The Fall of El Mayo (2026) s01e01 Episode Script
The Man in the Hat (El Señor del Sombrero)
[birds calling]
[sirens wailing]
[man 1] If you want to know
who controls a territory,
ask the people.
ARMY
It's the people who will tell you
whether the government
or the mafia is in charge.
And in Sinaloa, the mafia
has been in control for many years.
MISSING
And the people know it.
STATE POLICE
Who runs a mafia?
Well, the biggest badass, of course.
Everyone would tell you
El Mayo was the one in charge.
Here, he was called
"The Man with the Hat."
[somber music playing]
[man 2] Drug traffickers would say,
"No, you don't talk about El Mayo."
Because they knew
that if they opened their mouths,
it might be the last time
they ever got the chance.
That's how much fear and respect
they had for a man
like Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada García.
The boss of bosses.
[music intensifies]
JULY 25, 2024
July 25, 2024,
would become a turning point
in the history of drug trafficking
in Mexico.
[man 1] The mafia
respects even its enemies.
What it will not tolerate is betrayal.
[somber music continues]
[El Mayo] On July 25, 2024,
I went to the ranch and event center
called Huertos del Pedregal,
on the outskirts of Culiacán.
The meeting was scheduled
for 11 o'clock in the morning.
I saw armed men
wearing green military uniforms,
who I assumed were gunmen working
for Joaquín Guzmán and his brothers.
CHAPO'S SONS
"LOS CHAPITOS"
I saw Joaquín Guzmán López,
whom I have known since he was a child.
Trusting the meeting was legitimate,
I followed him without hesitation.
They had set me up.
A group of men attacked me,
threw me to the ground,
and pulled a dark hood over my head.
[engine turns over]
[horns honking]
[El Mayo] They tied me up, handcuffed me,
and forced me into the back of a truck.
[dramatic music playing]
[El Mayo] They took me to an airstrip,
where they forced me onto a private plane.
[reporter 1] A founder
of the Sinaloa Cartel,
Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada,
was arrested in the United States
alongside Joaquín Guzmán López.
[reporter 2, in English] He was arrested
alongside the son of El Chapo.
[man 3, in Spanish] El Mayo Zambada,
the untouchable one.
The one who had managed
to avoid arrest for half a century.
The one who had never set foot in a jail.
They landed in the hands of the FBI.
[reporter 3, in English] The circumstances
of how those men ended up
at a rural airstrip tonight,
still not explained
by federal authorities.
But no sources have suggested
they took a wrong turn in midair.
[reporter 4, in Spanish] It's something
out of a drug-trafficking novel.
[intense music playing]
THE FALL OF EL MAYO
[intense music fades]
6 YEARS EARLIER
NOVEMBER 5, 2018
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
[reporter 1, in English] The trial,
expected to last four months
or more, has started.
[reporter 2] Security is extremely tight
outside the federal courthouse,
as Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán
goes on trial.
Police are closing down
the Brooklyn Bridge
every time Guzmán is transported
from prison to the courtroom.
[man 1] Guzmán's destructive
and murderous rise
as an international narcotics trafficker
is akin to that of a small cancerous tumor
that metastasized
and grew into a full-blown scourge.
[man 2] This is a powerful individual,
a powerful criminal.
The most notorious criminal
of modern times.
[excited chatter]
[man 3, in Spanish]
When El Chapo's trial began,
I remember arriving with a colleague.
I started laughing.
Why? Because I saw the armored vehicles,
the entire federal building surrounded.
What were they expecting?
That Sinaloa Cartel gunmen
would come out of the subway
or swoop in
on helicopters or small planes?
"We've come to get our boss!"
This was El Chapo.
That was the image
the DEA had created around him.
[tense string music playing]
[man, in English] Mayo and Chapo were,
for the better part of 25 years,
central figures in the Sinaloa Cartel.
But they could not have been
stylistically more different.
El Chapo was ostentatious,
an iconic public figure.
Whereas Mayo Zambada was,
for the entirety
of his 40- to 50-year career, a ghost.
El Mayo was very much present
in the larger story of this trial.
In fact,
on the very first day of the trial,
when El Chapo's lawyer stood up
to deliver
his opening argument to the jury,
and proceeded
to blame everything on El Mayo.
USA VERSUS
JOAQUÍN ARCHIVALDO GUZMÁN LOERA
OPENING STATEMENT - LICHTMAN
PROSECUTORS WILL TELL YOU
GUZMÁN IS THE WORLD'S
BIGGEST DRUG DEALER.
NOT EVEN ALLEGED
TO BE THE BIGGEST IN MEXICO.
BUT WHO IS HE?
The argument that he put forward was that,
"Oh, Chapo Guzmán might have been
the best known member
of the Sinaloa Drug Cartel,
but Mayo Zambada
was the true brains behind the operation."
Maybe at some point, they can actually
go after some of the people
that have been sitting sunning themselves
for the last 40, 50 years
and never been arrested.
Two of the star witnesses
at El Chapo's trial
were Rey Zambada, Mayo Zambada's brother,
and Vicente Zambada,
Mayo's eldest son
and heir apparent, Vicente.
[prosecutor] Your Honor, the government
calls Vicente Zambada Niebla.
THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL COURTS
DO NOT ALLOW THE RECORDING OF TRIALS.
THE TESTIMONIES ARE BASED
ON OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPTS
AND HAVE BEEN PLAYED BY ACTORS.
[prosecutor] Mr. Zambada,
where are you from?
[Vicente, in Spanish] From Culiacán,
Sinaloa, Mexico.
[prosecutor] Who is your father?
[Vicente] Ismael Zambada García.
[prosecutor] Does your father go
by any nicknames?
[Vicente] Yes, El Mayo…
is the most common one.
[Feuer, in English] And then, Rey Zambada
took the jury through
like a master-class seminar
for how the Sinaloa Cartel operated.
"Here's the structure.
Here's how the money works."
"Here's how we control the airports.
Here's how we pay off the officials."
I came to think of it,
at one point, as a blood opera.
Outlandish storytelling
from the witness stand.
Full of violence
and desire and betrayal, day after day.
[Esquivel, in Spanish]
El Chapo Guzmán's trial
gave us the most important clues
to understand
who Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada García was,
at that time when he was a fugitive.
[prosecutor, in English]
From 1975 to 1985,
your brother was involved
in heroin and marijuana.
Your brother, as in Mayo.
[Rey, in Spanish] Correct.
[film projector whirring]
[narrator, in English] The red poppy,
so beautiful and innocent-looking.
[distortion]
[narrator] The red poppy…
so beautiful and…
The red poppy, so beautiful and…
The red poppy, so beautiful
and innocent… The red poppy…
…beautiful and innocent…
[distortion fades]
[Esquivel, in Spanish]
Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada García
started working
with drug trafficking in the 1970s,
just like everyone in Sinaloa
was trafficking some kind of marijuana
or heroin, not on a large scale.
[man] I was born in 1961.
In my teenage years,
we weren't talking about drug trafficking.
We weren't talking about drug traffickers,
or about organized crime.
We called them "gomeros."
[tense music playing]
Why were they called "gomeros"?
Because with the poppies,
they scored the poppy bulbs
to release the sap,
which was very thick
and turned into a gummy product.
[narrator, in English] This is raw opium,
called "goma" in Spanish.
[in Spanish] And so it was this opium gum
that they brought from the mountains
to Tierra Blanca,
where the laboratories were,
which they then transformed into heroin
to then be exported illegally
into the United States.
[narrator, in English] Along major roads
leading to the American border,
the Mexicans
have set up inspection stations
to try to catch heroin
not destroyed in the fields.
But there is just too much traffic
and too many places
for smugglers to hide the narcotics.
Some Mexican officials grumble
that they are doing the United States
a big favor
by running
this large and expensive campaign,
because they say heroin
is an American problem
and not a Mexican problem.
[Esquivel, in Spanish] The pressure
from the US government
on Mexico causes the Mexican army
and federal police
to start getting more involved in Sinaloa.
[narrator, in English]
This is flowering season,
and 2,000 Mexican soldiers
are tramping through these high mountains
with orders to destroy
all the poppy fields they find
before the flowers can be harvested
and turned into opium and heroin
for sale to addicts in the United States.
[Clouthier, in Spanish] Who knows
how many thousands of soldiers
had come to Sinaloa
and had waged
a fierce battle against drug trafficking,
especially against the poppy growers.
The then governor of Sinaloa,
Alfonso Genaro Calderón,
says that drug trafficking
has been eradicated from Sinaloa.
Today, drug trafficking died…
but from laughter.
And we call it the cockroach effect.
-[helicopter blades whirring]
-[energetic music playing]
They did leave Sinaloa,
but they went to Jalisco.
[Esquivel] In Jalisco,
with the Guadalajara Cartel.
And this is where
El Mayo's mastery of drug trafficking
begins.
[prosecutor, in English]
Your brother started to work in cocaine?
[Rey, in Spanish]
He was working in cocaine at that time.
[prosecutor, in English]
With Miguel Félix Gallardo,
the Padrino, correct?
[Rey] Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo.
[reporter 1 in English]
Authorities say a citizen's tip
led them to the warehouse
in a North Los Angeles suburb,
where they made
the largest cocaine seizure in history.
[man] In the mid-'80s,
we became awash with huge cocaine seizures
in the Los Angeles area.
COFFEE GROWERS OF COLOMBIA
[reporter 1] Investigators believe
the cocaine came
from Colombia's two largest drug cartels.
[Bonner] Everybody thought that Miami was
the base for the Colombian organizations,
but we came to realize
that there had been a major shift.
-See the name?
-[man] What is it?
"Smuggler's Blues."
[Bonner] The Colombian
drug trafficking organizations
were having sufficient problems
with seizures and losses,
trying to move cocaine into Florida
that they made a deal
with the Guadalajara Cartel.
[reporter 2] Mexico is the springboard
for more than half the cocaine
entering the United States.
[Esquivel, in Spanish] With the arrival
of cocaine in Guadalajara,
they became the hub of drug trafficking.
[up-tempo regional Mexican music playing]
[Esquivel] Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada García
was a gunman for the Guadalajara Cartel.
El Chapo was also part of that group.
All right!
[Esquivel] El Mayo always stood out
for his courage.
For getting into shootouts with anyone.
Even fistfights.
There's a story
about La Langosta restaurant
in Guadalajara, a seafood place.
El Mayo started throwing punches
at a bunch of cops.
He challenged all three of them
to a fistfight.
And he beat them.
[upbeat music ends]
[in English]
American Enrique Camarena Salazar
went to Mexico
to fight international drug traffickers.
Today, the US drug enforcement agent
was flown home to California with honors.
A hero in a flag-draped coffin.
[Bonner] In February 1985,
the Guadalajara Cartel
kidnapped and murdered a DEA agent
named Kiki Camarena.
[tense music playing]
The US government really needed
to send a strong message
that if you kidnap or murder a DEA agent,
if you harm a DEA agent,
the US government's coming after you.
However we can get a hold of you,
and we're gonna prosecute you
and bring you to American justice.
[grunting rhythmically]
Between '85 and '89
the Mexican government
was forced to dismantle
that organization
by jailing the drug kingpins.
[reporter 1 in English]
In less than a week, 2 out of 3 heads
of Mexico's mafia-like
drug syndicate "La Familia,"
have been apprehended
and are now behind bars.
[Esquivel, in Spanish]
The triumvirate in Guadalajara was gone.
El Mayo and El Chapo went back to Sinaloa.
["El M Grande" playing]
[upbeat corrido continues]
[Esquivel] But with all they had learned,
especially El Mayo,
he replicated it very well.
What set him apart from that point on
is that he never liked the spotlight.
And he always knew
that his partner's personality,
his ambition
to take over territories to traffic drugs,
would cause problems for the business.
[man, in English]
It was just a typical day.
As always, there were cartel battles
for power that were playing out.
At that time,
Chapo was feuding with the Arellanos.
Chapo is on his way to the airport,
and Cardinal Posadas Ocampo
is also on the way to the airport.
FORMER DEA AGEN
Same time. Talk about synchronicity.
And in the parking lot,
there's a firefight that ensues.
[gunfire]
[pedestrians screaming]
[sirens wailing]
[reporter 1 in Spanish] Truly tragic news
of the events that took place
in Guadalajara, in the capital of Jalisco.
[Servín, in English]
Chapo escapes. The cardinal is dead.
[busy chatter]
[Servín] But Chapo would take the blame
for the death of the cardinal.
[reporter in Spanish]
Fifteen million new pesos,
equivalent to five million dollars,
for anyone providing information leading
to the capture of drug traffickers
Joaquín Guzmán Loera, aka El Chapo Guzmán…
[reporter 2] Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán
was captured
on the Talismán International Bridge,
across the Suchiate River,
in Guatemalan territory.
He was then handed over
to the Mexican authorities.
[reporter 3, in English]
The intended victim, in custody in Mexico,
Joaquín Guzmán,
a drug lord from the state of Sinaloa.
"EL CHAPO" ARRESTED
[in English] Chapo, after that,
became a household name.
[reporters 4 and 5] Joaquín Chapo Guzmán.
[reporter 6] El Chapo.
[reporters 7 and 8] El Chapo.
-[man, in Spanish] In the drug business?
-No.
-[man] What's your job?
-I'm a farmer.
[Servín, in English] The assassination
of Cardinal Posadas Ocampo
was a turning point
in the career of El Mayo
and El Chapo Guzmán Loera.
[in Spanish]
El Chapo Guzmán is arrested in 1993
and sent to Puente Grande prison,
and he's held there for eight years.
So, during those eight years,
El Mayo Zambada
ends up at the head,
with more responsibility,
tasked with coordinating
the Sinaloa Cartel.
And, during that time,
El Mayo Zambada took care
of co-opting and making deals
with the governors of Sinaloa,
and with the mayors
and the chiefs of the military district.
Sinaloa has, I think, the clearest example
of let's say, of a real shadow governor,
called Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.
[prosecutor, in English]
What did your brother Mayo say to you
about the defendant getting out of jail?
[Rey, in Spanish] In January 2001,
my brother came to my house in Acapulco.
[man, in English] We are now
in Acapulco, Mexico,
looking down the hill. Oh, man!
[Rey, in Spanish] He told me,
"We have to go because my buddy Chapo
is getting out of jail."
I asked him, "When's he getting out?"
And he said to me, "He's escaping."
[sirens wailing]
[speaking indistinctly]
[reporter 1] After 8 years in prison,
the kingpin would take part
in an escape right out of the movies.
STATE POLICE
[reporter 2, in English]
Guzmán escaped authorities
using money, bribes, and a laundry truck.
One of the seminal moments
in the history of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Chapo has just escaped from prison
for the first time.
Chapo is at his weakest,
most vulnerable moment.
He's been locked up for years.
The law is after him.
[Esquivel, in Spanish]
So who does he turn to?
To the boss of bosses, his compadre.
Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.
-[tense music playing]
-[helicopter blades whirring]
[Rey] My brother called me and asked me
to find a safe place
where a helicopter could land.
[whirring grows louder]
[Rey] At seven in the morning,
the helicopter appeared.
And El Chapo was in it.
My brother was happy.
[somber music playing]
[Feuer] It's an interesting dynamic
between these two cartel leaders
at that moment.
Mayo has the upper hand.
[Vicente] My buddy Chapo said
that at that time,
he wasn't doing well financially.
[in English] Mayo sees
that it's a way to consolidate power.
And so, he essentially stakes Chapo
with money.
[Vicente in Spanish] Chapo thanked him
and they agreed that, from then on,
"For every kilo of cocaine
I get from Colombia,
I'm giving you half."
Meaning, right then, they became partners.
[somber music fades]
Checking the date, that's when,
at a large scale,
the control of territories
and drug trafficking in Mexico grew.
[reporter, in English] If the US is
drowning in cocaine,
Mexico is the floodgate.
[officer] Go, go, go, go!
[energetic music playing]
[reporter 2] Drug agents say
it was shipped in every conceivable way.
[reporter 3] This year we're hiding
the cocaine in cans of jalapeño peppers.
Oh, next year, plaster statues of Jesus.
[reporter 4] They say his henchmen
stuffed cocaine
into hollowed-out cucumbers and bananas.
Thousands of them at a time.
[Feuer] From that point forward,
Mayo and Chapo
ran one of the most successful
criminal partnerships
in the annals of organized crime.
[energetic music fades]
-[assistant] So you're in silhouette.
-[man] Wow, that looks great.
-[assistant] That okay?
-[man] Yeah, looks great.
I should fix my hair, huh?
MEXICO IS WHERE YOU ARE
My name is Margarito Flores.
I was born and raised in Chicago,
in a neighborhood known as Little Village.
I have an identical twin brother
named Pedro.
My father was a known drug trafficker.
We were his helpers.
From the harvesting, to the packaging,
to the loading of the marijuana
into the gas tank.
He would teach us how to compress
the marijuana into very small packages.
He taught us how to use
a triple beam scale at a very young age.
We were not even eight years old.
For our family, the way we were raised,
it was just normal.
Our first deal was in 1998.
We made our first million dollars
before we were 18.
And the life took a hold of us.
We were moving anywhere between 1,800
and 2,200 kilos of cocaine a month
in the Chicagoland area
and surrounding cities
like Minneapolis, Milwaukee, St. Louis.
We had a system. We would receive
anywhere from 300 to 400 kilos
every three days from the Sinaloa Cartel.
The way it worked, we would meet
at the Denny's parking lot at 6:00 a.m.
The van would be parked there
with the keys
on the visor or under the mat.
It was like this weird-looking van
that looked like a kidnapper van.
And my brother hated that van
because he felt like it stood out
like a sore thumb.
We would just jump in the van,
take it to unload the drugs,
and then bring it back in,
put the keys in the same place, and leave.
After the September 11 attacks,
the cocaine prices had skyrocketed.
My brother and I had a warehouse
with a very large number of kilos.
We were able to take advantage of it.
That was really the turning point,
that we went from being,
you know, just another drug trafficker
to becoming part
of the most prominent drug traffickers.
We idolized Chapo and Mayo.
At the same time,
maybe kids growing up in Chicago
idolized Michael Jordan.
They were our Michael Jordan
and Scottie Pippen.
We had offered a million dollars
to anyone who would introduce us
to El Mayo or to El Chapo.
Looking back, it's always like,
"Be careful what you wish for."
[tense music playing]
[man] Pedro and Margarito Flores
had been well-known by law enforcement
in Chicago for quite some time.
FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR
They were the age
of street-corner drug dealers,
but… but their operation was,
I mean, it was sort of staggering in size.
How much money would they make?
Uh, a lot. Um… [chuckles]
It… it… it translates
to, um, billions of dollars.
Taking large loads,
getting them safely into the United States
and then breaking them down
into more
transportation-friendly quantities.
The most shocking piece
was just how effective it all was,
and how it almost exclusively
went through legal ports of entry.
Not just in Chicago,
but throughout the United States.
So they very quickly moved
to the top of the cartel
and sort of enjoyed most-favored customer
status with the Sinaloa Cartel.
[man] I was sworn in
on September 11, 2001.
I was hired as a special agent
with US Customs,
combating international drug trafficking
and money laundering.
The Sinaloa Cartel controlled
the majority of the US-Mexican border.
HOMELAND SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS
They had since the '90s.
'92, '93, there's the first drug tunnel
discovered in Douglas, Arizona.
Customs officials say it's like something
out of a James Bond movie.
They've dubbed it "Cocaine Alley."
[reporter] An underground tunnel
as long as a football field,
linking Mexico and Arizona.
[Balliet] It's in a warehouse,
it's on a hydraulic lift
with a pool table.
[lift whirring]
[Balliet] That really set the scale
as to the volume of narcotics
that the Sinaloa Cartel
were able to smuggle.
They must have had
quite a bit of financial backing
and had been working in drug smuggling
for quite some time.
[anchor] Thanks, Yvette.
And also the ingenuity
that went behind it.
[reporter 2] Authorities said when
the tunnel wasn't used for drug running,
the smugglers would flood it with water.
[man] Let's say we came here
with technology, trying to detect this.
It would look like an underground stream
if flooded.
It's a highly sophisticated,
uh, engineering feat.
[train horn blaring]
[sirens wailing]
[Balliet] What we were responsible for
was who controls
the biggest pieces of dirt
between the US and Mexico.
Who's making the money, who's involved
in the homicides and the kidnapping.
El Mayo Zambada
had been around for decades.
People knew about him,
but he was very strategic.
He wasn't in the spotlight.
You didn't see photos of him.
Yeah, there were narco killings
that alluded to him,
but he was fine with Chapo
taking center stage,
because he was allowed
to operate much more freely.
They did what they had to do
as far as smuggling drugs.
We did what we had to do as far
as catching 'em and putting 'em in jail.
It was a cat-and-mouse game.
[reporter 1] Chicago police have made
their largest cocaine bust ever.
They have seized
more than two tons of the drug.
One day, I turn on the TV
to watch the news,
and there on the screen
was breaking news of a 2,000-kilo seizure
at the Denny's parking lot.
[reporter 2] The largest cocaine seizure
in city history,
with a street value
of nearly 240 million dollars.
[reporter 3] Three men are in custody
being held on 500 million dollars' bond.
[Flores] The people that were supplying us
had just been arrested.
And they showed the kidnapper's van
that we had been complaining about.
We got rid of the phones,
vehicles, stash house.
And we basically accepted we were gonna
live a life on the run in Mexico.
[intense music playing]
[Flores] Once we went to Mexico,
we began working
with my father's friend Lupe.
He basically became
our main supplier of cocaine.
But we started having
a falling-out and disagreements,
and we stopped
our business relationship with him.
That made Lupe upset.
And in April 2005,
he requested a meeting with my brother.
And they violently kidnapped my brother.
[phone ringing]
[Flores] A few days later,
I picked up the phone,
and it was an individual saying
that if I didn't pay 10 million dollars,
my brother was gonna be killed.
I hung up the phone.
I was on the road,
heading towards Sinaloa.
And they put me in a bulletproof truck,
and they drove me to the outskirts
of Culiacán to a dirt cornfield.
-[ominous music playing]
-[crow caws]
They roll out the plane, I remember,
started up the plane, and he said,
"Come on. Let's go."
It was me, him, and the pilot.
"You're good," he said.
"Come on, jump in."
Um, and we took off.
And we headed towards,
um, the mountains of Sinaloa.
I started to get nervous.
Like, I'm starting to think like,
"Wow, I might not come back."
[ominous music building]
It was the side of a mountain,
and we landed uphill.
[plane engine roars]
When we got to the end of the strip,
there was a bunch of armed men.
You know, sicarios in military uniforms.
[crow caws]
Just sitting around. It's real hot.
It's summertime. In Sinaloa.
-[crow caws]
-[flies buzzing]
They walked me over to a man
that was pacing back and forth.
El Chapo.
[ominous music swells]
I was in awe, like,
I still couldn't believe
that I was meeting him.
Then he looked over at me
and took like a second take…
Like, "Who's he?"
And I thought he was expecting me.
I said to him, "Margarito Flores."
[in Spanish] "I came for my brother."
[in English] He just kind of nodded.
And he said… [in Spanish]
"Do you have the money to pay?"
[in English] And I remember telling him,
"Well, I don't own
the 10 million dollars."
And he told me,
"That's what everyone says."
And I told him, I said,
"You know, I move, you know,
an average
of 2,200 kilos a month for you."
"I'm the one that makes the payments.
I receive the drugs."
"I'm the one that does everything."
He said, "That's not what Lupe says."
"Lupe said that you owe him the money."
"You don't wanna pay."
He said, "I don't care
about the 10 million dollars."
"It's nothing to me
just to kill you
and your brother and resolve this."
[tense music playing]
And I told him…
[in Spanish] "Sir, with all due respect,
I thought a man's word
meant something in this business."
"I'm here out of trust."
"I'm here for my brother."
[in English] And he just stared at me.
And he crossed his arms like this.
He asked me, "Are you and your brother
identical twins?"
And I told him, "You guessed right."
"And you look exactly like him?"
I said, "He looks just like me."
"But a little bit uglier."
You know, I would just say that
just to break the ice. And he laughed.
He said, "I just lost my brother."
"There's no money in the world
that is worth losing your brother."
"Pay the 10 million dollars,
you come back,
and we'll continue to work together."
And my brother was released.
[engine starts]
[Flores] Five days later,
I received another phone call.
And he said,
"The boss is… is waiting for you."
We headed to Culiacán.
I remember that the property had,
maybe, like, at least 15-foot walls.
And when the doors opened up,
there was a group of maybe 12, 14 men.
[unsettling music rises]
But, you know, I saw a hat.
Instantly, I knew. It was him.
He shook my hand and he said,
"Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada."
"Finally, I get to meet the famous twins."
"Oh, my God, man, you guys are identical,"
he said.
"Which is the one that we had tied up?"
"You, it had to be you! Look at you!
How are you feeling?"
"How many kilos are you selling?"
And then we told him,
and he'd be like… "Pfft!"
"Imagine you guys were triplets."
"Imagine how much money
you would be making."
He told everyone,
"Look, these guys right here,
they're special."
"Moving that quantity of drugs
in the United States is impossible."
He said,
"I tried it, and I'm Mayo Zambada."
That's when I knew that we were
at the top of the cartel world.
For many drug traffickers,
they'll say it like…
[in Spanish]
"I'm one of Chapo Guzmán's people."
[in English] But saying you were
one of Mayo Zambada's people
was just different.
That was the team you wanted to be on.
We gained his respect as businessmen.
"You're a lot like me," he said.
"I've been Mayo Zambada
for over 30 years."
He spoke about himself
in the third person at times.
He wouldn't speak about it
in like this gloating…
He would speak about it
as a matter of fact.
You know, like,
"That's why I'm Mayo Zambada."
100%, he knew exactly who he was.
-[man, in Spanish] Hey, friend.
-[El Mayo] Yes?
[man] Do you belong to Sinaloa?
[El Mayo] No, buddy.
Sinaloa belongs to me.
[playing "El MZ"]
[upbeat narcocorrido continues]
POLICE
ARMY
[tense music rises]
[helicopter blades whirring]
[man, in Spanish]
Mayo Zambada was a different breed
with a different way of thinking
about criminal work.
So, our intelligence work,
we did it in a compartmentalized way.
If fewer people knew about our intentions,
we could have the element of surprise.
We would leave early,
at six in the morning,
and switch routes along the way.
Every time we landed,
there was no one there.
They had all left.
It made us feel a certain level
of powerlessness, a degree of frustration.
People have no…
They have no idea how difficult it is
to carry out an operation of this kind.
[indistinct chatter]
I mean, it seems unbelievable, but…
we didn't have a picture
of Ismael Zambada García.
-[man 1] It's secured. It's down.
-[man 2] Looks like one's missing.
[indistinct shouting]
[Aguilera] In an operation
carried out in 2001,
my people found pictures
that were left in a vehicle
that we thought was being used there
by El Mayo Zambada.
And it was there
that we got a picture of his face.
[officer] Why was Zambada García's ID
in your truck?
[Torres] Because he left it there.
[officer] Why?
[Torres] He left it there.
[officer] Oh, so he was with you?
[Torres] Yes, he was. He was there.
It was an ID, which had his picture
but another name on it, obviously.
[interviewer] Could it be this one?
-Let's see.
-[interviewer] Look.
-Was it this one?
-That's it. Mm-hmm. That's the one.
[dramatic music playing]
[Balliet, in English]
Before this, he was like a phantom.
But now, like, the…
the guy actually existed.
[Aguilera, in Spanish] The fact we had
a picture, a very recent one…
Well, it was crucial
to be able to reach the culmination,
which is apprehending them.
[news fanfare playing]
[in English] Wanna see the face of evil?
Well, here it is.
The DEA says he's one of the most vicious
and wealthy drug lords.
And that he stops at nothing,
and I mean nothing,
to grab power and hold on to it.
[announcer] Mexican police
say he looks like this photo.
The DEA has plastered it
on huge billboards along highways
between Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona.
[man] The Department of Justice today
is announcing the indictment
charging Ismael Zambada García
with conspiracy
to import and distribute cocaine.
[reporter] Where is Zambada García now?
He is, uh, believed to be in Mexico.
Uh, but he is not in custody in Mexico.
[reporter] Have you come close
to catching him
as part of this investigation?
We do not believe that we have had, uh…
uh, an opportunity
that was sort of a near miss.
The Mexican officials
have arrested some individuals
in this particular matter,
but it… they do not include,
uh, Zambada García.
Yes, sir?
[festive music playing]
Namaste. Namaste.
[Aguilera, in Spanish] We carried out
operations to bring about his capture.
By gathering intelligence,
we found out that Ismael liked to go,
on the first day of spring,
he liked to go to Chichén Itzá.
[bright music playing]
[woman, in English] Welcome
to Chichén Itzá in southern Mexico.
We're here today to celebrate
Sun-Earth Day and the Spring Equinox.
[exclaims]
He was very into mysticism.
He liked to go there and get
all the rays and energy and all that.
People say we won't find anything here,
but if we go up the pillar of the pyramid,
that's why the energy flows downwards,
and we are going to receive it here.
So, we carried out an operation there.
We went as tourists,
with shorts, baseball caps.
We spread out
all around the Chichén Itzá pyramid.
We went there to try to capture him.
-[man] Huh?
-[woman replies]
[man, in French]
Look, the police are up there.
[woman] Yes, the police.
[Aguilera, in Spanish] Unfortunately,
there were thousands of people there.
[woman, in English] Hey,
let's look at Kukulcán. Here it comes!
[in Spanish] Look at Kukulcán!
[in English] People are just going crazy
out there!
[in Spanish] We don't know if he was there
or if he didn't show up that time
for his usual routine.
But that time, I don't know if…
We didn't see him.
[crowd's chatter distorting]
[chatter fades]
[cows mooing]
[Flores, in English] I think what made
El Mayo Zambada unique was his simplicity.
El Mayo was like a cowboy.
He loved that rancher life.
Cows and bulls and horses and agriculture.
There was one occasion
when we went to this ranch,
and he had bought these really expensive
million-dollar Swiss bulls.
And he was so happy,
like he was a kid getting a new toy.
And… he went and he said,
"Look, these are balls, for real."
[mooing]
[laughing] Like,
grabbing the bull's balls.
I mean, he took two hands, you know?
The bull had big balls.
[pensive music playing]
AKA "EL MAYO" - BORN 1/30/1950
[Flores] El Mayo Zambada
had many children.
Vicente Zambada.
Ismael, "El Mayito Gordo,"
Ismael, "El Mayito Flaco."
And then he had
a younger son named Serafín.
[Balliet] Chapo Guzmán, he had
at least six sons with different women.
With Griselda,
he had Ovidio, Joaquín, Édgar.
And then with Alejandrina,
he had Jesús Alfredo and Iván.
By and large, they all kind of viewed
each other as a… a blended family.
[Flores] I met Vicente
on the same day I met El Mayo.
He stood up right away.
He had an AR-15 on his back shoulder.
Mayo Zambada, he said,
"This is my son." Like, proud.
And they called him "El Niño."
The child.
Not just any child, but the child.
You know, he is the Simba
of this tribe of lions, right?
He who was gonna be the king.
[dramatic string music playing]
Later on, when I started to meet
all the other narco juniors,
they were nothing like him.
First reaction
when I'm meeting Édgar Guzmán,
who was Chapo Guzmán's son…
He was younger, and I could tell
he had like a chip on his shoulder.
Making big moves in the cartel
and built his name in the organization.
Just different from Vicente.
[Esquivel, in Spanish]
Édgar, Chapo Guzmán's firstborn,
was a guy, a young man,
who liked to show that he had money.
There are several stories
of how he would arrive at the nightclubs
and wanted, as we say in Mexico,
to poach the other guys' girlfriends.
If he liked the girl,
he would send his security
to tell the young guy
who was with the girl he liked
that he had better give up
the girl he was with.
If not, they would kill him.
Or at least, they'd give him
a beating he would never forget.
[Flores, in English] They don't know much
about the business and stuff.
It was a lot about the party aspect of it.
They're younger, and so they're partying
and drinking and doing cocaine.
All the time.
Like, they're the heirs, right?
You know, with money and power.
It was a unity of family.
Of the Zambadas, the Guzmáns.
It's like a family gathering of cousins.
I, for a long time,
thought that it was one happy cartel.
And little by little,
I started to see that… it wasn't there.
So, at that time, the Sinaloa Cartel
was made out of three factions.
Arturo Beltrán Leyva organization,
and his brothers.
The Mayo Zambada organization.
And the Chapo Guzmán organization.
We had a very close business relationship
with all three of 'em.
But there was inner disputes for,
you know, jealousy and drug routes.
And… it was starting to boil over.
[crowd clamoring]
[in Spanish] As Mexicans,
we demand to live securely.
PRESIDENT OF MEXICO
2006-2012
In peace, without fear or anxiety.
The people demand an end
to corruption, impunity, and injustice.
The people want a return
to peace and stability.
[crowd applauds]
[Valdés] When Felipe Calderón
won the presidency,
we were at a very difficult moment
due to the outbreak of extreme violence.
There were already four wars going on.
[reporter 1] The executions
being reported every day
are the result of a reshuffling
among the drug cartels
and a turf war.
[Valdés] So, a new conflict begins,
of the most violent kind,
with the breakup of the Sinaloa Cartel.
[reporter 2] They were tied hand and foot,
and showed signs of torture.
They also found three messages, addressed
to Chapo Guzmán and Mayo Zambada.
[Valdés] El Chapo wanted to get rid
of the Beltrán Leyva brothers.
Why? Because what they were fighting
for was… control of the business.
And he said,
"I'd better take them out first."
And he sends El Mochomo to jail.
[crowd murmuring]
[officer] Alfredo Beltrán Leyva,
aka "El Mochomo,"
is considered to be
one of the leading bosses
in the structure of the organization.
[Valdés] The tip-off to arrest El Mochomo
came from Chapo Guzmán.
It was very big news.
What we didn't expect was
that this was going to start a war.
[multiple gunshots]
[dogs barking in distance]
[Balliet, in English] Édgar, who was
in his early twenties at the time,
was shot and killed
in a Culiacán supermarket,
with like hundreds of rounds.
It was overkill.
[solemn music playing]
That was retribution for turning Mochomo
in to the Mexican authorities.
[Esquivel, in Spanish] In a land
of anarchy, Édgar felt untouchable.
And maybe he was.
But not among the criminals.
[Flores, in English] Soon after,
I was able to give Chapo
my condolences about his son, and…
And he kind of did a double take,
and he said, "Thank you, man."
[in Spanish] Like, "Thank you." Yeah.
[Esquivel, in Spanish]
The bosses' families were untouchable.
And that unwritten rule had been broken.
[man] It's a very quiet town,
which tonight was turned into a war zone.
[gunfire]
El Chapo reacted violently too.
[Flores, in English]
For the Mexican drug cartel world,
that was basically World War III.
[cell phone ringing]
[Flores] And then after that,
sometime in 2008,
we received a call from a lieutenant,
from Mayo Zambada.
Explaining to us that El Mayo
was on the phone listening.
And he basically said, "Look," he said,
"This is a friendly warning."
"We only give this warning once."
"If we find out that you receive one gram
of coke from any of the Beltrán Leyvas…
you're gonna pay for that with your life."
Mm, I said, "Understood."
[unsettling music playing]
Now we were in the middle of a war.
My intuition told me
that it wasn't gonna end well.
[ominous music fades]
[Ferrara] Out of the blue,
the Flores twins reached out,
and said that they wanted to cooperate
with the US government.
It was something we couldn't even believe
we were saying out of our mouths.
"I wanna cooperate."
I said,
"This is a matter of life and death.
You have to understand that."
"There's no turning back."
"This is gonna be at the highest levels."
And they said,
"Who do they have information about?"
And my lawyer repeated the names.
"Chapo Guzmán. El Mayo Zambada."
So he said, "Are you fucking with me?"
The government needed evidence
of the bosses doing deals.
And that was gonna be,
you know, hard work.
I was more worried about El Mayo Zambada.
Like, Mayo, he could be
in the damn mountains all the time.
He took his security very, very seriously.
He was very careful on… on the people
that he brought around him
and then the people
that were close to him.
[intriguing music rises]
[phones ringing]
[woman, in Spanish]
My dad, Julio Scherer García,
was one of the few journalists
beyond reproach.
He had a long and well-established career.
My dad was going
to protect his source to the fullest.
[Esquivel] He's one
of the best journalists,
if not the best journalist
that Mexico has ever had.
As a reporter for Proceso magazine,
I have, in a way, felt lucky
to be part of the journalistic institution
founded by Mr. Julio Scherer.
[María] In March or April 2010,
he told us
that someone turned up at Proceso.
"He's taking me, I don't know where,
to meet Ismael Zambada."
So, I was very nervous.
Um…
Well, he was one
of the most wanted criminals in the world.
What I'm absolutely sure of
is that no one told him, "Don't go."
No, no one would have thought of doing
that, firstly, because we knew my dad.
What my dad says is,
"If the devil offered me an interview,
I'd go to hell to get it."
[bright music playing]
He flew to some point
in the northeast, Sinaloa.
A few hours later,
they took him to a place in the mountains.
This is the description my dad gave.
"On a surface of hard-packed earth
and under a roof made of logs and reeds,
we had arrived at the boss's hideout,
whose head was worth millions of dollars."
"Ismael Zambada received me
with an outstretched hand
and some words of welcome."
"He was very interested in meeting me."
"'Thank you very much,' I replied."
It was El Mayo's first interview.
[phone ringing]
[Esquivel] My phone rang,
and it was a DEA agent.
And they said to me,
"Have you seen your magazine?"
"Julio is on the cover with El Mayo!"
IN MAYO ZAMBADA'S LAIR
[music swells]
[Esquivel] Well, it left me speechless.
It was the best-kept secret at Proceso.
[intense music playing]
That was the most up-to-date photo
any government had
of Zambada García at that time.
[chuckles] It was quite the event
and a show of defiance.
To say, "Here I am.
I've been hanging out here."
"I can afford to bring Mexico's
top journalist to take a picture."
"This is where we'll be."
[María] "Is there a place
for peace within you?"
"I carry fear."
"All the time?" "Always."
"Will they catch you in the end?"
"Any moment now. Or never."
[tense music cuts out]
[ominous, rhythmic music playing]
[sirens wailing]
[man 1] If you want to know
who controls a territory,
ask the people.
ARMY
It's the people who will tell you
whether the government
or the mafia is in charge.
And in Sinaloa, the mafia
has been in control for many years.
MISSING
And the people know it.
STATE POLICE
Who runs a mafia?
Well, the biggest badass, of course.
Everyone would tell you
El Mayo was the one in charge.
Here, he was called
"The Man with the Hat."
[somber music playing]
[man 2] Drug traffickers would say,
"No, you don't talk about El Mayo."
Because they knew
that if they opened their mouths,
it might be the last time
they ever got the chance.
That's how much fear and respect
they had for a man
like Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada García.
The boss of bosses.
[music intensifies]
JULY 25, 2024
July 25, 2024,
would become a turning point
in the history of drug trafficking
in Mexico.
[man 1] The mafia
respects even its enemies.
What it will not tolerate is betrayal.
[somber music continues]
[El Mayo] On July 25, 2024,
I went to the ranch and event center
called Huertos del Pedregal,
on the outskirts of Culiacán.
The meeting was scheduled
for 11 o'clock in the morning.
I saw armed men
wearing green military uniforms,
who I assumed were gunmen working
for Joaquín Guzmán and his brothers.
CHAPO'S SONS
"LOS CHAPITOS"
I saw Joaquín Guzmán López,
whom I have known since he was a child.
Trusting the meeting was legitimate,
I followed him without hesitation.
They had set me up.
A group of men attacked me,
threw me to the ground,
and pulled a dark hood over my head.
[engine turns over]
[horns honking]
[El Mayo] They tied me up, handcuffed me,
and forced me into the back of a truck.
[dramatic music playing]
[El Mayo] They took me to an airstrip,
where they forced me onto a private plane.
[reporter 1] A founder
of the Sinaloa Cartel,
Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada,
was arrested in the United States
alongside Joaquín Guzmán López.
[reporter 2, in English] He was arrested
alongside the son of El Chapo.
[man 3, in Spanish] El Mayo Zambada,
the untouchable one.
The one who had managed
to avoid arrest for half a century.
The one who had never set foot in a jail.
They landed in the hands of the FBI.
[reporter 3, in English] The circumstances
of how those men ended up
at a rural airstrip tonight,
still not explained
by federal authorities.
But no sources have suggested
they took a wrong turn in midair.
[reporter 4, in Spanish] It's something
out of a drug-trafficking novel.
[intense music playing]
THE FALL OF EL MAYO
[intense music fades]
6 YEARS EARLIER
NOVEMBER 5, 2018
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
[reporter 1, in English] The trial,
expected to last four months
or more, has started.
[reporter 2] Security is extremely tight
outside the federal courthouse,
as Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán
goes on trial.
Police are closing down
the Brooklyn Bridge
every time Guzmán is transported
from prison to the courtroom.
[man 1] Guzmán's destructive
and murderous rise
as an international narcotics trafficker
is akin to that of a small cancerous tumor
that metastasized
and grew into a full-blown scourge.
[man 2] This is a powerful individual,
a powerful criminal.
The most notorious criminal
of modern times.
[excited chatter]
[man 3, in Spanish]
When El Chapo's trial began,
I remember arriving with a colleague.
I started laughing.
Why? Because I saw the armored vehicles,
the entire federal building surrounded.
What were they expecting?
That Sinaloa Cartel gunmen
would come out of the subway
or swoop in
on helicopters or small planes?
"We've come to get our boss!"
This was El Chapo.
That was the image
the DEA had created around him.
[tense string music playing]
[man, in English] Mayo and Chapo were,
for the better part of 25 years,
central figures in the Sinaloa Cartel.
But they could not have been
stylistically more different.
El Chapo was ostentatious,
an iconic public figure.
Whereas Mayo Zambada was,
for the entirety
of his 40- to 50-year career, a ghost.
El Mayo was very much present
in the larger story of this trial.
In fact,
on the very first day of the trial,
when El Chapo's lawyer stood up
to deliver
his opening argument to the jury,
and proceeded
to blame everything on El Mayo.
USA VERSUS
JOAQUÍN ARCHIVALDO GUZMÁN LOERA
OPENING STATEMENT - LICHTMAN
PROSECUTORS WILL TELL YOU
GUZMÁN IS THE WORLD'S
BIGGEST DRUG DEALER.
NOT EVEN ALLEGED
TO BE THE BIGGEST IN MEXICO.
BUT WHO IS HE?
The argument that he put forward was that,
"Oh, Chapo Guzmán might have been
the best known member
of the Sinaloa Drug Cartel,
but Mayo Zambada
was the true brains behind the operation."
Maybe at some point, they can actually
go after some of the people
that have been sitting sunning themselves
for the last 40, 50 years
and never been arrested.
Two of the star witnesses
at El Chapo's trial
were Rey Zambada, Mayo Zambada's brother,
and Vicente Zambada,
Mayo's eldest son
and heir apparent, Vicente.
[prosecutor] Your Honor, the government
calls Vicente Zambada Niebla.
THE UNITED STATES FEDERAL COURTS
DO NOT ALLOW THE RECORDING OF TRIALS.
THE TESTIMONIES ARE BASED
ON OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPTS
AND HAVE BEEN PLAYED BY ACTORS.
[prosecutor] Mr. Zambada,
where are you from?
[Vicente, in Spanish] From Culiacán,
Sinaloa, Mexico.
[prosecutor] Who is your father?
[Vicente] Ismael Zambada García.
[prosecutor] Does your father go
by any nicknames?
[Vicente] Yes, El Mayo…
is the most common one.
[Feuer, in English] And then, Rey Zambada
took the jury through
like a master-class seminar
for how the Sinaloa Cartel operated.
"Here's the structure.
Here's how the money works."
"Here's how we control the airports.
Here's how we pay off the officials."
I came to think of it,
at one point, as a blood opera.
Outlandish storytelling
from the witness stand.
Full of violence
and desire and betrayal, day after day.
[Esquivel, in Spanish]
El Chapo Guzmán's trial
gave us the most important clues
to understand
who Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada García was,
at that time when he was a fugitive.
[prosecutor, in English]
From 1975 to 1985,
your brother was involved
in heroin and marijuana.
Your brother, as in Mayo.
[Rey, in Spanish] Correct.
[film projector whirring]
[narrator, in English] The red poppy,
so beautiful and innocent-looking.
[distortion]
[narrator] The red poppy…
so beautiful and…
The red poppy, so beautiful and…
The red poppy, so beautiful
and innocent… The red poppy…
…beautiful and innocent…
[distortion fades]
[Esquivel, in Spanish]
Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada García
started working
with drug trafficking in the 1970s,
just like everyone in Sinaloa
was trafficking some kind of marijuana
or heroin, not on a large scale.
[man] I was born in 1961.
In my teenage years,
we weren't talking about drug trafficking.
We weren't talking about drug traffickers,
or about organized crime.
We called them "gomeros."
[tense music playing]
Why were they called "gomeros"?
Because with the poppies,
they scored the poppy bulbs
to release the sap,
which was very thick
and turned into a gummy product.
[narrator, in English] This is raw opium,
called "goma" in Spanish.
[in Spanish] And so it was this opium gum
that they brought from the mountains
to Tierra Blanca,
where the laboratories were,
which they then transformed into heroin
to then be exported illegally
into the United States.
[narrator, in English] Along major roads
leading to the American border,
the Mexicans
have set up inspection stations
to try to catch heroin
not destroyed in the fields.
But there is just too much traffic
and too many places
for smugglers to hide the narcotics.
Some Mexican officials grumble
that they are doing the United States
a big favor
by running
this large and expensive campaign,
because they say heroin
is an American problem
and not a Mexican problem.
[Esquivel, in Spanish] The pressure
from the US government
on Mexico causes the Mexican army
and federal police
to start getting more involved in Sinaloa.
[narrator, in English]
This is flowering season,
and 2,000 Mexican soldiers
are tramping through these high mountains
with orders to destroy
all the poppy fields they find
before the flowers can be harvested
and turned into opium and heroin
for sale to addicts in the United States.
[Clouthier, in Spanish] Who knows
how many thousands of soldiers
had come to Sinaloa
and had waged
a fierce battle against drug trafficking,
especially against the poppy growers.
The then governor of Sinaloa,
Alfonso Genaro Calderón,
says that drug trafficking
has been eradicated from Sinaloa.
Today, drug trafficking died…
but from laughter.
And we call it the cockroach effect.
-[helicopter blades whirring]
-[energetic music playing]
They did leave Sinaloa,
but they went to Jalisco.
[Esquivel] In Jalisco,
with the Guadalajara Cartel.
And this is where
El Mayo's mastery of drug trafficking
begins.
[prosecutor, in English]
Your brother started to work in cocaine?
[Rey, in Spanish]
He was working in cocaine at that time.
[prosecutor, in English]
With Miguel Félix Gallardo,
the Padrino, correct?
[Rey] Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo.
[reporter 1 in English]
Authorities say a citizen's tip
led them to the warehouse
in a North Los Angeles suburb,
where they made
the largest cocaine seizure in history.
[man] In the mid-'80s,
we became awash with huge cocaine seizures
in the Los Angeles area.
COFFEE GROWERS OF COLOMBIA
[reporter 1] Investigators believe
the cocaine came
from Colombia's two largest drug cartels.
[Bonner] Everybody thought that Miami was
the base for the Colombian organizations,
but we came to realize
that there had been a major shift.
-See the name?
-[man] What is it?
"Smuggler's Blues."
[Bonner] The Colombian
drug trafficking organizations
were having sufficient problems
with seizures and losses,
trying to move cocaine into Florida
that they made a deal
with the Guadalajara Cartel.
[reporter 2] Mexico is the springboard
for more than half the cocaine
entering the United States.
[Esquivel, in Spanish] With the arrival
of cocaine in Guadalajara,
they became the hub of drug trafficking.
[up-tempo regional Mexican music playing]
[Esquivel] Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada García
was a gunman for the Guadalajara Cartel.
El Chapo was also part of that group.
All right!
[Esquivel] El Mayo always stood out
for his courage.
For getting into shootouts with anyone.
Even fistfights.
There's a story
about La Langosta restaurant
in Guadalajara, a seafood place.
El Mayo started throwing punches
at a bunch of cops.
He challenged all three of them
to a fistfight.
And he beat them.
[upbeat music ends]
[in English]
American Enrique Camarena Salazar
went to Mexico
to fight international drug traffickers.
Today, the US drug enforcement agent
was flown home to California with honors.
A hero in a flag-draped coffin.
[Bonner] In February 1985,
the Guadalajara Cartel
kidnapped and murdered a DEA agent
named Kiki Camarena.
[tense music playing]
The US government really needed
to send a strong message
that if you kidnap or murder a DEA agent,
if you harm a DEA agent,
the US government's coming after you.
However we can get a hold of you,
and we're gonna prosecute you
and bring you to American justice.
[grunting rhythmically]
Between '85 and '89
the Mexican government
was forced to dismantle
that organization
by jailing the drug kingpins.
[reporter 1 in English]
In less than a week, 2 out of 3 heads
of Mexico's mafia-like
drug syndicate "La Familia,"
have been apprehended
and are now behind bars.
[Esquivel, in Spanish]
The triumvirate in Guadalajara was gone.
El Mayo and El Chapo went back to Sinaloa.
["El M Grande" playing]
[upbeat corrido continues]
[Esquivel] But with all they had learned,
especially El Mayo,
he replicated it very well.
What set him apart from that point on
is that he never liked the spotlight.
And he always knew
that his partner's personality,
his ambition
to take over territories to traffic drugs,
would cause problems for the business.
[man, in English]
It was just a typical day.
As always, there were cartel battles
for power that were playing out.
At that time,
Chapo was feuding with the Arellanos.
Chapo is on his way to the airport,
and Cardinal Posadas Ocampo
is also on the way to the airport.
FORMER DEA AGEN
Same time. Talk about synchronicity.
And in the parking lot,
there's a firefight that ensues.
[gunfire]
[pedestrians screaming]
[sirens wailing]
[reporter 1 in Spanish] Truly tragic news
of the events that took place
in Guadalajara, in the capital of Jalisco.
[Servín, in English]
Chapo escapes. The cardinal is dead.
[busy chatter]
[Servín] But Chapo would take the blame
for the death of the cardinal.
[reporter in Spanish]
Fifteen million new pesos,
equivalent to five million dollars,
for anyone providing information leading
to the capture of drug traffickers
Joaquín Guzmán Loera, aka El Chapo Guzmán…
[reporter 2] Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán
was captured
on the Talismán International Bridge,
across the Suchiate River,
in Guatemalan territory.
He was then handed over
to the Mexican authorities.
[reporter 3, in English]
The intended victim, in custody in Mexico,
Joaquín Guzmán,
a drug lord from the state of Sinaloa.
"EL CHAPO" ARRESTED
[in English] Chapo, after that,
became a household name.
[reporters 4 and 5] Joaquín Chapo Guzmán.
[reporter 6] El Chapo.
[reporters 7 and 8] El Chapo.
-[man, in Spanish] In the drug business?
-No.
-[man] What's your job?
-I'm a farmer.
[Servín, in English] The assassination
of Cardinal Posadas Ocampo
was a turning point
in the career of El Mayo
and El Chapo Guzmán Loera.
[in Spanish]
El Chapo Guzmán is arrested in 1993
and sent to Puente Grande prison,
and he's held there for eight years.
So, during those eight years,
El Mayo Zambada
ends up at the head,
with more responsibility,
tasked with coordinating
the Sinaloa Cartel.
And, during that time,
El Mayo Zambada took care
of co-opting and making deals
with the governors of Sinaloa,
and with the mayors
and the chiefs of the military district.
Sinaloa has, I think, the clearest example
of let's say, of a real shadow governor,
called Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.
[prosecutor, in English]
What did your brother Mayo say to you
about the defendant getting out of jail?
[Rey, in Spanish] In January 2001,
my brother came to my house in Acapulco.
[man, in English] We are now
in Acapulco, Mexico,
looking down the hill. Oh, man!
[Rey, in Spanish] He told me,
"We have to go because my buddy Chapo
is getting out of jail."
I asked him, "When's he getting out?"
And he said to me, "He's escaping."
[sirens wailing]
[speaking indistinctly]
[reporter 1] After 8 years in prison,
the kingpin would take part
in an escape right out of the movies.
STATE POLICE
[reporter 2, in English]
Guzmán escaped authorities
using money, bribes, and a laundry truck.
One of the seminal moments
in the history of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Chapo has just escaped from prison
for the first time.
Chapo is at his weakest,
most vulnerable moment.
He's been locked up for years.
The law is after him.
[Esquivel, in Spanish]
So who does he turn to?
To the boss of bosses, his compadre.
Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.
-[tense music playing]
-[helicopter blades whirring]
[Rey] My brother called me and asked me
to find a safe place
where a helicopter could land.
[whirring grows louder]
[Rey] At seven in the morning,
the helicopter appeared.
And El Chapo was in it.
My brother was happy.
[somber music playing]
[Feuer] It's an interesting dynamic
between these two cartel leaders
at that moment.
Mayo has the upper hand.
[Vicente] My buddy Chapo said
that at that time,
he wasn't doing well financially.
[in English] Mayo sees
that it's a way to consolidate power.
And so, he essentially stakes Chapo
with money.
[Vicente in Spanish] Chapo thanked him
and they agreed that, from then on,
"For every kilo of cocaine
I get from Colombia,
I'm giving you half."
Meaning, right then, they became partners.
[somber music fades]
Checking the date, that's when,
at a large scale,
the control of territories
and drug trafficking in Mexico grew.
[reporter, in English] If the US is
drowning in cocaine,
Mexico is the floodgate.
[officer] Go, go, go, go!
[energetic music playing]
[reporter 2] Drug agents say
it was shipped in every conceivable way.
[reporter 3] This year we're hiding
the cocaine in cans of jalapeño peppers.
Oh, next year, plaster statues of Jesus.
[reporter 4] They say his henchmen
stuffed cocaine
into hollowed-out cucumbers and bananas.
Thousands of them at a time.
[Feuer] From that point forward,
Mayo and Chapo
ran one of the most successful
criminal partnerships
in the annals of organized crime.
[energetic music fades]
-[assistant] So you're in silhouette.
-[man] Wow, that looks great.
-[assistant] That okay?
-[man] Yeah, looks great.
I should fix my hair, huh?
MEXICO IS WHERE YOU ARE
My name is Margarito Flores.
I was born and raised in Chicago,
in a neighborhood known as Little Village.
I have an identical twin brother
named Pedro.
My father was a known drug trafficker.
We were his helpers.
From the harvesting, to the packaging,
to the loading of the marijuana
into the gas tank.
He would teach us how to compress
the marijuana into very small packages.
He taught us how to use
a triple beam scale at a very young age.
We were not even eight years old.
For our family, the way we were raised,
it was just normal.
Our first deal was in 1998.
We made our first million dollars
before we were 18.
And the life took a hold of us.
We were moving anywhere between 1,800
and 2,200 kilos of cocaine a month
in the Chicagoland area
and surrounding cities
like Minneapolis, Milwaukee, St. Louis.
We had a system. We would receive
anywhere from 300 to 400 kilos
every three days from the Sinaloa Cartel.
The way it worked, we would meet
at the Denny's parking lot at 6:00 a.m.
The van would be parked there
with the keys
on the visor or under the mat.
It was like this weird-looking van
that looked like a kidnapper van.
And my brother hated that van
because he felt like it stood out
like a sore thumb.
We would just jump in the van,
take it to unload the drugs,
and then bring it back in,
put the keys in the same place, and leave.
After the September 11 attacks,
the cocaine prices had skyrocketed.
My brother and I had a warehouse
with a very large number of kilos.
We were able to take advantage of it.
That was really the turning point,
that we went from being,
you know, just another drug trafficker
to becoming part
of the most prominent drug traffickers.
We idolized Chapo and Mayo.
At the same time,
maybe kids growing up in Chicago
idolized Michael Jordan.
They were our Michael Jordan
and Scottie Pippen.
We had offered a million dollars
to anyone who would introduce us
to El Mayo or to El Chapo.
Looking back, it's always like,
"Be careful what you wish for."
[tense music playing]
[man] Pedro and Margarito Flores
had been well-known by law enforcement
in Chicago for quite some time.
FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR
They were the age
of street-corner drug dealers,
but… but their operation was,
I mean, it was sort of staggering in size.
How much money would they make?
Uh, a lot. Um… [chuckles]
It… it… it translates
to, um, billions of dollars.
Taking large loads,
getting them safely into the United States
and then breaking them down
into more
transportation-friendly quantities.
The most shocking piece
was just how effective it all was,
and how it almost exclusively
went through legal ports of entry.
Not just in Chicago,
but throughout the United States.
So they very quickly moved
to the top of the cartel
and sort of enjoyed most-favored customer
status with the Sinaloa Cartel.
[man] I was sworn in
on September 11, 2001.
I was hired as a special agent
with US Customs,
combating international drug trafficking
and money laundering.
The Sinaloa Cartel controlled
the majority of the US-Mexican border.
HOMELAND SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS
They had since the '90s.
'92, '93, there's the first drug tunnel
discovered in Douglas, Arizona.
Customs officials say it's like something
out of a James Bond movie.
They've dubbed it "Cocaine Alley."
[reporter] An underground tunnel
as long as a football field,
linking Mexico and Arizona.
[Balliet] It's in a warehouse,
it's on a hydraulic lift
with a pool table.
[lift whirring]
[Balliet] That really set the scale
as to the volume of narcotics
that the Sinaloa Cartel
were able to smuggle.
They must have had
quite a bit of financial backing
and had been working in drug smuggling
for quite some time.
[anchor] Thanks, Yvette.
And also the ingenuity
that went behind it.
[reporter 2] Authorities said when
the tunnel wasn't used for drug running,
the smugglers would flood it with water.
[man] Let's say we came here
with technology, trying to detect this.
It would look like an underground stream
if flooded.
It's a highly sophisticated,
uh, engineering feat.
[train horn blaring]
[sirens wailing]
[Balliet] What we were responsible for
was who controls
the biggest pieces of dirt
between the US and Mexico.
Who's making the money, who's involved
in the homicides and the kidnapping.
El Mayo Zambada
had been around for decades.
People knew about him,
but he was very strategic.
He wasn't in the spotlight.
You didn't see photos of him.
Yeah, there were narco killings
that alluded to him,
but he was fine with Chapo
taking center stage,
because he was allowed
to operate much more freely.
They did what they had to do
as far as smuggling drugs.
We did what we had to do as far
as catching 'em and putting 'em in jail.
It was a cat-and-mouse game.
[reporter 1] Chicago police have made
their largest cocaine bust ever.
They have seized
more than two tons of the drug.
One day, I turn on the TV
to watch the news,
and there on the screen
was breaking news of a 2,000-kilo seizure
at the Denny's parking lot.
[reporter 2] The largest cocaine seizure
in city history,
with a street value
of nearly 240 million dollars.
[reporter 3] Three men are in custody
being held on 500 million dollars' bond.
[Flores] The people that were supplying us
had just been arrested.
And they showed the kidnapper's van
that we had been complaining about.
We got rid of the phones,
vehicles, stash house.
And we basically accepted we were gonna
live a life on the run in Mexico.
[intense music playing]
[Flores] Once we went to Mexico,
we began working
with my father's friend Lupe.
He basically became
our main supplier of cocaine.
But we started having
a falling-out and disagreements,
and we stopped
our business relationship with him.
That made Lupe upset.
And in April 2005,
he requested a meeting with my brother.
And they violently kidnapped my brother.
[phone ringing]
[Flores] A few days later,
I picked up the phone,
and it was an individual saying
that if I didn't pay 10 million dollars,
my brother was gonna be killed.
I hung up the phone.
I was on the road,
heading towards Sinaloa.
And they put me in a bulletproof truck,
and they drove me to the outskirts
of Culiacán to a dirt cornfield.
-[ominous music playing]
-[crow caws]
They roll out the plane, I remember,
started up the plane, and he said,
"Come on. Let's go."
It was me, him, and the pilot.
"You're good," he said.
"Come on, jump in."
Um, and we took off.
And we headed towards,
um, the mountains of Sinaloa.
I started to get nervous.
Like, I'm starting to think like,
"Wow, I might not come back."
[ominous music building]
It was the side of a mountain,
and we landed uphill.
[plane engine roars]
When we got to the end of the strip,
there was a bunch of armed men.
You know, sicarios in military uniforms.
[crow caws]
Just sitting around. It's real hot.
It's summertime. In Sinaloa.
-[crow caws]
-[flies buzzing]
They walked me over to a man
that was pacing back and forth.
El Chapo.
[ominous music swells]
I was in awe, like,
I still couldn't believe
that I was meeting him.
Then he looked over at me
and took like a second take…
Like, "Who's he?"
And I thought he was expecting me.
I said to him, "Margarito Flores."
[in Spanish] "I came for my brother."
[in English] He just kind of nodded.
And he said… [in Spanish]
"Do you have the money to pay?"
[in English] And I remember telling him,
"Well, I don't own
the 10 million dollars."
And he told me,
"That's what everyone says."
And I told him, I said,
"You know, I move, you know,
an average
of 2,200 kilos a month for you."
"I'm the one that makes the payments.
I receive the drugs."
"I'm the one that does everything."
He said, "That's not what Lupe says."
"Lupe said that you owe him the money."
"You don't wanna pay."
He said, "I don't care
about the 10 million dollars."
"It's nothing to me
just to kill you
and your brother and resolve this."
[tense music playing]
And I told him…
[in Spanish] "Sir, with all due respect,
I thought a man's word
meant something in this business."
"I'm here out of trust."
"I'm here for my brother."
[in English] And he just stared at me.
And he crossed his arms like this.
He asked me, "Are you and your brother
identical twins?"
And I told him, "You guessed right."
"And you look exactly like him?"
I said, "He looks just like me."
"But a little bit uglier."
You know, I would just say that
just to break the ice. And he laughed.
He said, "I just lost my brother."
"There's no money in the world
that is worth losing your brother."
"Pay the 10 million dollars,
you come back,
and we'll continue to work together."
And my brother was released.
[engine starts]
[Flores] Five days later,
I received another phone call.
And he said,
"The boss is… is waiting for you."
We headed to Culiacán.
I remember that the property had,
maybe, like, at least 15-foot walls.
And when the doors opened up,
there was a group of maybe 12, 14 men.
[unsettling music rises]
But, you know, I saw a hat.
Instantly, I knew. It was him.
He shook my hand and he said,
"Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada."
"Finally, I get to meet the famous twins."
"Oh, my God, man, you guys are identical,"
he said.
"Which is the one that we had tied up?"
"You, it had to be you! Look at you!
How are you feeling?"
"How many kilos are you selling?"
And then we told him,
and he'd be like… "Pfft!"
"Imagine you guys were triplets."
"Imagine how much money
you would be making."
He told everyone,
"Look, these guys right here,
they're special."
"Moving that quantity of drugs
in the United States is impossible."
He said,
"I tried it, and I'm Mayo Zambada."
That's when I knew that we were
at the top of the cartel world.
For many drug traffickers,
they'll say it like…
[in Spanish]
"I'm one of Chapo Guzmán's people."
[in English] But saying you were
one of Mayo Zambada's people
was just different.
That was the team you wanted to be on.
We gained his respect as businessmen.
"You're a lot like me," he said.
"I've been Mayo Zambada
for over 30 years."
He spoke about himself
in the third person at times.
He wouldn't speak about it
in like this gloating…
He would speak about it
as a matter of fact.
You know, like,
"That's why I'm Mayo Zambada."
100%, he knew exactly who he was.
-[man, in Spanish] Hey, friend.
-[El Mayo] Yes?
[man] Do you belong to Sinaloa?
[El Mayo] No, buddy.
Sinaloa belongs to me.
[playing "El MZ"]
[upbeat narcocorrido continues]
POLICE
ARMY
[tense music rises]
[helicopter blades whirring]
[man, in Spanish]
Mayo Zambada was a different breed
with a different way of thinking
about criminal work.
So, our intelligence work,
we did it in a compartmentalized way.
If fewer people knew about our intentions,
we could have the element of surprise.
We would leave early,
at six in the morning,
and switch routes along the way.
Every time we landed,
there was no one there.
They had all left.
It made us feel a certain level
of powerlessness, a degree of frustration.
People have no…
They have no idea how difficult it is
to carry out an operation of this kind.
[indistinct chatter]
I mean, it seems unbelievable, but…
we didn't have a picture
of Ismael Zambada García.
-[man 1] It's secured. It's down.
-[man 2] Looks like one's missing.
[indistinct shouting]
[Aguilera] In an operation
carried out in 2001,
my people found pictures
that were left in a vehicle
that we thought was being used there
by El Mayo Zambada.
And it was there
that we got a picture of his face.
[officer] Why was Zambada García's ID
in your truck?
[Torres] Because he left it there.
[officer] Why?
[Torres] He left it there.
[officer] Oh, so he was with you?
[Torres] Yes, he was. He was there.
It was an ID, which had his picture
but another name on it, obviously.
[interviewer] Could it be this one?
-Let's see.
-[interviewer] Look.
-Was it this one?
-That's it. Mm-hmm. That's the one.
[dramatic music playing]
[Balliet, in English]
Before this, he was like a phantom.
But now, like, the…
the guy actually existed.
[Aguilera, in Spanish] The fact we had
a picture, a very recent one…
Well, it was crucial
to be able to reach the culmination,
which is apprehending them.
[news fanfare playing]
[in English] Wanna see the face of evil?
Well, here it is.
The DEA says he's one of the most vicious
and wealthy drug lords.
And that he stops at nothing,
and I mean nothing,
to grab power and hold on to it.
[announcer] Mexican police
say he looks like this photo.
The DEA has plastered it
on huge billboards along highways
between Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona.
[man] The Department of Justice today
is announcing the indictment
charging Ismael Zambada García
with conspiracy
to import and distribute cocaine.
[reporter] Where is Zambada García now?
He is, uh, believed to be in Mexico.
Uh, but he is not in custody in Mexico.
[reporter] Have you come close
to catching him
as part of this investigation?
We do not believe that we have had, uh…
uh, an opportunity
that was sort of a near miss.
The Mexican officials
have arrested some individuals
in this particular matter,
but it… they do not include,
uh, Zambada García.
Yes, sir?
[festive music playing]
Namaste. Namaste.
[Aguilera, in Spanish] We carried out
operations to bring about his capture.
By gathering intelligence,
we found out that Ismael liked to go,
on the first day of spring,
he liked to go to Chichén Itzá.
[bright music playing]
[woman, in English] Welcome
to Chichén Itzá in southern Mexico.
We're here today to celebrate
Sun-Earth Day and the Spring Equinox.
[exclaims]
He was very into mysticism.
He liked to go there and get
all the rays and energy and all that.
People say we won't find anything here,
but if we go up the pillar of the pyramid,
that's why the energy flows downwards,
and we are going to receive it here.
So, we carried out an operation there.
We went as tourists,
with shorts, baseball caps.
We spread out
all around the Chichén Itzá pyramid.
We went there to try to capture him.
-[man] Huh?
-[woman replies]
[man, in French]
Look, the police are up there.
[woman] Yes, the police.
[Aguilera, in Spanish] Unfortunately,
there were thousands of people there.
[woman, in English] Hey,
let's look at Kukulcán. Here it comes!
[in Spanish] Look at Kukulcán!
[in English] People are just going crazy
out there!
[in Spanish] We don't know if he was there
or if he didn't show up that time
for his usual routine.
But that time, I don't know if…
We didn't see him.
[crowd's chatter distorting]
[chatter fades]
[cows mooing]
[Flores, in English] I think what made
El Mayo Zambada unique was his simplicity.
El Mayo was like a cowboy.
He loved that rancher life.
Cows and bulls and horses and agriculture.
There was one occasion
when we went to this ranch,
and he had bought these really expensive
million-dollar Swiss bulls.
And he was so happy,
like he was a kid getting a new toy.
And… he went and he said,
"Look, these are balls, for real."
[mooing]
[laughing] Like,
grabbing the bull's balls.
I mean, he took two hands, you know?
The bull had big balls.
[pensive music playing]
AKA "EL MAYO" - BORN 1/30/1950
[Flores] El Mayo Zambada
had many children.
Vicente Zambada.
Ismael, "El Mayito Gordo,"
Ismael, "El Mayito Flaco."
And then he had
a younger son named Serafín.
[Balliet] Chapo Guzmán, he had
at least six sons with different women.
With Griselda,
he had Ovidio, Joaquín, Édgar.
And then with Alejandrina,
he had Jesús Alfredo and Iván.
By and large, they all kind of viewed
each other as a… a blended family.
[Flores] I met Vicente
on the same day I met El Mayo.
He stood up right away.
He had an AR-15 on his back shoulder.
Mayo Zambada, he said,
"This is my son." Like, proud.
And they called him "El Niño."
The child.
Not just any child, but the child.
You know, he is the Simba
of this tribe of lions, right?
He who was gonna be the king.
[dramatic string music playing]
Later on, when I started to meet
all the other narco juniors,
they were nothing like him.
First reaction
when I'm meeting Édgar Guzmán,
who was Chapo Guzmán's son…
He was younger, and I could tell
he had like a chip on his shoulder.
Making big moves in the cartel
and built his name in the organization.
Just different from Vicente.
[Esquivel, in Spanish]
Édgar, Chapo Guzmán's firstborn,
was a guy, a young man,
who liked to show that he had money.
There are several stories
of how he would arrive at the nightclubs
and wanted, as we say in Mexico,
to poach the other guys' girlfriends.
If he liked the girl,
he would send his security
to tell the young guy
who was with the girl he liked
that he had better give up
the girl he was with.
If not, they would kill him.
Or at least, they'd give him
a beating he would never forget.
[Flores, in English] They don't know much
about the business and stuff.
It was a lot about the party aspect of it.
They're younger, and so they're partying
and drinking and doing cocaine.
All the time.
Like, they're the heirs, right?
You know, with money and power.
It was a unity of family.
Of the Zambadas, the Guzmáns.
It's like a family gathering of cousins.
I, for a long time,
thought that it was one happy cartel.
And little by little,
I started to see that… it wasn't there.
So, at that time, the Sinaloa Cartel
was made out of three factions.
Arturo Beltrán Leyva organization,
and his brothers.
The Mayo Zambada organization.
And the Chapo Guzmán organization.
We had a very close business relationship
with all three of 'em.
But there was inner disputes for,
you know, jealousy and drug routes.
And… it was starting to boil over.
[crowd clamoring]
[in Spanish] As Mexicans,
we demand to live securely.
PRESIDENT OF MEXICO
2006-2012
In peace, without fear or anxiety.
The people demand an end
to corruption, impunity, and injustice.
The people want a return
to peace and stability.
[crowd applauds]
[Valdés] When Felipe Calderón
won the presidency,
we were at a very difficult moment
due to the outbreak of extreme violence.
There were already four wars going on.
[reporter 1] The executions
being reported every day
are the result of a reshuffling
among the drug cartels
and a turf war.
[Valdés] So, a new conflict begins,
of the most violent kind,
with the breakup of the Sinaloa Cartel.
[reporter 2] They were tied hand and foot,
and showed signs of torture.
They also found three messages, addressed
to Chapo Guzmán and Mayo Zambada.
[Valdés] El Chapo wanted to get rid
of the Beltrán Leyva brothers.
Why? Because what they were fighting
for was… control of the business.
And he said,
"I'd better take them out first."
And he sends El Mochomo to jail.
[crowd murmuring]
[officer] Alfredo Beltrán Leyva,
aka "El Mochomo,"
is considered to be
one of the leading bosses
in the structure of the organization.
[Valdés] The tip-off to arrest El Mochomo
came from Chapo Guzmán.
It was very big news.
What we didn't expect was
that this was going to start a war.
[multiple gunshots]
[dogs barking in distance]
[Balliet, in English] Édgar, who was
in his early twenties at the time,
was shot and killed
in a Culiacán supermarket,
with like hundreds of rounds.
It was overkill.
[solemn music playing]
That was retribution for turning Mochomo
in to the Mexican authorities.
[Esquivel, in Spanish] In a land
of anarchy, Édgar felt untouchable.
And maybe he was.
But not among the criminals.
[Flores, in English] Soon after,
I was able to give Chapo
my condolences about his son, and…
And he kind of did a double take,
and he said, "Thank you, man."
[in Spanish] Like, "Thank you." Yeah.
[Esquivel, in Spanish]
The bosses' families were untouchable.
And that unwritten rule had been broken.
[man] It's a very quiet town,
which tonight was turned into a war zone.
[gunfire]
El Chapo reacted violently too.
[Flores, in English]
For the Mexican drug cartel world,
that was basically World War III.
[cell phone ringing]
[Flores] And then after that,
sometime in 2008,
we received a call from a lieutenant,
from Mayo Zambada.
Explaining to us that El Mayo
was on the phone listening.
And he basically said, "Look," he said,
"This is a friendly warning."
"We only give this warning once."
"If we find out that you receive one gram
of coke from any of the Beltrán Leyvas…
you're gonna pay for that with your life."
Mm, I said, "Understood."
[unsettling music playing]
Now we were in the middle of a war.
My intuition told me
that it wasn't gonna end well.
[ominous music fades]
[Ferrara] Out of the blue,
the Flores twins reached out,
and said that they wanted to cooperate
with the US government.
It was something we couldn't even believe
we were saying out of our mouths.
"I wanna cooperate."
I said,
"This is a matter of life and death.
You have to understand that."
"There's no turning back."
"This is gonna be at the highest levels."
And they said,
"Who do they have information about?"
And my lawyer repeated the names.
"Chapo Guzmán. El Mayo Zambada."
So he said, "Are you fucking with me?"
The government needed evidence
of the bosses doing deals.
And that was gonna be,
you know, hard work.
I was more worried about El Mayo Zambada.
Like, Mayo, he could be
in the damn mountains all the time.
He took his security very, very seriously.
He was very careful on… on the people
that he brought around him
and then the people
that were close to him.
[intriguing music rises]
[phones ringing]
[woman, in Spanish]
My dad, Julio Scherer García,
was one of the few journalists
beyond reproach.
He had a long and well-established career.
My dad was going
to protect his source to the fullest.
[Esquivel] He's one
of the best journalists,
if not the best journalist
that Mexico has ever had.
As a reporter for Proceso magazine,
I have, in a way, felt lucky
to be part of the journalistic institution
founded by Mr. Julio Scherer.
[María] In March or April 2010,
he told us
that someone turned up at Proceso.
"He's taking me, I don't know where,
to meet Ismael Zambada."
So, I was very nervous.
Um…
Well, he was one
of the most wanted criminals in the world.
What I'm absolutely sure of
is that no one told him, "Don't go."
No, no one would have thought of doing
that, firstly, because we knew my dad.
What my dad says is,
"If the devil offered me an interview,
I'd go to hell to get it."
[bright music playing]
He flew to some point
in the northeast, Sinaloa.
A few hours later,
they took him to a place in the mountains.
This is the description my dad gave.
"On a surface of hard-packed earth
and under a roof made of logs and reeds,
we had arrived at the boss's hideout,
whose head was worth millions of dollars."
"Ismael Zambada received me
with an outstretched hand
and some words of welcome."
"He was very interested in meeting me."
"'Thank you very much,' I replied."
It was El Mayo's first interview.
[phone ringing]
[Esquivel] My phone rang,
and it was a DEA agent.
And they said to me,
"Have you seen your magazine?"
"Julio is on the cover with El Mayo!"
IN MAYO ZAMBADA'S LAIR
[music swells]
[Esquivel] Well, it left me speechless.
It was the best-kept secret at Proceso.
[intense music playing]
That was the most up-to-date photo
any government had
of Zambada García at that time.
[chuckles] It was quite the event
and a show of defiance.
To say, "Here I am.
I've been hanging out here."
"I can afford to bring Mexico's
top journalist to take a picture."
"This is where we'll be."
[María] "Is there a place
for peace within you?"
"I carry fear."
"All the time?" "Always."
"Will they catch you in the end?"
"Any moment now. Or never."
[tense music cuts out]
[ominous, rhythmic music playing]