The Fall of El Mayo (2026) s01e03 Episode Script
Betrayal (Traición)
[interviewer] Let's go back
to El Mayo's capture.
-Mm-hmm.
-[interviewer] Where were you on July 25?
Having a beer. [chuckles]
We were having a beer, and…
After it was confirmed
that Ismael Zambada was in the US,
even though it wasn't clear at the time
whether he'd been arrested
or turned himself in,
much less was there talk
of him being kidnapped at that time,
the fact is,
other events took place that day.
One in particular.
Because as journalists,
we're very suspicious of coincidences.
The local prosecutor's office
had conducted an investigation
and had announced
that on the night of July 25,
Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda
was at a gas station.
He'd been the president
of Sinaloa's largest university.
He'd also been mayor
of the city of Culiacán.
And his political party had become
the most significant one
in the state of Sinaloa.
There is a video
in which the passenger door is opened,
and they appear to shoot inside the truck.
[tires squeal]
The truck pulls away.
And then they take Héctor Melesio Cuén
to a hospital, a private clinic.
EMERGENCY ROOM
MUNICIPAL POLICE
I arrived at the clinic
where Melesio Cuén was taken.
I didn't see his body, but I got a photo
of him lying dead on the slab.
[somber music playing]
I went to the gas station.
I spoke with employees.
They told me what had happened
and what they'd seen.
There were a lot of inconsistencies.
Uh, we spoke with clinic employees,
and they told us
that when Cuén arrived at the clinic,
he had already been dead for hours.
I left my phone over there.
Ismael Zambada's letter
tells a different story.
STATEMENT BY ZAMBADA
This is Ismael Zambada's statement.
"Since I was brought
to the United States by plane
from Mexico on July 25, 2024,
there have been many inaccurate reports
in the media of both countries."
"I know that the official version
given by the Sinaloa authorities
is that Héctor Cuén was shot
on the night of July 25 at a gas station
by two men on motorcycles."
"That is not what happened."
"They killed him at the exact same time
and place where I was kidnapped."
[gun fires]
"Héctor Cuén had been a friend of mine
for a long time,
and I am deeply saddened by his death."
So you ask yourself,
"What's going on here?"
"What's the real story?"
[somber theme music playing]
[reporter] When the United States
pressures the Mexican authorities
on the issue of fentanyl trafficking,
the ones most affected by this pressure
are Los Chapitos.
[clamoring]
[officer 1] Come out. Come out, Ovidio.
-[officer 2] Come out. Come out.
-[officer 1] Hey, take it easy, sir.
[officer 2] Ma'am.
Show me your hands. Come here.
[officers] Hands up!
[man] You know,
that was a very unusual day.
-[engine revving]
-[sirens wailing]
I saw a lot of municipal police officers
on motorcycles,
lights and sirens on.
It was strange how fast they were going,
knocking side mirrors off cars,
hitting them, weaving through traffic.
I rolled down my window.
From about half a mile away,
I could hear bursts of gunfire.
So I pulled over
and started livestreaming.
There's an intense shootout
in the Tres Ríos area
of Culiacán, Sinaloa.
Several Mexican Army soldiers
and municipal police officers
are on their way here.
My instinct was to get out of there
because the military was up ahead.
I could see them responding to the attack.
[sirens wailing]
[intense gunfire]
[tires screech]
[Martínez] There's a shooting…
There's a fierce confrontation just now.
We don't know how many dead there are.
There is an intense shootout… right now…
[phone chimes]
There is a fierce shootout right now.
[woman] Run! Run!
[man] Get in! Get in here! Get in here!
It was total chaos.
[clamoring]
Fuck. This is fucked up!
-Hold on.
-[officer 1] Wait. Give me that! Give me…!
[officer 2] Put it here! Put it here!
-[indistinct chatter]
-[man] This is still ongoing.
The other brother says to keep going.
Everyone move forward now.
[man 2] Well, I was at home.
I heard the news.
I was half asleep when a friend came
to pick me up and said, "Let's go."
"Dude, grab your gun.
Let's go kick some ass."
[indistinct radio chatter]
Iván got hundreds of armed men together
to rescue his brother Ovidio.
[officer] Get down! On your knees!
[clamoring]
[officer] Tell your people to stand down.
[Ovidio] Hey, tell everyone to stop!
[officer] Ovidio,
tell your people to stand down.
[Balliet, in English] They turned Culiacán
into a war zone.
[gunfire]
[indistinct radio chatter]
[man on radio, in Spanish]
Go fuck yourselves.
Go fuck yourselves.
Go fuck yourselves.
Who cares? Go fuck yourselves.
[Balliet, in English]
They had .50 calibers, vests.
They had trucks converted
with .50-cal mounts on 'em.
[rapid gunfire]
Those drums that we found back in 2014,
all of a sudden you're like,
"That's what it's for."
Like, "It's for events like this."
"Hey, we need all hands on deck
and we're, like, blazing it down."
[reporter, in Spanish] Panic in Culiacán.
A shootout and reports of the arrest
of one of Chapo Guzmán's sons.
Armored vehicles
equipped with military-grade gear
exchanged heavy fire with federal troops.
[Valdés] Ovidio and his people’s response
was a direct challenge to the state.
That was unthinkable for Mayo Zambada.
[Joel] Zambada's faction is less violent.
Los Chapos are known
for being more bloodthirsty.
More vicious, more direct, more…
More aggressive
in how they get things done.
[man on radio] What's up with Comanche?
Are these guys going to back us up?
Whenever they need us,
we're there in a heartbeat.
[Joel] There was an argument
that Mayo's faction no longer wanted
to provide support, right?
They were arguing on the radio,
with screams asking, "Support."
In fact, there were some audios
where they were complaining to the Mayos
that they were waiting for them
and they should come,
that they should support there,
and that Mayo didn't want to.
[man] What's up, Comanche?
What did they tell you over there, sir?
[trafficker] They have a bad connection.
[Joel] That's when the tension started.
They started telling them
they were too scared.
They thought we weren't stepping up
out of fear, you know?
It wasn't because we were scared.
They wouldn’t let us act.
[man 1] Whenever they need backup,
we show up.
Don't act like freeloading assholes,
or we'll lose it.
Let them fucking see we ain't afraid
of anything but real-ass motherfuckers.
-[gunfire]
-A fucking ambush.
[loud boom]
[man 2] Stay here.
Here on the ground.
It made President Andrés Manuel
make the decision to release him, right?
So as not to further endanger
the families of Culiacán.
This decision was made
to protect the public.
You can't fight fire with fire.
[Bojórquez] The operation was a failure.
And they forced the government
to back down.
Its "Hugs, Not Bullets" policy
was a mockery, shall we say,
for Mexican society.
[Martínez] I have it etched
into my memory.
And the terror on the faces
of the people who were there.
[clamoring]
In all my years covering crime,
I'd never seen anything so brutal.
[Bojórquez] Some said that,
with Iván Archivaldo's response
to the army, to the federal forces,
they had come of age as narcos.
And after the Culiacanazo battle,
major frictions began to arise.
[somber music playing]
And so from there a conflict began
that grew and grew and grew
between the Chapitos
and Mayo Zambada's people.
[indistinct radio chatter]
[reporter] Federal Forces carried out
an operation in Culiacán, Sinaloa.
The goal was to arrest
Ovidio Guzmán López.
[distant gunfire]
[man, in English] By 2023,
the president of Mexico
was personally invested
in rearresting Ovidio
to take away the stain from his presidency
that the first arrest
and release of him,
the Culiacanazo, had caused.
[gunfire]
[sirens wailing]
[in Spanish] They make
another attempt to arrest him.
[gunfire]
[siren wailing]
I honestly thought there wasn't going
to be another Culiacanazo.
[man] Get down. Get down. Get down.
They're shooting toward here.
[Martínez] But one way or another,
we got used to that kind of reaction.
And they manage to arrest him.
[reporter] Ovidio Guzmán López
was recaptured today.
[man] Careful, careful!
-[gunfire]
-[clamoring]
[man 2] Ovidio's people were firing
at any plane in the air or on the ground.
[passengers screaming]
[man 3] They're shooting at the plane!
They're shooting at the plane, fuck!
God damn it!
[reporter, in English]
El Chapo's son, Ovidio,
put on a private plane
with a one-way ticket to Chicago.
[reporter 2, in Spanish] Ovidio Guzmán
arrived in Chicago on Friday
and will be held
in the federal jail in downtown Chicago.
The same place
where Vicente Zambada was held.
[ominous music playing]
He faces charges related
to leadership in the Sinaloa Cartel
and his alleged involvement
in one of the largest and most violent
fentanyl trafficking operations
in the world.
In court, El Chapo's son said he suffers
from depression and anxiety.
[in English] He's facing life in prison…
[reporter 3] "He is facing
the rest of his life in prison,
and that is a strong reason
for depression and anxiety."
[Balliet] One of the things
that is important is
Ovidio and Joaquín, Güero,
are extremely, extremely close.
Édgar had been killed.
They're kind of like the only
true blood brothers that they have.
And, um, Güero
was kind of ready to cut a deal.
[Joel, in Spanish] Joaquín didn't want
anything to do with the business anymore.
He had an existential crisis,
I don't know if you could call it that.
His brothers said,
"If you don't want this, don't bother."
That's how it happened. I was with him.
CAPTURED
[Flores, in English] It comes a time,
for people who are involved
at the upper echelons
of that type of criminal activity,
that they wish they had a different life.
I know for a fact that Joaquín
and, um, an HSI agent
were in telephonic communication
about his surrender.
But he wanted, anything he did,
to provide assistance to the government,
to also help Ovidio.
So, from everything I've been privy to,
I think what Joaquín could offer
was fairly limited.
Like, there wasn't a whole lot
of bargaining chips
that he had to play with.
And it's that, that fine,
like, dance of,
"Hey, we want you to surrender,"
but, like, "You're not getting
a sweetheart deal out of the gate."
TWO WEEKS BEFORE EL MAYO'S CAPTURE
MEXICO CITY
[ominous music fades]
[line ringing]
[Scherer, in Spanish] It was morning,
if I remember correctly,
when I received a call
from the director of Proceso.
He told me he had something for me.
He said,
"Hey, so do you remember that person
who came along 15 years ago
to tell your dad
to sit down with El Mayo Zambada?"
CHRONICLE OF AN UNPRECEDENTED MEETING
"Well, he's back."
[airplane engines whirring]
[solemn music playing]
I arrived in Culiacán.
A person picked us up at the airport.
We got into a small car.
He dropped us off at a shopping mall,
and a van picked us up there.
They pick you up and,
for a stretch, you're on a highway.
But then, dirt tracks.
Dirt tracks and unpaved roads.
Some makeshift paths.
Lots of greenery.
Suddenly, I felt like I was in a maze,
you know?
I had no way of knowing where I was.
After a while,
we arrived at a sort of small village.
What I remember is that it was very clean,
that the houses
and the buildings, the church,
were freshly painted,
which is not common, right?
In Mexican small towns.
And suddenly,
we were in front of an electric gate.
[gate whirring]
Which opened.
I bend down to grab my backpack,
and they said, "No… No phones."
I was surprised to see him
because the image
that I and everyone else had of Zambada
was the one in my dad's photo.
Fifteen years don't go by in vain.
El Mayo was wearing a Boss T-shirt,
sweatpants, and sneakers.
I pictured him taller.
I held out my hand, and he shook it.
I thought, "What does he want?"
"Why does he want to see me?"
"Why now?"
Pretty quickly,
he started asking me about my dad.
What his life was like,
how many children he had,
what he'd been like when we were little.
At one point he said,
"Your father…"
Then he clenched his fist and did this.
As if to say,
"I carry him in my heart."
Or, "He touched my heart."
Then… he opened the front door.
Directly across, in a kind of vestibule,
there was something like an altar.
"I was immediately struck
by what I saw on a wooden easel."
"A colorful painting in thick brushstrokes
of Zambada and my father,
with Zambada's hand on his shoulder."
"I am unsettled.
I don't know what to say."
In the same place
where he kept pictures of my father
and his parents, he had this odd thing.
A picture of Gandhi.
I asked him,
"Why do you have Gandhi here?"
And he said,
"Well, because I believe in peace."
"I believe in peace too."
Wow.
In that room, there was another image.
It was, let's say,
that same instant, right?
That moment,
but the painter drew only Zambada.
And I said, "I like this one better
than the one you have,
the one where you are with your father,
this is a better painting."
And then I think
he even puffed out his chest, right?
And said to me proudly, "Vicente did it."
"He painted it."
Vicente, his son. El Vicentillo.
Yes, he painted it while he was in prison.
They told me that once a month,
Vicentillo would send his mother
a letter from prison in the United States
with a drawing in it.
He told me, "I miss him every day."
"Like thousands of families miss
their kids who have died or gone missing."
"I know that pain."
He said… that he understood
how these people feel,
people who have lost loved ones
because it had happened to him too.
I mean, I don't…
I don't dare go too far into
what is obvious, right?
Zambada…
was a man who was
very attentive, very kind,
even warm toward me.
We used that word
at some point. "Warm."
But he is still who he is.
I also asked him about…
I wanted to know how aware he was
of the suffering that he'd caused.
Of all the people whose children
were dead or missing.
Because in Mexico,
dying and having a body to bury
has become a privilege.
There are people who don't even have that.
They spend their lives searching
for the remains of their loved ones.
He said he only used violence
in extreme cases.
He said,
"The business is drug trafficking."
"Violence is something else."
He's very evasive.
"It's not an easy interview."
"El Mayo is a phantom."
We said goodbye
and… agreed to meet again.
HOURS BEFORE THE CAPTURE OF EL MAYO
[phone dialing]
[line ringing]
[Don Chuy] Mayo was up in the mountains
when El Chapo's son Joaquín called him
to come and fix a problem.
[intriguing music playing]
[Grillo, in English]
Joaquín reached out to El Mayo
to calm down various problems,
frictions between Héctor Melesio Cuén
and the governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha.
And El Mayo,
being the ultimate godfather of Sinaloa,
it's what he would do,
the kind of meeting he'd go to.
[Bojórquez, in Spanish] Knowing
El Mayo's profile, I have no doubt
that that had been the bait.
[Grillo, in English]
Even with tensions with Chapitos,
El Mayo went to the meeting
with a relatively small team
of bodyguards.
Mayo had, particularly,
a trust with Joaquín Jr.
Because Joaquín Jr. was his godson.
[music peaks, fades]
[Joel, in Spanish] "Pop," let me look
at the mess, see how things stand."
"No, kid. Why would I distrust my people?"
[indistinct radio chatter]
[tires squeal]
[Balliet, in English]
I get a text that he's coming.
And then, uh, that day, it was like…
"He's stateside."
"Guess what?"
And I was like, "What?"
He's like,
"Mayo Zambada was on the plane."
I was like, "Get the fuck out! What?"
[reporter] El Mayo Zambada,
along with the son of El Chapo
Joaquín Guzmán López, were arrested.
I was on holiday and, uh,
this news came through.
And my phone started heating up.
Just endless messages.
"El Mayo's arrested."
[Don Chuy, in Spanish]
I was fuming when I heard that.
So it was very surprising to see him
exactly as I had seen him.
Two weeks had gone by.
The same T-shirt, right?
[tense music rises]
[Balliet, in English] Looking back,
the only thing I was told was that
Güero was bringing me a surprise
or bringing me something nice
or something to start, like,
get off on the right foot,
or something like that.
And it was like, I thought it might be
financial documents,
or, "Hey, there's two tons of coke
in this house," or whatever.
I thought it was information.
[scoffs] I was like, I was shocked.
I was like, "What?"
-[camera shutter clicks]
-[ominous music playing]
[reporter, in Spanish]
We have the information
the US authorities have provided.
Nothing from Mexico.
And if he did make a deal,
as others say,
with whom did he make it?
And what was the deal for?
Many, many questions so far.
[López] Good morning.
Okay, we are going to give a briefing
on the arrest or surrender
of Ismael Zambada
and Joaquín Guzmán López.
[reporter] Are we still unable to confirm
whether it was a surrender or an arrest?
[woman] Exactly.
So it's nearly 12 hours later
and we still
don't have reliable information--
Right. The information
and investigation are underway in the US.
Is the government surprised
that Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada was captured
in the United States and not in Mexico?
We don't know whether it was
a surrender or an arrest.
What was clear to me
is that the Mexican authorities
were totally in the dark.
They didn't know what happened.
If it was an arrest,
a surrender, or if it was…
What happened?
That's something
the United States government
will have to speak about.
Those in the know in the United States,
I assume they received the order
to remain silent about the details
because he is such a major figure
in organized crime.
The government of the United States
has to submit a report.
There has to be transparency.
[in English] To my knowledge,
there was not anybody
in federal law enforcement
that was aware that Mayo Zambada
was either being tricked onto a plane,
kidnapped and put on a plane,
or that US law enforcement
was involved at all.
Once the plane was in the air,
US law enforcement realized
that he was on that plane.
Then it was like,
"Oh, shit, we gotta scramble."
It caught everybody
that I've talked to, everybody,
by complete surprise
that he was on that plane that day.
[Provance] The agents arrived
about 30 minutes
prior to the airplane arrival.
[Young] Yeah, they trickled in.
[Provance] I think I counted 17 vehicles.
It was a little bit unusual.
That's what got my curiosity up.
I noticed that the tires
had some bald spots on them,
which, for a nice King Air, is unusual.
[Young] Some sticks.
On one side, there was a stick,
twig, sticking out of one wing.
It was kind of interesting.
A little different to what you would find
on a normal airplane.
[Ornelas] I noticed on their airplane
very visible chips
on the propellers, on both sides,
kind of what you would see typically
on an airplane that
would be taking off on dirt airstrips
or rough terrain.
[camera shutter clicks]
Once the statement came through
that he would have been,
allegedly, kidnapped.
The significance of seeing
the zip ties inside this bag
was just extraordinary.
[somber string music playing]
Total shock. I could not believe it.
I couldn't understand how he could be
in El Paso. How did he get there?
Interview Frank Perez, take one.
Can you just describe
your history with the Zambadas?
Right, yes, I I I knew the family,
and I came into Vicente's case
after he had pleaded guilty.
I helped Vicente through sentencing.
During that period,
I made trips to Culiacán
where I met Vicente's father.
Mayo.
Obviously,
he was very interested in his son,
how his son's case was going.
From time to time, I would stop by
and just kind of let him know
how his son was doing.
And, visit with him, you know,
we'd have dinner together,
and he was a gentleman,
very nice, very polite, very courteous.
The Chapitos grew up with Mayo's kids.
They were around all the time.
He had a loyalty to Chapo.
Because they were El Chapo's sons,
he just felt a loyalty towards them.
Your Honor, the government calls
Vicente Zambada Niebla.
After Chapo's trial was
where I started hearing rumors that…
They just weren't happy with Mayo
and wanted to get rid of him.
They wanted to take him out.
I had a feeling
that something was going to happen.
I had discussions with him about that,
but in his mind,
he was just a loyal man,
and he believed that…
they were loyal to him as well.
I went to the DEA building,
where they had him in custody.
His leg was injured, his shoulder,
and he was still in shock.
It was hard for him to get over
that he had been betrayed.
We spent most of our time
just talking about what had happened.
He repeated the story
over and over and over.
He says when he got to the airstrip,
he was zip-tied to the seat
in the plane, by Joaquín.
The people on the plane
were Joaquín and the pilot,
who was named Jando.
Jando was Iván's personal pilot.
Iván Guzmán.
He thought Joaquín was going
to throw him off the plane.
[indistinct radio chatter]
But Joaquín told him, "No.
I'm gonna take you to the United States."
"I'm gonna get a good deal,
I'm gonna get three years."
"You're going to jail like my father."
[plane engines roar]
There was a lot of things coming out,
saying that Mayo had surrendered
to the US government
and was cooperating with the government
and was turning everyone in,
which just wasn't true.
El Mayo wanted to set the record straight.
"I need you to tell them what happened."
[in Spanish] Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada,
through his lawyer,
has issued a statement.
He says he did not voluntarily surrender
to the US authorities,
but was ambushed
while waiting to meet
with the governor of Sinaloa,
Rubén Rocha Moya,
and the politician
Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda,
who was murdered.
He was concerned about Cuén,
and there was a… a coverup.
[in Spanish] This is my client's statement
regarding the kidnapping.
"I know the version
given by the Sinaloa authorities…"
"This is not what happened."
"He was killed at the same time and place
I was kidnapped."
"I believe the truth has to come out."
[Villareal] Ismael Zambada García's letter
was a well-aimed poisoned dart,
and created the shock of linking
an important figure
like Héctor Melesio Cuén
with Ismael Zambada.
[camera shutter clicks]
[Clouthier] To this day,
we don't know who killed him.
That is, we don't know
if he was killed by organized crime
or by the political class.
We really don't know.
The only thing I do know
is that this is not the way.
[Balliet, in English] The minute they got
Zambada on that plane, the rules changed.
It's an unforgivable betrayal
in their mind.
Now it's the Chapitos
versus the Mayo faction.
Which means a very, very messy divorce
for whoever was left in Mexico.
[Martínez, in Spanish] I always said,
"When he's gone, chaos will be unleashed."
AMBULANCE
MEXICAN RED CROSS
[siren wailing in distance]
Upon arriving,
the lifeless body of a male individual
was found,
currently unidentified,
who was approximately 20–25 years old,
thin build…
It's common
for people
to be found murdered in this way
because there's a war on
between two factions
of what was known as the Sinaloa Cartel.
[camera shutter clicks]
[reflective guitar music playing]
We realized that there was going to be
a huge wave of violence,
We were going to have a lot of work.
MISSING
ANONYMOUS TIP LINE
We're called "vultures."
They're the scavenger birds
that circle above a dead person or animal.
PUBLIC SECURITY COMPLEX
STATE POLICE
[Castro] There have been many cases
where children have died
in the middle of this war,
from stray bullets or whatever.
The streets are empty.
Because just by going out
into the streets and breathing,
you sense the danger.
THE NARCO-PANDEMIC
IS ALSO PATRIARCHAL VIOLENCE
[gunfire]
[interviewer, in English] A shooting.
Can we stop for one second?
[in Spanish] No, it's far away.
[in English] It's okay.
For our safety,
we don't report to the scene.
Not until we're told to.
[gunfire draws closer]
Up there.
-[interviewer, in English] Close.
-Yeah, a mile from here.
-[interviewer] It's getting closer.
-[Castro] Maybe across the hill.
-I think we should leave.
-[Castro] Yeah. We should leave, yeah.
-It's too close.
-[interviewer] Getting closer.
It sounds bad. Too much shots.
-[gunfire fades]
-[sirens die out]
[reflective string music playing]
[Vázquez] This maxim from Colombia,
"I'd rather be in a grave in Colombia
than in a prison in the United States,"
now it's changed.
And Vicente Zambada Niebla
had a lot to do with it,
just like El Rey Zambada.
And obviously, Chapo Guzmán's trial
was quite an important showcase for that.
[in English] I mean, we absolutely had
enough independent evidence
to convict Vicente with our eyes closed.
But for his cooperation,
he would've been sentenced
to life in prison.
[reporter, in Spanish] Good news
for Jesús Vicente Zambada Niebla.
The judge sentenced him
to 15 years in prison,
although he could be free in just four.
[man] That's really ridiculous.
This situation, 15 years…
I mean, the number of murders
they committed,
the scale of the trafficking, so big…
I mean…
It's a mockery for the country.
[Vázquez] This new profession,
the profession of testifying
to gain their freedom
and be allowed to, like,
live in the United States
with a new identity.
It's worked very well for them.
The same happened
with the Flores twins from Chicago.
[Flores, in English] I'm here, hopefully,
sharing some of the stuff, I'm…
that could be put to good use,
but also to kind of inspire you guys.
[Vázquez, in Spanish]
And now we see him giving lectures,
trying to save others
from falling into drug trafficking.
[Flores, in English] Last time,
did I share about me being Christian?
[in Spanish] He went from being a dealer
to being a spiritual advisor, right?
This policy of deals,
which the United States government
offers to drug lords,
to go after other drug lords,
well, it's turning
the US into a retirement paradise
for Mexican drug lords.
I mean, I make a career in crime,
I accumulate many hundreds,
thousands of millions of dollars,
I surrender, make a deal,
maybe spend five or ten years in jail,
I offer them half of my fortune,
and they let me live another 40 years,
risk-free,
in no danger of persecution by anyone,
with a huge fortune.
[Esquivel] The El Grande case
has always cracked me up.
[reporter] Sergio Villarreal Barragán,
aka El Grande,
in his statements, admitted
to having murdered almost 100 people.
He liked shooting his AK-47
and blowing people to pieces.
Now he's in witness protection.
There's Chupeta, who trafficked
more cocaine than El Chapo,
and killed more people.
Now Chupeta is free too.
I wonder about the American citizens
who are their neighbors
who were lied to about their identity.
"Hey, this Mexican guy is huge,
but he's cool."
If they knew who the Department of Justice
put next to them,
or what kind of person
they have as a neighbor,
they'd be throwing fits in Washington
and demonstrating against
these cooperation agreements.
[in English] I have… have mixed opinions
on cooperation deals.
Um…
I think… they are a necessary tool.
That without them, we struggle…
We struggle on… on dismantling
any major criminal organization.
You don't get Mayo and Chapo
without cooperators.
Um, I wrestle with the…
the violence, though.
[reflective music fades]
[man, in Spanish] These people
got out of here straight away.
It is hereby stated that the house,
registered here, with no street number…
Yes.
…is uninhabited.
[camera shutter clicks]
We're in El Palmito.
As you can see, the town is deserted.
This is the area most affected
by what happened recently, right?
By the violent events.
It's a ghost town.
"EL VENAO" TACOS AND GORDITAS
HUMAN RIGHTS
All these dogs were…
They were left behind.
Right now, there's a lot of talk
about the arrest of a person in the US.
It's creating a conflict.
That conflict in the area
leads to a brutal confrontation.
[woman] They laid me down
like this, on my back,
and they put a towel here,
like this, on my face,
and they were pouring water
on me with a hose.
Finally, it was the end.
I said to myself,
"Okay, that's it. I'm going to die."
I didn't resist anymore.
They lifted me up and said,
"Right now, right now, you'll find out
if you can go or if you'll die,"
they said.
[González] There are 35,000 displaced
people in southern Sinaloa.
[woman] The only thing I asked them
was to stop torturing me.
If they were going to kill me,
to just do it,
but I asked them to dump me
where my family could find me.
And for that, they'd beat us even more,
tortured us even more.
[González] That happens.
They arrive there,
disaster unfolds, they murder people,
kidnap children, and force them
into becoming gunmen,
because they run out of people.
Seeing those children on motorcycles
is a problem.
They're often lookouts tipping off others
that we're here.
That's why we always have to be careful
in case something bad happens.
They are security zones
for certain people.
No more? Okay.
Okay, they've just reported in,
and that's why we have to leave now. Okay?
The confrontation
between the Mayitos and the Chapitos
is no different from a conventional war,
in which they want to win territory.
[shouting] You are all entitled
to compensation!
The state failed. It's not your fault.
We want you all to have a house and home.
A home, in other words, land and a house.
-Do you all agree?
-[crowd] Yes!
-Okay.
-[cheering]
[González] Applause.
[Villareal] And that impact has reached
thousands of small communities in Sinaloa,
in this entire Golden Triangle region,
Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Durango,
and all of Mexico.
[woman] Demonstrate, Culiacán!
[chanting] Enough! We want peace!
Enough! We want peace!
I WANT EVERY ACTION TO BE GUIDED BY LOVE
[somber piano music playing]
[reporter] Ovidio Guzmán López,
the son of El Chapo Guzmán,
pleaded guilty
to four counts of drug trafficking
in a Chicago court.
[reporter 2] Ovidio Guzmán has
reached an agreement
with the Chicago Prosecutor's Office
to avoid a life sentence.
[reporter 3, in English] In Chicago,
one of the sons
of Mexican drug kingpin, El Chapo,
pleaded guilty
to US drug trafficking charges.
[reporter 4, in Spanish]
Joaquín Guzmán López has revealed
how he premeditated the kidnapping
of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.
He even details how he sedated him
aboard the plane
heading to the United States.
He gave him a drink with a sedative.
[reporter 5, in English] When asked
what his job was for the past five years,
he replied, "Drug trafficker,"
to chuckles from the courtroom
and the judge herself,
surprised at his candor.
Guzmán López could spend
as little as ten years in federal prison.
[reporter 6] At least 17 family members
of notorious drug lord El Chapo
were spotted entering the US.
The Mexican government confirms
that this is part of a plea agreement
his son has struck.
[in Spanish] It's not bad,
ten years in prison
for a lifetime of freedom,
but this US policy
that we here call "decapitation"
has been a failure from the start.
If we're talking
about the last half century,
what has happened in the United States
is the largest influx of drugs,
a higher number of addicted people,
and in the sourcing countries…
[man] The alliance between
the Jalisco New Generation Cartel
and the Chapiza is now confirmed.
[Villareal] What has happened
is more violence.
[man] Fuck the Mayiza, eh!
[gunfire]
THE TRUTH
MISSING
-[chanting]
-[Villareal] More murders.
It's clearly a failure.
And a constant figure
throughout those years
has been, specifically,
Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.
[crowd clamoring]
[reporter] The details of El Mayo's
hearing are starting to emerge.
He has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking.
[reporter 2] Today, in what is
a historic hearing for all of us.
At 11:55 in the morning,
the courtroom deputy asked the defense,
[in English] "Are you ready?"
[in Spanish] And four minutes later,
there was an incredible silence.
Of course, those of us there
couldn't help but be struck
by the sight of him,
an individual
with this cloud around his figure…
And he started to read this document.
[El Mayo] "I started getting involved
in illegal drug trafficking in 1969."
"At 19 years old,
I planted marijuana for the first time."
"Over time, I started selling heroin
and other drugs, but mostly cocaine."
"From 1980 until last year, 2024,
I transported and sold at least one
and a half million kilograms of cocaine,
most of it sent to the United States."
"The organization I led
fostered corruption in my country, Mexico,
bribing police officers,
military leaders, and politicians
to allow us to operate freely."
"I acknowledge the great harm
that illegal drugs have caused to people
in the United States,
in Mexico, and in other places."
"And I take responsibility
for what I have done
and I apologize to all those who suffered
or were affected by my actions."
[reporters clamoring]
[reporter] He said, "I bribed
police officers, military leaders,
and politicians for 30 years
to operate freely."
Is that information you have
and you're giving to the US authorities?
No, no, no.
But isn't that the information
Mayo Zambada has?
The information Mayo Zambada has
remains with Mayo Zambada.
-So he's already confessed everything?
-[Pérez] No.
[in English] He did not cooperate.
He didn't talk about government officials,
he didn't turn anybody in.
Did he have a lot of information?
I'm sure he did.
He's been in the business for 50 years.
He would have
a lot of important information
that the government I believe
would be happy to receive.
I… I know they would be.
But with Mayo, he's just
a more old-school type of guy.
He said, "I'm gonna accept responsibility,
I'm not talking about anyone."
[Esquivel] He would like
to go down in history
as the world's biggest crime lord,
but it has to be said.
Mayo Zambada
has blood on his hands
from deaths
in both Mexico and the United States.
[in English]
We're here to announce a landmark victory
for the Department of Justice,
our law enforcement partners,
and the United States of America.
[Esquivel, in Spanish] It was often said
that El Mayo would never be captured,
but loyalties in drug trafficking
have an expiration date.
[in English] His guilty plea
brings us one step closer
to achieving our goal
of elimination of the drug cartel…
[in Spanish]
They say you have to cut off the head
so that the body can't move.
But this dragon has many heads.
And when one falls,
another will take its place.
[Pérez] I don't think Joaquín or Iván
or all of them together
really thought this through carefully,
because there was
just a lot of collateral damage.
[reporter, in Spanish] The US Department
of Justice has announced an indictment
against Sinaloa governor,
Rubén Rocha Moya.
He is accused of being involved
in a drug trafficking conspiracy.
I'm not afraid of anything.
I consider myself to be an upright person.
[Sheinbaum] Under no circumstances
will we allow interference
from a foreign government
in decisions that are the responsibility
of the Mexican people alone.
[reporter 1] The case of the pilot
still doesn't add up.
[reporter 2] The Mexican government
had in its hands
and then handed over to the United States
the pilot who took the kingpin
into US territory.
[in English] A secretive cartel flight
to a museum exhibit.
The plane that carried a Mexican drug lord
into US custody is now on display…
[reporter 3] Replete
with the drug trafficker's chip bags
and pop cans consumed
on the cross-border flight.
Mexico's president and top
justice officials there are questioning
whether the plane symbolizes
an illegal US government operation.
[in Spanish] There's an exhibition
where the FBI
is taking credit for this operation.
The first question is,
who's lying? Who lied?
[Scherer] "I ask him if the life
he has led has been worth it."
"Why?"
"Because it's full of death."
"As far as I know,
that's how everyone's life ends."
[unsettling music peaks, fades]
[somber music playing]
Subtitle translation by: Meredith Cannella
to El Mayo's capture.
-Mm-hmm.
-[interviewer] Where were you on July 25?
Having a beer. [chuckles]
We were having a beer, and…
After it was confirmed
that Ismael Zambada was in the US,
even though it wasn't clear at the time
whether he'd been arrested
or turned himself in,
much less was there talk
of him being kidnapped at that time,
the fact is,
other events took place that day.
One in particular.
Because as journalists,
we're very suspicious of coincidences.
The local prosecutor's office
had conducted an investigation
and had announced
that on the night of July 25,
Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda
was at a gas station.
He'd been the president
of Sinaloa's largest university.
He'd also been mayor
of the city of Culiacán.
And his political party had become
the most significant one
in the state of Sinaloa.
There is a video
in which the passenger door is opened,
and they appear to shoot inside the truck.
[tires squeal]
The truck pulls away.
And then they take Héctor Melesio Cuén
to a hospital, a private clinic.
EMERGENCY ROOM
MUNICIPAL POLICE
I arrived at the clinic
where Melesio Cuén was taken.
I didn't see his body, but I got a photo
of him lying dead on the slab.
[somber music playing]
I went to the gas station.
I spoke with employees.
They told me what had happened
and what they'd seen.
There were a lot of inconsistencies.
Uh, we spoke with clinic employees,
and they told us
that when Cuén arrived at the clinic,
he had already been dead for hours.
I left my phone over there.
Ismael Zambada's letter
tells a different story.
STATEMENT BY ZAMBADA
This is Ismael Zambada's statement.
"Since I was brought
to the United States by plane
from Mexico on July 25, 2024,
there have been many inaccurate reports
in the media of both countries."
"I know that the official version
given by the Sinaloa authorities
is that Héctor Cuén was shot
on the night of July 25 at a gas station
by two men on motorcycles."
"That is not what happened."
"They killed him at the exact same time
and place where I was kidnapped."
[gun fires]
"Héctor Cuén had been a friend of mine
for a long time,
and I am deeply saddened by his death."
So you ask yourself,
"What's going on here?"
"What's the real story?"
[somber theme music playing]
[reporter] When the United States
pressures the Mexican authorities
on the issue of fentanyl trafficking,
the ones most affected by this pressure
are Los Chapitos.
[clamoring]
[officer 1] Come out. Come out, Ovidio.
-[officer 2] Come out. Come out.
-[officer 1] Hey, take it easy, sir.
[officer 2] Ma'am.
Show me your hands. Come here.
[officers] Hands up!
[man] You know,
that was a very unusual day.
-[engine revving]
-[sirens wailing]
I saw a lot of municipal police officers
on motorcycles,
lights and sirens on.
It was strange how fast they were going,
knocking side mirrors off cars,
hitting them, weaving through traffic.
I rolled down my window.
From about half a mile away,
I could hear bursts of gunfire.
So I pulled over
and started livestreaming.
There's an intense shootout
in the Tres Ríos area
of Culiacán, Sinaloa.
Several Mexican Army soldiers
and municipal police officers
are on their way here.
My instinct was to get out of there
because the military was up ahead.
I could see them responding to the attack.
[sirens wailing]
[intense gunfire]
[tires screech]
[Martínez] There's a shooting…
There's a fierce confrontation just now.
We don't know how many dead there are.
There is an intense shootout… right now…
[phone chimes]
There is a fierce shootout right now.
[woman] Run! Run!
[man] Get in! Get in here! Get in here!
It was total chaos.
[clamoring]
Fuck. This is fucked up!
-Hold on.
-[officer 1] Wait. Give me that! Give me…!
[officer 2] Put it here! Put it here!
-[indistinct chatter]
-[man] This is still ongoing.
The other brother says to keep going.
Everyone move forward now.
[man 2] Well, I was at home.
I heard the news.
I was half asleep when a friend came
to pick me up and said, "Let's go."
"Dude, grab your gun.
Let's go kick some ass."
[indistinct radio chatter]
Iván got hundreds of armed men together
to rescue his brother Ovidio.
[officer] Get down! On your knees!
[clamoring]
[officer] Tell your people to stand down.
[Ovidio] Hey, tell everyone to stop!
[officer] Ovidio,
tell your people to stand down.
[Balliet, in English] They turned Culiacán
into a war zone.
[gunfire]
[indistinct radio chatter]
[man on radio, in Spanish]
Go fuck yourselves.
Go fuck yourselves.
Go fuck yourselves.
Who cares? Go fuck yourselves.
[Balliet, in English]
They had .50 calibers, vests.
They had trucks converted
with .50-cal mounts on 'em.
[rapid gunfire]
Those drums that we found back in 2014,
all of a sudden you're like,
"That's what it's for."
Like, "It's for events like this."
"Hey, we need all hands on deck
and we're, like, blazing it down."
[reporter, in Spanish] Panic in Culiacán.
A shootout and reports of the arrest
of one of Chapo Guzmán's sons.
Armored vehicles
equipped with military-grade gear
exchanged heavy fire with federal troops.
[Valdés] Ovidio and his people’s response
was a direct challenge to the state.
That was unthinkable for Mayo Zambada.
[Joel] Zambada's faction is less violent.
Los Chapos are known
for being more bloodthirsty.
More vicious, more direct, more…
More aggressive
in how they get things done.
[man on radio] What's up with Comanche?
Are these guys going to back us up?
Whenever they need us,
we're there in a heartbeat.
[Joel] There was an argument
that Mayo's faction no longer wanted
to provide support, right?
They were arguing on the radio,
with screams asking, "Support."
In fact, there were some audios
where they were complaining to the Mayos
that they were waiting for them
and they should come,
that they should support there,
and that Mayo didn't want to.
[man] What's up, Comanche?
What did they tell you over there, sir?
[trafficker] They have a bad connection.
[Joel] That's when the tension started.
They started telling them
they were too scared.
They thought we weren't stepping up
out of fear, you know?
It wasn't because we were scared.
They wouldn’t let us act.
[man 1] Whenever they need backup,
we show up.
Don't act like freeloading assholes,
or we'll lose it.
Let them fucking see we ain't afraid
of anything but real-ass motherfuckers.
-[gunfire]
-A fucking ambush.
[loud boom]
[man 2] Stay here.
Here on the ground.
It made President Andrés Manuel
make the decision to release him, right?
So as not to further endanger
the families of Culiacán.
This decision was made
to protect the public.
You can't fight fire with fire.
[Bojórquez] The operation was a failure.
And they forced the government
to back down.
Its "Hugs, Not Bullets" policy
was a mockery, shall we say,
for Mexican society.
[Martínez] I have it etched
into my memory.
And the terror on the faces
of the people who were there.
[clamoring]
In all my years covering crime,
I'd never seen anything so brutal.
[Bojórquez] Some said that,
with Iván Archivaldo's response
to the army, to the federal forces,
they had come of age as narcos.
And after the Culiacanazo battle,
major frictions began to arise.
[somber music playing]
And so from there a conflict began
that grew and grew and grew
between the Chapitos
and Mayo Zambada's people.
[indistinct radio chatter]
[reporter] Federal Forces carried out
an operation in Culiacán, Sinaloa.
The goal was to arrest
Ovidio Guzmán López.
[distant gunfire]
[man, in English] By 2023,
the president of Mexico
was personally invested
in rearresting Ovidio
to take away the stain from his presidency
that the first arrest
and release of him,
the Culiacanazo, had caused.
[gunfire]
[sirens wailing]
[in Spanish] They make
another attempt to arrest him.
[gunfire]
[siren wailing]
I honestly thought there wasn't going
to be another Culiacanazo.
[man] Get down. Get down. Get down.
They're shooting toward here.
[Martínez] But one way or another,
we got used to that kind of reaction.
And they manage to arrest him.
[reporter] Ovidio Guzmán López
was recaptured today.
[man] Careful, careful!
-[gunfire]
-[clamoring]
[man 2] Ovidio's people were firing
at any plane in the air or on the ground.
[passengers screaming]
[man 3] They're shooting at the plane!
They're shooting at the plane, fuck!
God damn it!
[reporter, in English]
El Chapo's son, Ovidio,
put on a private plane
with a one-way ticket to Chicago.
[reporter 2, in Spanish] Ovidio Guzmán
arrived in Chicago on Friday
and will be held
in the federal jail in downtown Chicago.
The same place
where Vicente Zambada was held.
[ominous music playing]
He faces charges related
to leadership in the Sinaloa Cartel
and his alleged involvement
in one of the largest and most violent
fentanyl trafficking operations
in the world.
In court, El Chapo's son said he suffers
from depression and anxiety.
[in English] He's facing life in prison…
[reporter 3] "He is facing
the rest of his life in prison,
and that is a strong reason
for depression and anxiety."
[Balliet] One of the things
that is important is
Ovidio and Joaquín, Güero,
are extremely, extremely close.
Édgar had been killed.
They're kind of like the only
true blood brothers that they have.
And, um, Güero
was kind of ready to cut a deal.
[Joel, in Spanish] Joaquín didn't want
anything to do with the business anymore.
He had an existential crisis,
I don't know if you could call it that.
His brothers said,
"If you don't want this, don't bother."
That's how it happened. I was with him.
CAPTURED
[Flores, in English] It comes a time,
for people who are involved
at the upper echelons
of that type of criminal activity,
that they wish they had a different life.
I know for a fact that Joaquín
and, um, an HSI agent
were in telephonic communication
about his surrender.
But he wanted, anything he did,
to provide assistance to the government,
to also help Ovidio.
So, from everything I've been privy to,
I think what Joaquín could offer
was fairly limited.
Like, there wasn't a whole lot
of bargaining chips
that he had to play with.
And it's that, that fine,
like, dance of,
"Hey, we want you to surrender,"
but, like, "You're not getting
a sweetheart deal out of the gate."
TWO WEEKS BEFORE EL MAYO'S CAPTURE
MEXICO CITY
[ominous music fades]
[line ringing]
[Scherer, in Spanish] It was morning,
if I remember correctly,
when I received a call
from the director of Proceso.
He told me he had something for me.
He said,
"Hey, so do you remember that person
who came along 15 years ago
to tell your dad
to sit down with El Mayo Zambada?"
CHRONICLE OF AN UNPRECEDENTED MEETING
"Well, he's back."
[airplane engines whirring]
[solemn music playing]
I arrived in Culiacán.
A person picked us up at the airport.
We got into a small car.
He dropped us off at a shopping mall,
and a van picked us up there.
They pick you up and,
for a stretch, you're on a highway.
But then, dirt tracks.
Dirt tracks and unpaved roads.
Some makeshift paths.
Lots of greenery.
Suddenly, I felt like I was in a maze,
you know?
I had no way of knowing where I was.
After a while,
we arrived at a sort of small village.
What I remember is that it was very clean,
that the houses
and the buildings, the church,
were freshly painted,
which is not common, right?
In Mexican small towns.
And suddenly,
we were in front of an electric gate.
[gate whirring]
Which opened.
I bend down to grab my backpack,
and they said, "No… No phones."
I was surprised to see him
because the image
that I and everyone else had of Zambada
was the one in my dad's photo.
Fifteen years don't go by in vain.
El Mayo was wearing a Boss T-shirt,
sweatpants, and sneakers.
I pictured him taller.
I held out my hand, and he shook it.
I thought, "What does he want?"
"Why does he want to see me?"
"Why now?"
Pretty quickly,
he started asking me about my dad.
What his life was like,
how many children he had,
what he'd been like when we were little.
At one point he said,
"Your father…"
Then he clenched his fist and did this.
As if to say,
"I carry him in my heart."
Or, "He touched my heart."
Then… he opened the front door.
Directly across, in a kind of vestibule,
there was something like an altar.
"I was immediately struck
by what I saw on a wooden easel."
"A colorful painting in thick brushstrokes
of Zambada and my father,
with Zambada's hand on his shoulder."
"I am unsettled.
I don't know what to say."
In the same place
where he kept pictures of my father
and his parents, he had this odd thing.
A picture of Gandhi.
I asked him,
"Why do you have Gandhi here?"
And he said,
"Well, because I believe in peace."
"I believe in peace too."
Wow.
In that room, there was another image.
It was, let's say,
that same instant, right?
That moment,
but the painter drew only Zambada.
And I said, "I like this one better
than the one you have,
the one where you are with your father,
this is a better painting."
And then I think
he even puffed out his chest, right?
And said to me proudly, "Vicente did it."
"He painted it."
Vicente, his son. El Vicentillo.
Yes, he painted it while he was in prison.
They told me that once a month,
Vicentillo would send his mother
a letter from prison in the United States
with a drawing in it.
He told me, "I miss him every day."
"Like thousands of families miss
their kids who have died or gone missing."
"I know that pain."
He said… that he understood
how these people feel,
people who have lost loved ones
because it had happened to him too.
I mean, I don't…
I don't dare go too far into
what is obvious, right?
Zambada…
was a man who was
very attentive, very kind,
even warm toward me.
We used that word
at some point. "Warm."
But he is still who he is.
I also asked him about…
I wanted to know how aware he was
of the suffering that he'd caused.
Of all the people whose children
were dead or missing.
Because in Mexico,
dying and having a body to bury
has become a privilege.
There are people who don't even have that.
They spend their lives searching
for the remains of their loved ones.
He said he only used violence
in extreme cases.
He said,
"The business is drug trafficking."
"Violence is something else."
He's very evasive.
"It's not an easy interview."
"El Mayo is a phantom."
We said goodbye
and… agreed to meet again.
HOURS BEFORE THE CAPTURE OF EL MAYO
[phone dialing]
[line ringing]
[Don Chuy] Mayo was up in the mountains
when El Chapo's son Joaquín called him
to come and fix a problem.
[intriguing music playing]
[Grillo, in English]
Joaquín reached out to El Mayo
to calm down various problems,
frictions between Héctor Melesio Cuén
and the governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha.
And El Mayo,
being the ultimate godfather of Sinaloa,
it's what he would do,
the kind of meeting he'd go to.
[Bojórquez, in Spanish] Knowing
El Mayo's profile, I have no doubt
that that had been the bait.
[Grillo, in English]
Even with tensions with Chapitos,
El Mayo went to the meeting
with a relatively small team
of bodyguards.
Mayo had, particularly,
a trust with Joaquín Jr.
Because Joaquín Jr. was his godson.
[music peaks, fades]
[Joel, in Spanish] "Pop," let me look
at the mess, see how things stand."
"No, kid. Why would I distrust my people?"
[indistinct radio chatter]
[tires squeal]
[Balliet, in English]
I get a text that he's coming.
And then, uh, that day, it was like…
"He's stateside."
"Guess what?"
And I was like, "What?"
He's like,
"Mayo Zambada was on the plane."
I was like, "Get the fuck out! What?"
[reporter] El Mayo Zambada,
along with the son of El Chapo
Joaquín Guzmán López, were arrested.
I was on holiday and, uh,
this news came through.
And my phone started heating up.
Just endless messages.
"El Mayo's arrested."
[Don Chuy, in Spanish]
I was fuming when I heard that.
So it was very surprising to see him
exactly as I had seen him.
Two weeks had gone by.
The same T-shirt, right?
[tense music rises]
[Balliet, in English] Looking back,
the only thing I was told was that
Güero was bringing me a surprise
or bringing me something nice
or something to start, like,
get off on the right foot,
or something like that.
And it was like, I thought it might be
financial documents,
or, "Hey, there's two tons of coke
in this house," or whatever.
I thought it was information.
[scoffs] I was like, I was shocked.
I was like, "What?"
-[camera shutter clicks]
-[ominous music playing]
[reporter, in Spanish]
We have the information
the US authorities have provided.
Nothing from Mexico.
And if he did make a deal,
as others say,
with whom did he make it?
And what was the deal for?
Many, many questions so far.
[López] Good morning.
Okay, we are going to give a briefing
on the arrest or surrender
of Ismael Zambada
and Joaquín Guzmán López.
[reporter] Are we still unable to confirm
whether it was a surrender or an arrest?
[woman] Exactly.
So it's nearly 12 hours later
and we still
don't have reliable information--
Right. The information
and investigation are underway in the US.
Is the government surprised
that Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada was captured
in the United States and not in Mexico?
We don't know whether it was
a surrender or an arrest.
What was clear to me
is that the Mexican authorities
were totally in the dark.
They didn't know what happened.
If it was an arrest,
a surrender, or if it was…
What happened?
That's something
the United States government
will have to speak about.
Those in the know in the United States,
I assume they received the order
to remain silent about the details
because he is such a major figure
in organized crime.
The government of the United States
has to submit a report.
There has to be transparency.
[in English] To my knowledge,
there was not anybody
in federal law enforcement
that was aware that Mayo Zambada
was either being tricked onto a plane,
kidnapped and put on a plane,
or that US law enforcement
was involved at all.
Once the plane was in the air,
US law enforcement realized
that he was on that plane.
Then it was like,
"Oh, shit, we gotta scramble."
It caught everybody
that I've talked to, everybody,
by complete surprise
that he was on that plane that day.
[Provance] The agents arrived
about 30 minutes
prior to the airplane arrival.
[Young] Yeah, they trickled in.
[Provance] I think I counted 17 vehicles.
It was a little bit unusual.
That's what got my curiosity up.
I noticed that the tires
had some bald spots on them,
which, for a nice King Air, is unusual.
[Young] Some sticks.
On one side, there was a stick,
twig, sticking out of one wing.
It was kind of interesting.
A little different to what you would find
on a normal airplane.
[Ornelas] I noticed on their airplane
very visible chips
on the propellers, on both sides,
kind of what you would see typically
on an airplane that
would be taking off on dirt airstrips
or rough terrain.
[camera shutter clicks]
Once the statement came through
that he would have been,
allegedly, kidnapped.
The significance of seeing
the zip ties inside this bag
was just extraordinary.
[somber string music playing]
Total shock. I could not believe it.
I couldn't understand how he could be
in El Paso. How did he get there?
Interview Frank Perez, take one.
Can you just describe
your history with the Zambadas?
Right, yes, I I I knew the family,
and I came into Vicente's case
after he had pleaded guilty.
I helped Vicente through sentencing.
During that period,
I made trips to Culiacán
where I met Vicente's father.
Mayo.
Obviously,
he was very interested in his son,
how his son's case was going.
From time to time, I would stop by
and just kind of let him know
how his son was doing.
And, visit with him, you know,
we'd have dinner together,
and he was a gentleman,
very nice, very polite, very courteous.
The Chapitos grew up with Mayo's kids.
They were around all the time.
He had a loyalty to Chapo.
Because they were El Chapo's sons,
he just felt a loyalty towards them.
Your Honor, the government calls
Vicente Zambada Niebla.
After Chapo's trial was
where I started hearing rumors that…
They just weren't happy with Mayo
and wanted to get rid of him.
They wanted to take him out.
I had a feeling
that something was going to happen.
I had discussions with him about that,
but in his mind,
he was just a loyal man,
and he believed that…
they were loyal to him as well.
I went to the DEA building,
where they had him in custody.
His leg was injured, his shoulder,
and he was still in shock.
It was hard for him to get over
that he had been betrayed.
We spent most of our time
just talking about what had happened.
He repeated the story
over and over and over.
He says when he got to the airstrip,
he was zip-tied to the seat
in the plane, by Joaquín.
The people on the plane
were Joaquín and the pilot,
who was named Jando.
Jando was Iván's personal pilot.
Iván Guzmán.
He thought Joaquín was going
to throw him off the plane.
[indistinct radio chatter]
But Joaquín told him, "No.
I'm gonna take you to the United States."
"I'm gonna get a good deal,
I'm gonna get three years."
"You're going to jail like my father."
[plane engines roar]
There was a lot of things coming out,
saying that Mayo had surrendered
to the US government
and was cooperating with the government
and was turning everyone in,
which just wasn't true.
El Mayo wanted to set the record straight.
"I need you to tell them what happened."
[in Spanish] Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada,
through his lawyer,
has issued a statement.
He says he did not voluntarily surrender
to the US authorities,
but was ambushed
while waiting to meet
with the governor of Sinaloa,
Rubén Rocha Moya,
and the politician
Héctor Melesio Cuén Ojeda,
who was murdered.
He was concerned about Cuén,
and there was a… a coverup.
[in Spanish] This is my client's statement
regarding the kidnapping.
"I know the version
given by the Sinaloa authorities…"
"This is not what happened."
"He was killed at the same time and place
I was kidnapped."
"I believe the truth has to come out."
[Villareal] Ismael Zambada García's letter
was a well-aimed poisoned dart,
and created the shock of linking
an important figure
like Héctor Melesio Cuén
with Ismael Zambada.
[camera shutter clicks]
[Clouthier] To this day,
we don't know who killed him.
That is, we don't know
if he was killed by organized crime
or by the political class.
We really don't know.
The only thing I do know
is that this is not the way.
[Balliet, in English] The minute they got
Zambada on that plane, the rules changed.
It's an unforgivable betrayal
in their mind.
Now it's the Chapitos
versus the Mayo faction.
Which means a very, very messy divorce
for whoever was left in Mexico.
[Martínez, in Spanish] I always said,
"When he's gone, chaos will be unleashed."
AMBULANCE
MEXICAN RED CROSS
[siren wailing in distance]
Upon arriving,
the lifeless body of a male individual
was found,
currently unidentified,
who was approximately 20–25 years old,
thin build…
It's common
for people
to be found murdered in this way
because there's a war on
between two factions
of what was known as the Sinaloa Cartel.
[camera shutter clicks]
[reflective guitar music playing]
We realized that there was going to be
a huge wave of violence,
We were going to have a lot of work.
MISSING
ANONYMOUS TIP LINE
We're called "vultures."
They're the scavenger birds
that circle above a dead person or animal.
PUBLIC SECURITY COMPLEX
STATE POLICE
[Castro] There have been many cases
where children have died
in the middle of this war,
from stray bullets or whatever.
The streets are empty.
Because just by going out
into the streets and breathing,
you sense the danger.
THE NARCO-PANDEMIC
IS ALSO PATRIARCHAL VIOLENCE
[gunfire]
[interviewer, in English] A shooting.
Can we stop for one second?
[in Spanish] No, it's far away.
[in English] It's okay.
For our safety,
we don't report to the scene.
Not until we're told to.
[gunfire draws closer]
Up there.
-[interviewer, in English] Close.
-Yeah, a mile from here.
-[interviewer] It's getting closer.
-[Castro] Maybe across the hill.
-I think we should leave.
-[Castro] Yeah. We should leave, yeah.
-It's too close.
-[interviewer] Getting closer.
It sounds bad. Too much shots.
-[gunfire fades]
-[sirens die out]
[reflective string music playing]
[Vázquez] This maxim from Colombia,
"I'd rather be in a grave in Colombia
than in a prison in the United States,"
now it's changed.
And Vicente Zambada Niebla
had a lot to do with it,
just like El Rey Zambada.
And obviously, Chapo Guzmán's trial
was quite an important showcase for that.
[in English] I mean, we absolutely had
enough independent evidence
to convict Vicente with our eyes closed.
But for his cooperation,
he would've been sentenced
to life in prison.
[reporter, in Spanish] Good news
for Jesús Vicente Zambada Niebla.
The judge sentenced him
to 15 years in prison,
although he could be free in just four.
[man] That's really ridiculous.
This situation, 15 years…
I mean, the number of murders
they committed,
the scale of the trafficking, so big…
I mean…
It's a mockery for the country.
[Vázquez] This new profession,
the profession of testifying
to gain their freedom
and be allowed to, like,
live in the United States
with a new identity.
It's worked very well for them.
The same happened
with the Flores twins from Chicago.
[Flores, in English] I'm here, hopefully,
sharing some of the stuff, I'm…
that could be put to good use,
but also to kind of inspire you guys.
[Vázquez, in Spanish]
And now we see him giving lectures,
trying to save others
from falling into drug trafficking.
[Flores, in English] Last time,
did I share about me being Christian?
[in Spanish] He went from being a dealer
to being a spiritual advisor, right?
This policy of deals,
which the United States government
offers to drug lords,
to go after other drug lords,
well, it's turning
the US into a retirement paradise
for Mexican drug lords.
I mean, I make a career in crime,
I accumulate many hundreds,
thousands of millions of dollars,
I surrender, make a deal,
maybe spend five or ten years in jail,
I offer them half of my fortune,
and they let me live another 40 years,
risk-free,
in no danger of persecution by anyone,
with a huge fortune.
[Esquivel] The El Grande case
has always cracked me up.
[reporter] Sergio Villarreal Barragán,
aka El Grande,
in his statements, admitted
to having murdered almost 100 people.
He liked shooting his AK-47
and blowing people to pieces.
Now he's in witness protection.
There's Chupeta, who trafficked
more cocaine than El Chapo,
and killed more people.
Now Chupeta is free too.
I wonder about the American citizens
who are their neighbors
who were lied to about their identity.
"Hey, this Mexican guy is huge,
but he's cool."
If they knew who the Department of Justice
put next to them,
or what kind of person
they have as a neighbor,
they'd be throwing fits in Washington
and demonstrating against
these cooperation agreements.
[in English] I have… have mixed opinions
on cooperation deals.
Um…
I think… they are a necessary tool.
That without them, we struggle…
We struggle on… on dismantling
any major criminal organization.
You don't get Mayo and Chapo
without cooperators.
Um, I wrestle with the…
the violence, though.
[reflective music fades]
[man, in Spanish] These people
got out of here straight away.
It is hereby stated that the house,
registered here, with no street number…
Yes.
…is uninhabited.
[camera shutter clicks]
We're in El Palmito.
As you can see, the town is deserted.
This is the area most affected
by what happened recently, right?
By the violent events.
It's a ghost town.
"EL VENAO" TACOS AND GORDITAS
HUMAN RIGHTS
All these dogs were…
They were left behind.
Right now, there's a lot of talk
about the arrest of a person in the US.
It's creating a conflict.
That conflict in the area
leads to a brutal confrontation.
[woman] They laid me down
like this, on my back,
and they put a towel here,
like this, on my face,
and they were pouring water
on me with a hose.
Finally, it was the end.
I said to myself,
"Okay, that's it. I'm going to die."
I didn't resist anymore.
They lifted me up and said,
"Right now, right now, you'll find out
if you can go or if you'll die,"
they said.
[González] There are 35,000 displaced
people in southern Sinaloa.
[woman] The only thing I asked them
was to stop torturing me.
If they were going to kill me,
to just do it,
but I asked them to dump me
where my family could find me.
And for that, they'd beat us even more,
tortured us even more.
[González] That happens.
They arrive there,
disaster unfolds, they murder people,
kidnap children, and force them
into becoming gunmen,
because they run out of people.
Seeing those children on motorcycles
is a problem.
They're often lookouts tipping off others
that we're here.
That's why we always have to be careful
in case something bad happens.
They are security zones
for certain people.
No more? Okay.
Okay, they've just reported in,
and that's why we have to leave now. Okay?
The confrontation
between the Mayitos and the Chapitos
is no different from a conventional war,
in which they want to win territory.
[shouting] You are all entitled
to compensation!
The state failed. It's not your fault.
We want you all to have a house and home.
A home, in other words, land and a house.
-Do you all agree?
-[crowd] Yes!
-Okay.
-[cheering]
[González] Applause.
[Villareal] And that impact has reached
thousands of small communities in Sinaloa,
in this entire Golden Triangle region,
Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Durango,
and all of Mexico.
[woman] Demonstrate, Culiacán!
[chanting] Enough! We want peace!
Enough! We want peace!
I WANT EVERY ACTION TO BE GUIDED BY LOVE
[somber piano music playing]
[reporter] Ovidio Guzmán López,
the son of El Chapo Guzmán,
pleaded guilty
to four counts of drug trafficking
in a Chicago court.
[reporter 2] Ovidio Guzmán has
reached an agreement
with the Chicago Prosecutor's Office
to avoid a life sentence.
[reporter 3, in English] In Chicago,
one of the sons
of Mexican drug kingpin, El Chapo,
pleaded guilty
to US drug trafficking charges.
[reporter 4, in Spanish]
Joaquín Guzmán López has revealed
how he premeditated the kidnapping
of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.
He even details how he sedated him
aboard the plane
heading to the United States.
He gave him a drink with a sedative.
[reporter 5, in English] When asked
what his job was for the past five years,
he replied, "Drug trafficker,"
to chuckles from the courtroom
and the judge herself,
surprised at his candor.
Guzmán López could spend
as little as ten years in federal prison.
[reporter 6] At least 17 family members
of notorious drug lord El Chapo
were spotted entering the US.
The Mexican government confirms
that this is part of a plea agreement
his son has struck.
[in Spanish] It's not bad,
ten years in prison
for a lifetime of freedom,
but this US policy
that we here call "decapitation"
has been a failure from the start.
If we're talking
about the last half century,
what has happened in the United States
is the largest influx of drugs,
a higher number of addicted people,
and in the sourcing countries…
[man] The alliance between
the Jalisco New Generation Cartel
and the Chapiza is now confirmed.
[Villareal] What has happened
is more violence.
[man] Fuck the Mayiza, eh!
[gunfire]
THE TRUTH
MISSING
-[chanting]
-[Villareal] More murders.
It's clearly a failure.
And a constant figure
throughout those years
has been, specifically,
Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.
[crowd clamoring]
[reporter] The details of El Mayo's
hearing are starting to emerge.
He has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking.
[reporter 2] Today, in what is
a historic hearing for all of us.
At 11:55 in the morning,
the courtroom deputy asked the defense,
[in English] "Are you ready?"
[in Spanish] And four minutes later,
there was an incredible silence.
Of course, those of us there
couldn't help but be struck
by the sight of him,
an individual
with this cloud around his figure…
And he started to read this document.
[El Mayo] "I started getting involved
in illegal drug trafficking in 1969."
"At 19 years old,
I planted marijuana for the first time."
"Over time, I started selling heroin
and other drugs, but mostly cocaine."
"From 1980 until last year, 2024,
I transported and sold at least one
and a half million kilograms of cocaine,
most of it sent to the United States."
"The organization I led
fostered corruption in my country, Mexico,
bribing police officers,
military leaders, and politicians
to allow us to operate freely."
"I acknowledge the great harm
that illegal drugs have caused to people
in the United States,
in Mexico, and in other places."
"And I take responsibility
for what I have done
and I apologize to all those who suffered
or were affected by my actions."
[reporters clamoring]
[reporter] He said, "I bribed
police officers, military leaders,
and politicians for 30 years
to operate freely."
Is that information you have
and you're giving to the US authorities?
No, no, no.
But isn't that the information
Mayo Zambada has?
The information Mayo Zambada has
remains with Mayo Zambada.
-So he's already confessed everything?
-[Pérez] No.
[in English] He did not cooperate.
He didn't talk about government officials,
he didn't turn anybody in.
Did he have a lot of information?
I'm sure he did.
He's been in the business for 50 years.
He would have
a lot of important information
that the government I believe
would be happy to receive.
I… I know they would be.
But with Mayo, he's just
a more old-school type of guy.
He said, "I'm gonna accept responsibility,
I'm not talking about anyone."
[Esquivel] He would like
to go down in history
as the world's biggest crime lord,
but it has to be said.
Mayo Zambada
has blood on his hands
from deaths
in both Mexico and the United States.
[in English]
We're here to announce a landmark victory
for the Department of Justice,
our law enforcement partners,
and the United States of America.
[Esquivel, in Spanish] It was often said
that El Mayo would never be captured,
but loyalties in drug trafficking
have an expiration date.
[in English] His guilty plea
brings us one step closer
to achieving our goal
of elimination of the drug cartel…
[in Spanish]
They say you have to cut off the head
so that the body can't move.
But this dragon has many heads.
And when one falls,
another will take its place.
[Pérez] I don't think Joaquín or Iván
or all of them together
really thought this through carefully,
because there was
just a lot of collateral damage.
[reporter, in Spanish] The US Department
of Justice has announced an indictment
against Sinaloa governor,
Rubén Rocha Moya.
He is accused of being involved
in a drug trafficking conspiracy.
I'm not afraid of anything.
I consider myself to be an upright person.
[Sheinbaum] Under no circumstances
will we allow interference
from a foreign government
in decisions that are the responsibility
of the Mexican people alone.
[reporter 1] The case of the pilot
still doesn't add up.
[reporter 2] The Mexican government
had in its hands
and then handed over to the United States
the pilot who took the kingpin
into US territory.
[in English] A secretive cartel flight
to a museum exhibit.
The plane that carried a Mexican drug lord
into US custody is now on display…
[reporter 3] Replete
with the drug trafficker's chip bags
and pop cans consumed
on the cross-border flight.
Mexico's president and top
justice officials there are questioning
whether the plane symbolizes
an illegal US government operation.
[in Spanish] There's an exhibition
where the FBI
is taking credit for this operation.
The first question is,
who's lying? Who lied?
[Scherer] "I ask him if the life
he has led has been worth it."
"Why?"
"Because it's full of death."
"As far as I know,
that's how everyone's life ends."
[unsettling music peaks, fades]
[somber music playing]
Subtitle translation by: Meredith Cannella