. So in July 3, 1997, he checks into a clinic in Mexico City to have a lot of plastic surgery done, probably too much because he dies on the operating table. his heart gives out, probably from the decades of doing way too much blow. Or maybe, maybe it's like that, you know, the bit from the office with the Japanese guy

who used to be a surgeon and he works in the factory and he lets the Yakuza guy, the Yakuza boss die on purpose. You know what I'm talking about? The guy who goes, in Japan, heart surgeon number one. It's a great, great bit. I don't remember that bit. Could you perhaps jog my memory by sort of replicating the accent a little more? I think we're allowed to do that accent again now.

But, you know, he works in the... In the thing with Daryl, what's his name? Craig Robinson, who I've hung out with that Mexico and is the coolest dude on the face of the earth. And he's like, tell me a story. And he's like, in Japan, hot surgeon number one. And he talks about how, it's like a minute and a half they just put in the show, how he was called to operate

on a yakuza boss. And the yakuza boss died and he was being threatened. And at the end of the story, he just goes, like little secret, I kill yakuza boss on purpose. Oh, man. I do not remember that bit, actually. Great bit. Incredible. You could probably YouTube, but incredible bit.

But yeah, anyway, those two surgeons who performed the operation, they're found shortly later in concrete barrels. Their bodies are found at least. They'd been tortured and killed and cut up. So, yeah, not a good thing to have happened. There are some conspiracy theories that Amato is actually alive, but there is a gruesome photo online of him in a casket with half of his face off, kind of like Two-Face and Batman style, because he died during the operation. You can Google if you want,

I would advise on not doing so. Yeah, I mean, I have. And the, yeah, it looks like Gus Fring when he gets blown up. Sorry, spoiler there, but or that Mani Calaver from, what's it called, Grim Fandango? Well, I've got a reference from 1993 there. So that's cool. But yeah, it's pretty rough.

And that is the end of Amato Cario-Fuentes. At one time, the most powerful narco in Mexico, But of course, the Juarez cartel lives on, and after Amato's death, there's a lot of questions over who's going to take over because it's still pretty profitable and powerful. His brother, Vicente Carrillo-Puentes, aka El Viceroy, another cool nickname, is in the mix, but a lot of people question if he has the same leadership qualities as his recently dearly departed brother. Right away, though, he consolidates his grip on the cartel after beating another pair of some different brothers aiming for the top. And he brings on another career Fuentes. Remember, there's like at least nine siblings, possibly 13. to help him run things.

But Vicente doesn't have the same aura as the kids say or skill set as Amato, and sensing a power vacuum, the Gulf Cartel and the Tijuana Cartel start trying to muscle into Juarez Cartel territory. But luckily, the infamous Elmayo, very powerful at this point, had remained close with Amato and his family, and also was himself at odds with the Tijuana Cartel. So the Juana Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel, they form an alliance. Elmayo starts by ordering a series of high-profile assassinations, including the murder of the Tijuana police chief who was on the take for the Tijuana cartel. And like that, the war

is on. And then in February of 2002, Tijuana moves on Amayo in Sinolaoa, but the local Sinolaa police take out one of their bosses instead. And then another top boss gets arrested. Tijuana's hurting. Meanwhile, the Gulf cartel, the other kind of big player at the time, they had been looking to move on Juarez,

but they kind of back away when the Rarez boys link up with Sinolawa, and they realize it's not going to be an easy fight. Just to clarify again, I don't need to clarify that, do I? Nah, nah, I think you could. I think, you know, like our listeners are going to be fine. They're 10 times more intelligent than the listeners of any other podcasts, especially the ones who compliment my looks on the Spotify comments section,

which is going to be tougher for them to do today, given that I spent half the week eating curry and it's like screwed up my skin. I think I look terrible. But anyway, yeah, yeah, you look handsome. There we go. Our banter is getting weirder and weir. In 2001, El Chapo escapes from prison for the first time. and several key people in the Juarez cartel

jumps ship over the next couple of years to go work with Chapo as he starts revving up his activities. Then Chopo starts wanting to really go on the warpath. And despite his partner in Almoyles deal with them, starts thinking the Juarez cartel is right for the taking. Elmio gives the okay, and then Chopo has

one of the Carrillo Fentis brothers killed along with his wife. And the Warres cartel becomes kind of a shell of its former self, though they still kind of battle it out with Sinoloa. But by 2008, they really don't have full control of Juarez, used to. Amato's son gets arrested in 2009. Vincente gets arrested in 2014 and extra to the U.S. in 2015. In 2020, another one of Amato's sons gets killed, and a hit apparently

ordered by Los Chapitos. And Amato nephew just got killed five months ago. So yeah, I mean, the Carrillo Fuentes clan was still like an old school smuggling clan, the whole family involved, and the whole family getting decimated. So, you know, if you get successful, get your kids and relatives out of the game, man. There is no need for that. Maybe we'll end on a little current news about what is going on in Mexico because we haven't touched on anything since we did the arrest, I think, of El Mayo and Los Chapitos and everything a few months ago. Mexican media has been reporting that 17 members of the Chapo clan crossed into the U.S. due to some ongoing negotiations between one of Chapo's arrested sons and the U.S. government,

presumably to surrender and give info. Chapo himself is in talks with the U.S. government about possibly cooperating with them against his former business partner El Mio, who, like we mentioned, was betrayed by Chappos kids and arrested by the U.S. And now we hear that O'Mio himself also might be in negotiations with the U.S. government after cutting some sort of deal to avoid the death penalty. Three or three, I think three or four of O'Mo's sons have already cut extremely shady deals with the U.S. In the past, so who knows what type of deal he could cut. Probably something along the lines of like, you know, giving up a ton of cash and assets and government names, but who knows?

So a lot of dealmaking happening right now, likely some high-level Mexican officials, pretty nervous. That's in the U.S. back in Mexico, the remaining sons of Amayo and El Chapo are at war with each other. Leading Los Chapitos as Yvonne and leading Mayo's faction is Maito Flaco. It's very hard to see who's winning in a cartel war, but Maito is likely winning for his Chapo's faction because Yvonne and Los Chapitos are apparently so desperate that they've allied with Halisco New Generation, as Owen Grillo has pointed out, and he knows these sort of things better than anyone. And Halisco, they'd previously been at war with Chapo, so they hate each other, so it says something that they're aligning.

So yeah, as the war continues, we're still kind of waiting to see what happens with all the Chapo and Elmio relatives and the men themselves cutting deals. And yeah, very brief. But there you have it. That's story of the waris cartel and the Lord of the Skies. Very cool. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money, whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings. There's a money side to every story.

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