Original subtitles

I remember once, they sent us

from Mexico to the United States,

me and another guy.

The assignment was a Kidnapping job.

We had orders to kidnap a guy, and we took him to this motel.

We were right in this room.

He was here for three days.

We put him through three days of torture.

Until we got a call from the boss,

telling us to deliver him somewhere.

The guy wasn't in good shape,

0 we let him wash up and gave him some clean clothes,

before we handed him over to a couple of co-workers.

They were going to take him across the border into Mexico.

The whole time he was with us,

our orders were to maintain him.

I don't know what became of him.

Usually, even if the person has paid hack the money he owes,

he dies.

There are no borders for the narcos,

not in Mexico, or the United States,

or Colombia, or Costa Rica, or El Salvador.

The narcos can buy anyone.

They pay off the police, customs, Immigration.

How hard can it he

to move a person, if you move drugs by the ton?

I'm going to tell you

about 20 years of my life,

dedicated to serving

narcotrafficking, the cartel.

Serving them with these hands,

torturing people

and killing.

The job of a

is to do away with the victim immediately,

with either a bullet,

a knife,

or a blow.

Quick and clean, so that the victim feels nothing more.

How?

In a ca.'---...

The work of a professional sicario>

looks nothing like that of an imitation

Here's the car.

The target is driving: You have to kill him.

An imitator does this...

He spews bullets everywhere.

When a goes to work,

and has a target

at the wheel of a car...

Here's the target.

There are two very simple ways.

You make a circle here,

where the key goes into the door,

or a circle in the window,

lined up with the target's head.

This is a

The rest are imitators.

A has no need to make the person suffer.

The person is already suffering, from the moment he knows

he is being followed.

And the never...

never boasts about what he does for a living.

He lives a normal life, always among the people.

He has friends and family,

and may spend his free time

at a park, playing baseball with his kids,

or at town hall, attending a city council meeting.

He knows how to behave, how to dress.

He is well-educated. He speaks well.

The narcos have paid to groom him

since he was young, to work for them.

They pay to have people everywhere

50 that the work gets done properly.

When we were in secondary school,

a person

invited us out,

to a party,

and showed us how nice things could be,

that we could drink,

have fun,

and we could also have plenty of money,

and even a car.

I said, "How?"

"What do I have to do?"

"Nothing. Drive this car over to your school,

“and drop it off with me tomorrow. When you leave school,

"you will drive the car over to El Paso.

"After that, I'll give you another car,

"and you can use it all week.

"I fill it up with gas for you.

"On the weekend, you give it back to me.

"You drive it to El Paso.

“I'll loan you another car, and I'll pay you."

"Is that all?"

"No. Here you have a house,

"you can use, with girls to help you out,

"to serve you.

"You'll like it.

"You can live here, if you want."

There were four of us...

Four of us said yes.

My mother missed me, because I hardly ever went home.

I didn't know how to drive,

but someone taught me, in a day.

I didn't have my license.

In half an hour, somebody got me one.

1 never knew what kind of drugs I was carrying.

I knew the cars I drove over the bridge

were loaded.

I didn't know the quantity of drugs,

or where they were hidden.

They'd mentioned the gas tank,

so| figured the drugs were there.

That went on for three years,

for me and the three other guys.

All four of us

lived off the drug traffic,

and that's how we got through high school.

It was a happy time.

I wasn't dependent on my dad,

I gave my parents money when I could.

I bought clothes,

my Converse sneakers.

1 even bought a pair of Reeboks.

They cost me 80 bucks.

I was the only kid in school with shoes like that.

I bought them at J.C. Penney's.

The kids at school would tease me, step on my shoes.

It would really piss me off.

All mothers have a sense

of whether their kids are okay.

They may not say anything, but they feel it.

My mother could see I was the black sheep of the family.

She was so worried about me

that one day, at a family meeting,

my eldest sister spoke to me.

We all sat around a big table.

We're a big family,

more than 13 people.

I was sitting there,

all my brothers and sisters sat down...

And all of them said it was my fault.

"Mother is sick because of you."

"You never come home."

"What you're doing is making Mom sick."

"She knows you drink, that you take drugs,

"she knows you do all that."

The last to speak was my big sister. She said:

"Straighten out,

"or we'll send you to the army."

That made me laugh.

"You're going to make me join the army? Ha! As if you could!

"All right, don't worry. I'll fix everything up."

It only took me two days.

I was already in my 4th semester at the university

when that happened.

In two days, thanks to some people I knew,

I managed

to get admitted to the police academy.

You can't enroll unless you meet certain requirements.

These are the requirements:

First, you have to be over 18.

Second, you need a draft card.

Third...

you almost always have to be married.

Fourth, pass a drug test.

You have to be drug-free.

Fifth, the physical.

I was under 18,

I didn't have a draft card,

and I failed the drug test.

The only condition I met

was the physical.

When I had my interview with the head of the academy,

he said:

"There are two problems

"keeping you out of the academy.

"Since you come recommended,

"no problem.

"But you have to do me a favor:

"quit using drugs.

"You aren't married, but no problem.

"You don't have a draft card.

"Go to the base and see so-and-so,

“and he'll issue one to you."

Rs a cadet, at the academy,

we were paid 50% of the salary

of a regular policeman.

This money was nothing.

But the money coming in every month from El Paso,

now, that was something.

I had money...

They'd send us cash,

drugs,

and sometimes women.

What did we do?

At night, there are security guards

at the academy.

There are classrooms,

ball courts, shooting ranges.

A wall here,

cars in the parking lot, and security guards.

We'd buy off the security guards with 100 dollars

an 2 gram of cocaine.

Then they'd let us go out.

We'd leave at 7 in the evening

and come back at 5:30 AM.

Why 5:302

Because A 949...

48...

the whistle blew and it was time to get up.

By 5:50, we were at attention for roll call

and saluting the flag.

1 never got arrested. I was very careful.

Everything was scheduled.

There was a time for the showers, for meals, for classes,

for exercise...

Another shower, a meal, and more classes.

Marksmanship,

how to make arrests,

how to pursue suspects,

drug detection,

car-theft investigation,

and criminal psychology.

But what was really going on?

The narcos were paying.

Because sooner or later,

they'd recruit us to work for them.

No one would ever pay as much as they paid.

We were being trained.

Unfortunately,

all the academies

in Mexico...

for training

the special police,

investigative police,

military police,

and the army,

are used by the narcos as training grounds

for future employees.

You see,

anyone who goes through an academy

is ready to go to work for the narcos.

He has already learned how to handle a gun,

how to drive,

how to keep a target under surveillance,

how to read a license plate,

how to recognize faces and never forget them.

He has already learned how to pursue someone,

how to pick up a trail

even if they switch cars...

When you finish your training at the police academy,

you graduate.

On graduation day, there is a selection process.

There's a class of 200 men.

Of those 200 men...

Chihuahua is a big state.

Men are needed for Juarez, Villa Ahumada,

Chihuahua City,

Parral, Camargo, Delicias,

Ojinaga.

It borders Sonora and Durango.

Of the 200 graduates,

50 are already getting paid by the narcos.

So that leaves 150 men for assignment

to all the cities in the state.

But of those 50 men, 25 will stay in Juarez,

5 in Chihuahua City,

5 in Parral,

5 in Ojinaga.

They deploy their men

so when the offer comes to bring drugs into Chihuahua

from Durango,

Sonora, Coahuila,

across state lines,

there will always be an officer

who is working for the narcos,

50 the drugs can pass through easily.

Many, many times,

official police vehicles

were used to transport drugs.

Other times, all we had to do

was escort the trucks

and say:

"These drugs have our blessing."

Pass them through. No questions.

When the freight...

IS marijuana,

they barely make any effort at all to hide it!

They hitch a flatbed trailer

to a pickup truck

with a tow bar.

The trailer is stacked with boxes.

The boxes are packed with marijuana.

They drive all over town

as if they were hauling

any other kind of material.

We're not talking about two, three, or four boxes, no.

It's more like 30, 40, or 50 tons

that must he stored and guarded.

When they recruit inside the police academy,

of the fifty men on the payroll,

each has his function.

Some are assigned to guard "safe houses."

Others are assigned to keep the first guys

under surveillance.

Others specialize

in kidnapping people

who owe us money,

or who have gone to work for a rival gang.

Others

specialize in executing people.

And another team is assigned

to bury the bodies.

This is the presidency

and these are the states.

In Mexico...

each state has a governor.

But I can assure you...

I can't swear that the president

is mixed up in everything,

but the officials just below him,

under his control...

They have been bought off by the narcotraffickers.

So there are safe houses

all over Mexico.

Everywhere.

And I can tell you, here at the border,

in Nogales, Tijuana, Juarez,

even in small towns like Ojinaga...

There are houses

where the justice officials, the federal police,

the men in charge,

and even the Minister of the Interior,

the strong arm of the President of the Republic,

know that people are buried.

Not one, two, three, or four bodies,

but more than 300 or 400 people.

I can't tell you exactly who they are,

their names...

You can't know everything. But in the day to day work,

you find out about...

40, 50, or 100 kidnappings.

And I can tell you that of these 100 people who are captured,

you will only find five or six who survive.

The others will never be found.

And the officials have full knowledge of these safe houses.

I can tell you that these houses,

with 38 bodies in one, 80 buried in another...

There are police squad cars

guarding this street here, and this street here...

Because they're being paid for protection,

so the bodies never see the light of day.

In certain places,

where bodies have been uncovered,

it's because the Drug Enforcement Administration or FBI

put pressure on the Mexican government

to uncover things. But actually it's because

they know that informants are buried...

in these places...

The DEA and FBI had informants and they ended up buried here.

I can tell you an important piece of information:

These DEA informants...

It's no longer a good idea to bury them,

because now they have microchip implants.

All the DEA informants in Mexico have them.

And so even if you bury the body,

the DEA can track that microchip

with a GPS system, anywhere in the world.

This is a park.

This is an auditorium.

The person to be kidnapped

is watched for three or four days.

Two people carry out that assignment:

The "eyes."

For three or four days, if the man's house is here,

they station themselves here, or here.

They observe what time he goes out, when he comes home,

who he eats with, where he goes.

For almost one whole week.

They take notes about his routine

day by day, where he goes.

That's the job of the "eyes," and they're backed up

by two other units.

The other two units don't use private cars.

They're in police cars.

When an ordinary citizen

goes somewhere, makes a turn,

and sees that a patrol car is following him,

a marked car, easy to identify,

he never imagines that they're about to kidnap and disappear him.

Because the police are there to serve the community,

to protect the community.

They're not there to kidnap people.

What this person never suspects

is that, beginning at the police academy,

police are bought by the narcos to do certain jobs.

The day of the kidnapping,

the officers get orders.

First: "Clear the whole area

"of squad cars."

That's first.

These orders are not given to the officers on patrol,

but directly to the police chief.

Or else:

the chief is ordered to call a meeting from 10 AM to 10:45,

for all personnel.

The message is: Clear the streets of police. We're going to work.

The target goes out.

There are one or two cars

that look just like squad cars.

They aren't, but he can't tell the difference.

And they do their work.

They follow the target and stop him.

Sometimes, the target refuses to stop.

When it's a really bad guy...

someone who knows he owes money,

he'll put up some resistance.

The squad car stops him.

If he tries to outrun it, five other cars

are stationed around him, like this.

The "eyes” are at the rear.

Of the five vehicles, only one

will execute or kidnap the victim.

If he won't stop for the patrol car, he'll be surrounded.

They'll cause a crash, if necessary.

It depends on how the boss wants him:

Alive or dead.

If he wants him dead, it's easy.

The "eyes" and 2nd unit move out,

the squad car stays back, this car blocks the street...

You have to be careful of crossfire.

You take him to the side and shoot him,

Then everyone retreats.

In less than three minutes, all five vehicles

are already six or seven blocks away,

hidden in safe houses.

He's naked.

Cover him with a blanket,

pour gasoline or alcohol on it,

and strike a match.

When the blanket is burning, pull it off,

and three layers of skin come with it.

Stripped of three layers of skin, his whole back is raw and exposed.

Pour a bottle of rubbing alcohol on him.

The suffering is enormous.

Forms of interrogation that you cannot imagine.

Good, there's enough light.

I told my buddies:

"Come on, bring him in. It's safe."

They came in. We locked the door.

The boys were kicking him around.

"That's enough. Turn off the light."

1 turned it off.

I told him: "Get down on your knees.

"Kneel down!

Once he got on his knees, I told him, "Listen,

"you won't get hurt. We'll handcuff you

"gag you, and blindfold you.

"It's for your good and ours.

"Put your hands behind you." He cooperated, and I cuffed him.

"We have orders not to hurt you.

"The only thing we want you to do

"is pay hack the money you stole and spent.

"One way or another, you'll do it.

"Right now, we're waiting for orders.

"And you will do what we say.

"Stand up."

He was struggling, and we stood him up.

I took him into the bathroom.

It wasn't going to be comfortable for him.

We put him in the tub.

"This is where you'll stay.

"If we hear any noise out of you,

"you're in for a had time.

"And you know what that means.

"You just sit tight. We're waiting for orders.

"Understand?"

He nodded his head. He couldn't talk.

We closed the door, and I said,

"Put the TV on, turn it up loud. Some music...

"If he makes any noise, nobody will hear him.

"Get some beer."

They went out and got some beer.

After about 15 minutes, the phone rang.

"Hello? Yes, we've subdued him.

"Call his family? Okay."

I told one of the boys to get the car phone. It's secure.

"He's going to call them."

We went to talk to him.

"Get up."

We sat him down here.

"You're going to call your family.

"You tell them you're okay.

"Tell them to expect a call,

"giving them instructions on how to hand over the money.

"They'd better pay attention. Otherwise, you'll be sorry.

"If they give us what you owe, nothing will happen to you.

"Talk to them, tell them you're okay.

"Understand? I'll take out the gag."

I handcuff him in front,

dial the number, and give him the phone.

Instead of talking, he laughs.

I hang up.

I tell the other guys, "He's acting like a wise guy.

"He's laughing."

"80, is this what you want?"

We fill the bathtub with water, halfway.

He needs a little therapy.

"Come here.

"Gonna talk?

"Are you?

"Will you talk?

"No."

"Then stay there."

The other guys got mad,

and kicked him around.

After that, he thought better of it, and asked to call.

I brought him in here. He was limping. I sat him down.

He was still handcuffed.

"Did they deliver?" he asks.

"I think so."

"So you'll free me, right?"

"Yes, if everything's settled, you'll be freed.

"It was wrong to spend the money.

"You shouldn't try to make a fool of the boss.

"Nobody gets away with that."

"But I'm going to pay it hack."

"I hope your family will pay. They'd better not go to the police.

"Remember, the boss finds out about everything.

"If they call the police, you're dead.”

"No, they won't tell anybody.

"They know what might happen.”

"Do you want to lie down?"

"May I?"

"Yes."

I brought him over, and he lay down.

He slept for a few hours, on this side.

We continued our little party.

“Look, your family is trying to be smart.

"They only delivered half of the money you owe.

"We know your hank accounts are empty.

"But you own some ranches, some houses.

"Tell your family

"to put the property up for sale with areal estate agency.

"They'd better sell it.

"Half the money is still missing! Get it?

"We're not kidding!

"They've taken all the money out of the bank."

I remember, it was 7:45, 7:50.

Before 8 in the morning.

The phone rang. It was the boss.

"Your orders, sir?

"Yes, sir. No, he's quiet here.

"We've got him.

"We'll take care of it. Fine.

"Where?

"Immediately.

"No, it's not far at all.

"We're close to the bridge."

I told my buddies, "We're taking him out.

"We'll let him shower and put on clean clothes.

"Fix himself up.

"We have to deliver him to the other side,

"take him there."

He took a shower.

We got him some jogging pants,

a sweatshirt, size 9 tennis shoes, a razor.

The guy washed up.

He was happy.

You could barely see any swelling.

The thing with the bathtub was nothing, really.

"Let's go."

We let him feel safe.

We made him get in the back seat.

He was in the middle, with me on his right,

my buddy on his left, the third guy driving.

We crossed the bridge

and delivered him to some colleagues on that side.

And from that moment, 1 forgot about him.

I didn't want to know what happened

to the packages we delivered.

That wasn't my job.

My job was done when the package was delivered.

That was the end of it.

You don't usually need a big team

to kidnap a man,

or execute him.

What you need is someone with courage, experience,

and nerves of steel.

Even if a police car is on your tail,

you have to keep cool and not panic.

The person we held here cooperated until the third day,

when we delivered him to somebody else, in Juarez.

We'd done 2 good job.

Clearly, there are no borders for the narcotraffickers.

Whenever they want to do something, they have the money

and the power

to get it done, by anybody, anywhere.

They can pay.

Just as the police in Mexico are corrupt,

I assure you that in the US,

the police have been infiltrated by agents working for the narcos.

For many years,

I worked...

24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

I could never turn off

my radio and cell phone.

The day it was turned off,

it meant you were dead,

or they wanted you dead.

If you didn't have a really good excuse

for not answering the radio or telephone,

they'd know you wanted out.

And you wouldn't go on living much longer.

My intention...

was to serve,

For along time, I would say:

"For me, Number One is the boss,

"Number Two,< El Patron.>

"Number Three... ."

I devoted my life to defend one person.

I did whatever the boss told me to.

Any little thing he desired,

I never said, "No, I can't get it. There isn't any."

Anything he wanted, he got.

Anything he wanted to own, he owned.

This included

cars, trucks, women, jewelry...

Money was no problem

for buying cars or jewelry.

Many women are not for sale,

but when the boss wanted one,

it was up to us to persuade her.

Many times... an infinity of times...

I never had any remorse

about the things I told them to win them over.

"Listen, there's someone who wants to take you out.

"If you agree to come with us,

"you'll spend a week in a fancy hotel, by the best beach.

"It'll he a wonderful week for you.

"If you want money, fine.

"But you'll have to forget the people you see for the rest of your life,

"and you have to do what's asked.

"If you agree, everything will be fine."

Many women fell for this.

They did it, and they're alive today.

But some thought they could outsmart us,

and I never saw them again.

I'm not saying that we murdered them.

Even though there were young women who were killed.

What usually happened was

that these women were so ambitious,

they thought they could become the wife

of the boss at the moment.

But the boss already had forty wives.

He had women in every state in Mexico.

He didn't need any more wives.

It's ugly to see a woman tortured.

An ugly sight...

Ugly to see how...

they are humiliated.

The torturers have no scruples.

It's not the same when they deal with a man.

You get your hands on a man

who has been stealing,

who knows he owes money,

and who has tried to disappear,

who didn't show up for an appointment,

it's not the same.

To see a woman suffer until she begs for mercy,

to see her raped, not by one man, hut by six or seven...

And then...

to make her suffer until she loses consciousness...

And finally...

to strangle her.

It is ugly. At times like this, it is better just to shoot them.

Strangling a person...

It's horrible.

You feel how they suffer, you see how they lose all hope.

You watch their life slipping away, little by little.

You see that this person

has a line.

When they're past halfway on the line,

when they are dying,

all of the strength they'd been exerting to get free

drains away, with their life.

Their body goes limp.

But then you can loosen your grip a little,

and they gain a little strength

and start to revive.

You're under orders to make it last a long time,

50 that the asphyxiation is slow and full of suffering.

After that...

You start to learn the ways...

the cartel, or cartels,

leave messages by dropping the bodies

a certain way.

You may get the order:

"Throw the body face up."

This is a message.

"Throw the body face down."

Another message.

"Cut off one of his fingers and put it in his mouth."

Message.

"Gut off a finger and stick it in his anus."

Message.

"Gouge his eyes out."

"Gut out his tongue."

In situations like that, when you're not a doctor...

You get your orders and carry them out.

When you're ordered

to strangle a person...

cutting off a body part is no problem.

It won't bleed.

The blood has stopped flowing.

I remember one time,

somebody made a mistake and started beating...

one of our "patients" - as we call them...

He gave him a kick in the head, and it started gushing blood.

He got yelled at.

I didn't see why +the guy was going to die.

Why shouldn't we beat him to death?

They gave me a logical explanation.

"If you make him bleed,

"you'll have to get rid of the carpet.

"It makes a bloody mess.

"First, kill him. Then cut off what you want."

You don't learn that in the academy.

You don't learn such things in military school.

You learn this in life.

You get to a point when you're about to snap,

not because you feel remorse, but...

Because you're so stressed out about what you do,

you have to stay high and drunk all the time

to overcome your scruples.

You get to a point when, if you're driving,

and another car passes you, you say, "What?

"Want to fight, buddy?

"Okay, I'll kill you."

Just because the other guy passed you on the highway,

you shoot him.

Without even knowing who he is.

There were a lot of cases like that at a certain time,

until someone higher up

prohibited this behavior,

in order to regain control, to stop so many unjustified Killings.

I remember another time

we were sent to kidnap someone.

We were just to pick him up

and then kill him later.

What did we do? We captured him, took him to the safe house,

and started the work of execution.

We wanted to get it over with fast, 0 he wouldn't suffer.

We were focused on that.,

Al of a sudden, the phone rings.

"Wait, it's the boss."

"What are your orders, sir? Yes, sir. Yes."

"Stop!"

The order was to revive him

when he was already right on the edge, almost dead.

We had to bring him back to life.

"Revive him." "We can't."

"Sir, we need a doctor. He's too far gone for us.

"The work was very advanced, sir."

For the narcos, there are no limits.

In minutes, a doctor was at the door.

No ambulance, of course, but a trained doctor,

and he revived our victim,

He brought him back to life and stabilized him.

It may take one hour, two hours, or all day,

but the doctor will stay until the person is in stable condition.

Then we take over again.

Five, ten, fifteen, or thirty days may pass,

and we keep him alive, no problem.

We're there to "secure” him,

to keep him alive until the telephone rings.

When that happens,

it's a liberation, both for us and for him.

"Yes, sir, at your service.

"We're awaiting orders from you.

"No, he's fine. He's eating.

"What an appetite!

"No, he's in good shape.

"Okay, sir, as you wish."

That time, our friend was not so lucky.

Maybe his family had already paid,

maybe he'd been kept alive as insurance,

in case he had to talk to his family again.

This time, the boss's order came in:

"Finish him off!"

He'd been saved once from death by strangulation.

This time, there was no turning back.

There was no second call.

This time, we had to twist the cord, all the way.

There was a time one year

when the order came down that within thirty days,

exactly,

no one, absolutely no one

would be allowed to sell...

a single packet of cocaine.

Not even a tiny amount.

Could be sold by anyone.

Why? Because the word got out

that about 3,000 kilos of cocaine had gone missing.

And the result was that some small-time dealers

who were causing problems for the cartel

didn't obey the order.

They never paid any attention to orders from the cartel.

What happened?

These people were identified

and executed.

We're talking about a massive execution

of about seventy people.

A little earlier,

there had been another problem,

with car thieves.

No one could control them.

It was such a problem that the police themselves

asked for help from the cartel

to dismantle these gangs of car thieves.

There was another massive cleanup of about 45 youths

who'd been in the stolen-car business.

When we rounded them up,

the work was not handled

by a single group of men.

You can't say, "It was only the ."

The operation included municipal police,

state judicial police,

federal judicial police,

plus men from the cartel.

We're talking about a group of 800 men working together

to do away with the 70 dealers and 45 car thieves.

The bodies are buried

in various neighborhoods

and houses in the city.

Not all of them were killed immediately.

Of all the men we rounded up,

some of them had to wait for two or three days,

because they knew people

inside the cartel,

and so that got them some privileges.

A lot of them...

Well, when I say a lot, I mean about fifteen out of fifty

were lucky enough to stay alive.

Why? Because they'd been working as informants for the cartel.

And in exchange, as informants for the cartel,

they were asked for the names

of the informants paid by the police.

Not just for the Mexican police,

but also those crossing to the US

and giving information about Mexico.

These people

were given...

very special treatment.

Water was heated

in 55-gallon drums, three-quarters full.

We set up a winch,

The people were tied...

at the shoulders...

and lowered in, little by little,

when the water was boiling.

When they fainted, they were taken out.

A doctor revived them.

Then, the parts of their bodies that were cooked were cut off.

It got a reaction.

Then it was back to the winch, and they were lowered again,

until they died.

When you're living a life...

the wild life, ...

That means...

you've got money,

you've got liquor,

you've got sex - women...

Cars...

When you can party on a yacht...

You've got houses, apartments...

Not your own, but available to you,

because they facilitate your work with the cartel...

You don't really get addicted to the drugs, money, liquor, and sex.

But you just love all that stuff,

I was very violent.

The dreams are not things

that could never happen.

I was terrified of sleeping at home,

in the house with my family.

I'd go sleep alone.

Most of the time,

and it happens to almost everybody,

the problem is that the slightest noise

triggers a violent response.

If you're in bed

and your wife comes in and touches you,

and your head is filled with so much anxiety

you're about to explode,

sometimes you attack...

In my case...

One night, my wife tried to wake me from a nightmare.

I was sweating in my sleep...

Groaning...

She tried to help me, because I was having a nightmare.

And when she shook me,

1 leaped up and grabbed her by the neck,

without waking up.

I was strangling my own wife!

That was the moment

I realized

something very had was happening to me.

This whole career

I'm telling you about...

You reach a point in life,

in the line of your journey,

when you just can't go on: The limit.

When the day came and I hit this limit,

1 quit drinking, smoking,

and using drugs.

I said to myself: "No more."

That day is the most...

entertaining for the guy

who was above me, giving orders.

He says, "Want a line of coke?"

"No, thanks."

"A drink?" "No, thanks, sir."

"Cigarette?" "No, thanks, sir."

He started to laugh.

"What's up with you?"

"No more for me."

"Will you be able to handle the work sober?"

"I do the work.

"It's not the coke, the cigarettes, or the liquor."

But I knew something in my life

was making me change.

And being high

or drunk all the time

was keeping me from thinking

about what I needed to do.

When I got to that stage,

and they started making fun of me,

I started to feel persecuted by my own buddies.

They started to demote me,

lowering my rank.

They gave me jobs that a would never do.

A killer who had spent twenty years doing what he was supposed to do.

They started sending me to wash cars,

something anybody could have done.

The pay for washing cars was lower than what I was used to.

It was totally degrading.

This kept happening, more and more.

It went on for a month, a month and a half.

Then they sent me on a new mission,

a very simple one.

I was supposed to go to another city to collect a debt from someone.

When the guy saw me, he was surprised

because it made no sense to him that I'd be there

to collect so little cash.

It surprised him so much, he immediately gave me

about 50% of the money hie owed my boss.

Of the 50%,

I took out about 10% for myself.

I used it to go back to living , the bad life.

For three days, five days, I went back to using drugs

and drinking.

I began living the wild life again, as they say.

It wasn't a good thing for me.

The boss sent some guys to look for me, and I found out.

I'd cut off my phone and broken off all communication.

They were pissed off because I'd taken money.

It could have been one dollar or 10,000.

It was a problem of confidence

Their trust in me had been lost.

The problem wasn't the money, it was the loss of trust.

I had cheated them.

They called me,

and threatened to take revenge on my family.

So I simply

grabbed the phone and called the boss,

to tell them where I was.

It was difficult. I was making a dangerous decision.

I knew I was putting my life on the line.

They could kill me,

since they didn't trust me anymore.

I take a bus to the other city,

where I'm meeting them.

When I get there, no one's waiting for me.

1 grab a public telephone and call them.

Two small cars drive up.

I get into one, peacefully. I knew they'd come for me.

If 1 hadn't gotten in, they'd have forced me in.

So I don't struggle,

to avoid problems on the street.

They drive me to a safe house,

where they beat and torture me.

Suddenly, I feel so much...

rage,

I break down and cry.

They think I'm crying in pain.

No, I'm crying because I'm afraid I'll hurt one of the five men.

They lacked the training to capture and hold me right.

I wasn't handcuffed or tied up. I could have hurt them.

I get a call from one of the bosses, who tells me:

"You have 30 seconds to get out of that house.

"We never want to see you again."

I was completely naked at that point.

Of the team of five guys,

only one was still there guarding me. He says,

"I've nothing against you. Go!"

He goes into the bathroom.

I make a break for it out the front door,

running down the street buck naked.

I run until somebody comes to my rescue,

and drives me home.

There I am, at my house.

I can't go in the front door.

I have to ask the neighbors to let me hop over their wall.

I knew the cartel would be looking for me.

The orders to let me escape didn't mean I was a free man.

They wanted to execute me.

For twenty years, I'd been part of the business.

I knew the routine.

After letting me go, they didn't want any trace of me.

1 hop over the wall, I get my family...

I get my wife and daughter out, and we flee.

All I had time to take was a T-shirt and a pair of pants.

That night, our house was ransacked.

They looted it for guns, uniforms,

drugs, and cash that were there.

My family and I split up, on the run.

Nothing was safe. It was too dangerous

for us to stay together.

If I got caught with my family,

there was a danger.

They might kidnap all three of us, and kill us all.

It was better to separate.

We ran from state to state, city to city, separately.

We never saw each other. We each went our own way.

We had no money or anything.

But still, little by little, we were escaping from the prison

we'd been living in.

We stayed apart.

I had to go back

to the only place where no one knew me.

There was no one I could ask for help, except one man

I'd hunted for months,

to kidnap him and collect the money

he owed to the cartel.

This man was there waiting for me.

I made a call to find out if he would see me.

I was surprised when his secretary said,

"He's expecting you. Come when you like,

“and he'll see you."

I was even more surprised when I went into his office,

and he was perfectly calm and unruffled.

He shook hands with me and said, "What can I do for you?"

He told me he'd been expecting to hear from me,

because something told him I was in trouble.

He listened carefully to what I said, for several minutes.

Then he said, "You know what? There's someone you need to know.

"Come. I'll take you to meet him."

He took me to a place,

a huge church or meeting house. It was really big.

We go in. Right as went in, I was surprised to see

hundreds... thousands of men,

standing there,

all singing and shouting,

singing hymns and testifying...

I walked down the aisles and I was surrounded

by men weeping with passion

for what they were experiencing.

It was overwhelming.

They were shouting like a bunch of queers.

I watched them as they were overcome by their passion.

The really surprising thing was to see so many men

yelling and jumping around.

It was amazing to be in this place

with a crowd of hundreds of people.

There were rows and rows of men, all men! It was really something.

I'd seen marches and rallies,

demonstrations...

You see plenty, in Mexican cities.

But these men were jumping, waving their arms, singing...

Worst of all, some were on the floor, crying.

To me, it looked like the loony bin.

They were a bunch of fairies!

1 never thought I'd see thousands of men,

with their arms in the air, hopping back and forth,

singing songs and bawllng.

It was so different!

That experience really disconcerted me.

The time came to leave, to go home and rest.

The next morning, he woke me up and said, "Come on."

"Where?" "Let's go back."

"No! They're a bunch of queers,

"all they do is cry and jump around."

He said, "Let's go.

"Let me have my way. I took you in.

"You should accept this."

And he took me by the hand.

We got there, and took a seat in one of the rows of chairs.

1 turn around, and again,

I'm amazed at the size of the crowd.

What could bring these thousands of men to this place?

I turn around toward the front,

and I see an enormous stage. The music starts.

The men start to sing hymns.

My friend puts his hand on my shoulder,

and another guy does the same.

They start crying for me.

And then, when I heard them praying,

my eyes clouded up.

1 felt a strong sensation of warmth. I couldn't understand it.

Suddenly, I fell down.

These were crucial moments for me.

All I could feel

was my body boiling, my blood boiling.

I can't explain it.

Tears poured out of my eyes, an endless river of tears.

No tissue could dry my tears.

No handkerchief was big enough to soak them up.

It was so... I turned around,

I wanted to get up and compose myself.

But I couldn't! I was overcome by sobbing.

All I could do

while we were in this church was cry.

It was uncontrollable.

We stayed for eight hours, and I was in a kind of trance.

Al did was cry and cry,

because something was happening inside me.

Something more powerful than anything.

I'd made fun of this circus, all the faggots,

and now it was happening to me. I was part of it.

I was crying like a baby.

I saw myself as a child, I saw my whole life go by.

From when I was a little boy, then my adolescence...

I saw many good things,

I remembered my parents,

happy moments, the circus, my mother, when she was still alive,

having fun with my brothers...

Everything I'd forgotten!

I had left all this behind me

to serve somebody who was worthless.

All these memories filled my heart with joy.

I said, "What is this? It is all good, this is being good."

I was being freed of the yoke,

the burden I'd been carrying,

of all these years I'd been serving the cartels,

under the yoke of these people with their foot on my neck,

giving me orders.

I was being freed of all that. It was a wonderful feeling,

and my passion overflowed.

I did not know that He was crying.

I did realize something was happening.

The next day, they said,

"Come forward to receive the Lord."

It was automatic! No need to say, "I want to."

I just stood up and walked to the front.

I said a few little prayers, a few little words,

"Yes, I love Him, I want it, I can feel it..

"I want to belong to His family.

"I want to belong to Him."

He had given me something no one had ever given me:

The joy of remembering the beauty of life,

how beautiful it is to be free, with my family,

to enjoy life,

with the family I already knew.

When God called me,

He made me roll around in all of this filth.

He took away the very last cent

I had made from all of this.

He took away my clothes,

He took away my thoughts, everything.

He shook me down.

And do you know what? He left me like that...

with nothing but my skin,

naked,

with my family.

And from there, we can begin anew life with Him.

Adaptation Anita Conrade

Sous-titrage NICE FELLOW