All language subtitles for Lords.of.the.Mafia.with.Robert.Stack.S01E03.Mexican.Mafia.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

He was the king

of narco-political
law enforcement
corruption in Mexico.

Carrillo was famous for the
idea that if a load's lost,

you kill everyone
connected with it.

That way you get the traitor.

He said that someone had
to get their hands dirty

for the sake of Mexico,

and if that meant moving
drugs, well let's move them.

♪ Oh

September 29th, 1989.

It was the largest
seizure of cocaine

the world had ever seen.

Over 21 tons with a
potential street value

in excess of $7 billion,

discovered in a warehouse
in Sylmar, California.

Boxes of the narcotic had
been stacked eight feet high

alongside bags filled with
over $10 million in cash.

Investigators soon
discovered that the drugs

had entered the United States

via the bridge that
connects El Paso, Texas

with the Mexican border
community of Juarez.

And while most law
enforcement officials

wouldn't learn his name
for several more years,

they were already
experiencing the influence

of a mysterious
Mexican drug lord

named Amado Carrillo Fuentes.

His rise to power
and ultimate demise

offers a rare glimpse into
the narco-political underworld

of Mexican organized crime.

He says, "I want
to tell you a name"

and I go, "Okay."

He says, "Amado
Carrillo Fuentes."

And he said, "I want to
tell you one other thing:

never say that name out loud."

He was the king

of narco-political
law enforcement
corruption in Mexico.

There was a time when
Amado was moving drugs

in old commercial airliners,
moving it by the ton.

You know, 10 tons of coke,

pure Colombian coke in
a passenger airline.

That's how he got his nickname
El Senior de Los Cielos,

Lord of the Skies.

The 2000-mile
expanse of the Mexican-US border

has been attracting smugglers
since before prohibition

when men delivered whiskey
to the thirsty patrons

of Texas and Arizona.

Marijuana was the drug
of choice in the '30s

and after World War
II, recovering GIs
addicted to morphine

created an enormous
demand for heroin.

For more than a century,
Mexico's traficantes

have catered to America's
changing appetite.

Smuggling activities
are often coordinated

from the state of Sinaloa,

long recognized as Mexico's
marijuana and heroin heartland.

The US Drug Enforcement
Administration

has even given the region
a special nickname.

A lot of the drug guys
come out of that area.

It's very poor, you know,
it's a lot of ranchos,

and so DEA calls
it Jurassic Park

'cause that's where the
prehistoric monsters come from.

Charles Bowden
is a journalist and author.

His book, "Juarez: The
Laboratory of Our Future"

takes a critical look at the
forces shaping modern Mexico.

You have to understand Sinaloa

has always had a bandit
culture, hereditary.

It's an entire state
with a Jesse James ethic.

Indeed, the tradition
of smuggling is so strong

that the region has
its own patron saint.

Jesus Malverde was a bandit
at the turn of the century

with a Zorro-like reputation
for helping the poor.

After his execution by
government forces in 1909,

villagers began to attribute
miracles to the bandit martyr.

Traffickers often visit his
shrine to have bullets blessed

or to thank the narco saint
for their good fortune.

It was into this environment
that Amado Carrillo Fuentes

was born in the early 1950s.

We know little of his childhood,
but in the early 1970s,

his uncle, Ernesto Fonseca,

gave him a job
harvesting marijuana.

Carrillo was starting his
career at the very bottom.

Fonseca was a powerful smuggler

and original member of the
influential Guadalajara Cartel,

under the tough Miguel
Angel Felix Gallardo.

A former Sinaloa
state police officer,

Miguel campaigned
for cooperation

among the competing traffickers,

a philosophy Carrillo himself
would adopt many years later.

This spirit of
cooperation put the cartel

in the unique
position to benefit

from another
organization's misfortune.

They've hit
shore, and they're running,

three people.

- Four people total.
- Four people total.

In 1982,
US anti-drug forces

deployed throughout
South Florida

and crippled the
distribution network

of Columbia's cocaine king pins.

Stung by the losses, the
Colombians needed a reliable way

to move their
product into the US.

Miguel Angel jumped
at the opportunity.

The cartel had ferried
cocaine through Mexico before,

but this new arrangement would
encompass much larger loads

and bring much greater
profits up to $2,000 per kilo.

It wasn't long before
the Sinaloa drug lords

were making more money
than ever before.

Here in the Sierra Madre,
where there's no electricity

and people have stash groves,
you start seeing nightclubs

with lavish marble and things
in the middle of nowhere.

And then you notice that people
that are barefoot have Uzis.

And what are you
supposed to think?

They had a good corn crop?

It is unknown how
Carrillo made the transition

from harvesting marijuana
to full out trafficking.

Most believe that Carrillo had
completed his apprenticeship

and was ready for a larger
role in the organization.

That larger role may well have
included a five-year stint

as a member of Mexico's
secret police, the DFS.

DFS stands for the
Director of Federal Security

and it was the secret
police agency of Gobernacion

which is the Interior
Government Ministry of Mexico.

Amado had one of those
badges, he was an agent.

At the time of the bust of
the Buffalo marijuana complex

in Chihuahua, Mexico, a vast
multi-billion dollar operation,

which at the time employed
7,000 farm workers

on the marijuana fields.

The biggest drug plantation
ever created on Earth.

One so large it could be
seen by American satellites.

The drug
complex was exposed

by DEA agent Enrique Camarena,

who was kidnapped,
tortured, and murdered

by leaders of the
Guadalajara Cartel,

Carrillo's uncle among them.

In the investigations
that came out later,

it turned out that the
DFS was deeply involved

in the protection of this
operation along with the MFJP,

the Mexican Federal Police
and the Mexican Army.

The cowardly murder of
Enrique Kiki Camarena,

Special Agent with the Drug
Enforcement Administration

was carried out by
the Mexican government

in conjunction, in
cooperation, in partnership

with the godfathers
of the drug trade.

Phil Jordan
retired from the DEA

after 30 years of service,
including 10 years

as Special Agent in charge
of the Dallas office,

and one year is head of EPIC,

DEA's El Paso Intelligence
Center, the largest database

of drug trafficking
information in the world.

He and Camarena
were good friends.

To this day, Mexico
has never apologized

for having captured

and delivered Kiki Camarena
to the traffickers.

Because of the international
pressures that resulted

mainly from the United States,

the DFS dismissed
400 of its agents,

and I have to assume that
Amado was one of those 400

who were dismissed at that time.

In 1985,
Carrillo made his way

to the border town of Ojinaga,

ideally situated near the
Big Bend region of Texas

that was rapidly becoming
a major distribution center

for narcotics in
northern Mexico.

It had always
been very important

for marijuana and heroin, but
after the cocaine smuggling

shifted from the
Caribbean into Mexico,

Ojinaga became cocaine central.

At the
time, Pablo Acosta

was the undisputed
crime boss of Ojinaga.

Having smuggled heroin and
marijuana in the region

for close to 15 years, he
had finally taken control

of the region, or plaza,
three years previous.

In a process known
as piggybacking,

the Guadalajara Cartel
had added cocaine

to Acosta's
well-respected operations.

Pablo's strength was that
he had the protection sewed up

for that whole region,

and so the cocaine
coming in was secure.

Nobody had to about it.

If it was in Pablo's
hands, it was safe.

Proof that Carrillo

was in Ojinaga came in 1985.

A US customs agent detained him

for carrying an automatic
rifle into Mexico.

This was Carrillo's
first and only run-in

with US law enforcement, and
it produced the oldest known

photograph of the
man who had become

Mexico's most
powerful drug lord.

Carrillo spoke freely with
the customs officials,

giving them a great deal
of personal information.

And even though US intelligence

had already identified Carrillo
as a powerful trafficker,

they did not know
how the Sinaloan

fit into Pablo
Acosta's organization.

They seemed at least to
have had a good friendship.

Pablo when I was with
him, was very proud

of the ingot around his neck.

I asked him about that.

It was a one ounce gold ingot

and he said it was
a gift of Amado,

and then he showed his watch,
it was a solid gold Rolex

that also, according to him,
had been a gift of Amado.

He wore it everywhere.

He was, like I said,
very proud of that.

In fact, when he died,

he had the same watch
around his wrist.

Carrillo's
arrival coincided

with a sudden upswing
in the amount of cocaine

being flown into Ojinaga.

Experts now believe that
Carrillo's role at the border

was a dual one: to
coordinate his uncle's

Colombian shipments, and to
apprentice some of Mexico's

most experienced drug lords.

♪ Oh

♪ Oh

Pablo Acosta was an expert
at getting drugs across.

He knew how to do it and he
taught Amado everything he knew.

Amado was a little
bit smarter, though.

Pablo Acosta used
to freebase cocaine

and do all this stuff.

I mean, he was, even if
he hadn't gotten killed

in a shootout, he was on
his way to an early grave.

Aging and addicted,
Acosta was losing his grip

on the plaza.

Carrillo by contrast,
was coming into his own.

After his uncle's
arrest for the murder

of Special Agent Camarena,
it is possible to assume

that Carrillo inherited
his uncle's operation.

In late 1986, Terrence
Poppa met both men

and found the
contrast memorable.

We were sitting
there in an apartment

above a radio station.

There was a long table there

and there was ashtrays
overflowing with
cigarette butts.

There were machine gun clips,

there was this AR
15 right behind him.

He had a .45 in his belt.

At some point, he pulled
out a little bag of cocaine

and then a box of baking
soda and he mixed the two up

and then cooked it over a flame

and it melted, and it bubbled
up and then fused together.

And for the rest of the night,

he was either scraping
that stuff into a powder,

making packs of cigarettes

to smoke that he kept in his
pocket or smoking the stuff.

Everybody I've
talked to about him

attributes his decline
and fall to cocaine.

And then Amado came over.

He walks into the room, he was
dressed in Western, I recall.

You know, a little
bit pudgy, friendly,

a little bit overly
friendly, in fact.

There was one thing
I remember though

that really stands out,

and that was a sort of
a glint in his eyes.

And I think he knew
the fact that Pablo

was talking to an American
reporter spelled his doom.

I think Amado knew that.

He was aiming to take over

and taking over meant
getting rid of Pablo.

We will
never know if Carrillo

ever challenged Acosta's
authority directly.

In 1986, the two man
exchanged heated world

in a restaurant in Ojinaga.

Pablo and Amado's
operation included a ranch

not too far out of
town, maybe 20 miles,

where there was an
underground storage tank.

It's like, you know, an old
gasoline tank, you know,

next to a runway.

So they'd be fly in
propane, 1800-pound loads,

and then offload it and
bury it in the tank.

And only the traffickers
knew about this tank.

Somehow or other the DEA
found out about this tank.

Somehow or other Amado found
out that the DEA knew about it.

Now independently of Pablo,
Amado had six people rounded up

who had knowledge of
that underground tank

and he had each one of
them tortured to death

to find out if there was a leak

or if they knew
anything about a leak.

None of them did, but
they were all dead.

Acosta
confronted Carrillo

asking him what he
had accomplished

by killing six innocent men.

Carrillo replied coolly

"It is better for six
innocent men to die

than for one guilty
man to go unpunished."

I think that Amado learned
some lessons from Pablo.

He didn't learn the crack
cocaine lesson very well

because he appeared to do that
for the rest of his career.

But he did learn
that a high profile

had some real strong drawbacks.

During his
interview with Terrence Poppa,

Pablo had revealed part
of a protection scheme

unique to Mexico's
organized crime groups.

That in order to
control the plaza,

he had to make regular
payments to both the army

and the Mexican federal police.

As soon as the
interview was published,

the order came from Mexico
City to arrest Pablo Acosta.

For the next five months,
they chased him all over Mexico.

He ended up hiding out in a
river village on the Rio Grande

and he was trapped in an
adobe hut for about an hour.

They had a tenacious gun battle,

and he was killed, he
refused to give up.

When Acosta
went on the lam,

Carrillo disappeared.

Some believe he was
involved in Acosta's death.

I can't speak for the DEA.

I can speak for the
intelligence that was known.

And the intelligence was
that Amado Carrillo Fuentes

paid the Mexican federal
police $1 million

to have Pablo Acosta killed.

Never have a high profile,
don't talk to reporters,

don't let anyone know your name.

Kill people that
publicize your name

because that's
what killed Acosta.

He became too well
known, thereby becoming
an embarrassment

to the Mexican government that
employed him, which they did.

The police and the
government in Mexico

get a cut of everything,
including crime.

So if you want to be a
criminal, the head criminal,

you have to establish that
you're in charge of the plaza,

that you represent
the criminal element.

Then you can go to the
comandante and cut a deal

and the comandante will tell you

you can do anything you want,
but if it gets to be trouble,

I'm gonna kill you,
arrest you, jail you.

But if that doesn't happen,

you just give me my bite
and you can do business.

That was the way the
plaza system functioned.

Over time, it was
natural for individual plazas

to band together into
larger alliances.

Carrillo's original man,
Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo,

expanded his operations
north to the border,

forming the Tijuana Cartel.

Juan Garcia Abrego
consolidated coastal smuggling

with prohibition roots
across the mountains

to create the Gulf Cartel.

The Juarez Cartel
was under the control

of Rafael Aguilar Guajardo, a
former commander of the DFS,

Carrillo's alma mater.

It is from Juarez that Carrillo
resumed his air shipments

from Columbia mere days
after Pablo Acosta's funeral.

Aguilar's former role as
a federal secret policeman

gave him unique access to
the workings of traffickers

throughout the region.

The information most likely
turned to his advantage

in growing his
cartel's influence.

It is believed that Aguilar
had an existing cocaine deal

with Columbia's Cali Cartel
before Carrillo came to Juarez.

Carrillo's connection to
the Medellin traffickers

was a welcome addition
to the business.

Then in August of 1989, Carrillo
was arrested in Guadalajara

charged with trafficking
for the Colombians.

The military confiscated
six of his aircraft,

four of them jets.

He was released a
few months later.

He was arrested, though.

A photograph was taken of him
that was distinctly different

from the photograph
taken off him

in Ojinaga when he applied
for a border crossing card.

The only way that I could
think of for a person

to radically alter
his appearance

like that is through
plastic surgery.

Carrillo
was in prison

when authorities discovered
the 21 tons of cocaine

in Sylmar, California.

It is likely that
the young drug lord

had helped transport the
narcotics into northern Mexico.

I was in charge of
the El Paso office

at the time this had happened.

We had an idea

that there was a lot of
narcotics coming across.

We did not know the tonnage

which came all through
the El Paso corridor.

It was all through the Amado
Carrillo Fuentes organization.

DEA in an intercept
heard a conversation

between a known drug guy in
LA and a drug guy in Columbia,

and the Colombian said,

"They didn't get the
other 20 tons, did they?"

Sylmar terrified the
American drug community

because it blew the whistle

on how big the volume
of the traffic was.

And secondly, because
they took it down

and it never affected the
price of coke on the street.

By the
spring of 1990,

Carrillo was out of prison
and the Juarez's Cartel

was experiencing a
period of relative calm.

In contrast, Western Mexico
was becoming a war zone.

Shortly after the arrest of
Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo,

Tijuana Cartel split.

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman
and Hector Luis Palma

formed the rival Sinaloa Cartel.

Miguel Angel's nephews,
the Arellano brothers,

arranged the revenge murder
of Palma's wife and children.

The Sinaloa Cartel retaliated
by sending 40 armed gunman

to attack a discotheque

where one of the
Arellano's was partying.

The bloodbath culminated
in the 1993 assassination

of Cardinal Juan
Jesus Posadas Ocampo,

killed a firefight at
Guadalajara Airport.

What that killing did,
it outraged Mexican society

and it showed just how brazen
traffickers had become.

It showed the
horrible possibilities

of Mexico becoming
another Columbia.

The Juarez Cartel took
tremendous advantage

of this uncivil war,
expanding their territory

and offering asylum
to several traffickers

caught in the crossfire.

Even the Colombians
found themselves

having to make compromises.

When Carrillo decided Mexicans
wouldn't simply take a fee

to ferry Colombian coke but
would move it for half the load,

because then when they
took half the load,

they started displacing
Colombians in the United States

in the distribution system

and that's when the roar
of money hit Mexico.

And that happened
between '85 and '90,

depending whose
account and where.

But the real architect
was Amado Carrillo.

The kid had a head for business
and he had a cold heart.

♪ Oh

♪ Oh

Carrillo
streamlined the operation

almost immediately, bringing
the loose-knit cartel

into the modern corporate era.

He used cargo planes
and passenger jets

to transport 10 to 15
tons of cocaine at a time.

His Python file flight plans
had blended the contraband

into legitimate
commercial air traffic.

If the flights were
detected at all,

Mexico's anti-drug aircraft

would be left
breathing jet fumes.

It wasn't long before
Carrillo was given

his most famous alias,
Lord of the Skies.

Carrillo's growing
legend made it impossible

for him to remain hidden.

In November of 1993, he survived
the only serious attempt

ever known to have
been made on his life.

Amado Carrillo and
his wife and children

were eating in the evening
at a fish joint, nice one.

Suddenly a bunch of guys
stormed and started shooting.

Carrillo escaped.

It's believed by DEA that
the reason Carrillo survived

was he'd been careful enough
that even his assassins

didn't know what he looked
like and shot the wrong man.

It is still
unknown who ordered the hit.

Some experts say it
was Gulf Cartel leader

Juan Garcia Abrego
who tried to eliminate

his main competition.

Others point to the Arellano
brothers of Tijuana,

who were upset because Carrillo

had fronted money to
their bitter rival,

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

They have a saying in
Spanish [speaks Spanish],

that means silver or lead.

You take the money
or you get a bullet.

And that's how
these guys operate.

Carrillo paid his
loyal followers well.

Conversely, he showed little
mercy for the disobedient.

And security leaks,
intentional or accidental,

were treated with the same
swift surgical response.

Carrillo was famous for the
idea that if a load's lost,

you kill everyone
connected with it.

That way you get the traitor.

And he did.

Carrillo took in '93 and
'94 to killing people

where he wanted the bodies found

and they were tying them with
yellow ribbons as a message.

Gradually, Amado progressed.

He apparently owned the
only tiger in Juarez.

There's a history
among drug guys

of liking to own big predators.

In '96, the tiger
escaped, actually,

and ran around in
the streets there.

It was captured

and sent to Ciudad
Chihuahua, the capital,

to be placed in that zoo.

About that time, drug
killings started appearing

where the people would be
dead, executed, hands tied,

shot through the head, but
would be delicately draped

with these cheap tapestries
with tigers on them.

If you're found in this
fashion, it's to send a message.

It's a form of policing
and it was rigorous

and Carrillo was
very good at it.

Under
Carrillo's reign,

Juarez was a city under siege,

choking on the
violence of its ruler.

In contrast, the drug lord's
hometown of Guamuchilito

benefited from the
drug lord's largesse.

He was very
good with all of the people.

What did
he do here for example?

The main thing
he did was build the church.

The locals there love him.

For people who live in
that area, poor farmers,

he's money, he's wealth,
and he's a father figure.

Late
December of 1994,

the value of Mexico's currency
on the open market plummets.

Like most drug traffickers,
Carrillo kept his fortune

in US dollars and soon
found himself 30% richer.

In 1995, however,
events conspire

to make Carrillo's empire
even more profitable.

Columbian police arrested the
Rodriguez Orejuela brothers,

Carrillo's primary contacts
in the Cali Cartel.

With the Medellin Cartel
in similar disarray,

Carrillo arranged for the
direct purchase of cocaine

from farmers in
Bolivia and Peru.

What Carrillo
really did was become

almost the single
broker of cocaine.

And he held two meetings

with the other capos,
heads of cartels,

"And here's the offer:
I'll broker the cocaine,

and we don't fight
over territory.

And you just come to me, I'll
sell it to you wholesale.

I won't try and hog it.

And then we just all
have our little thing

as far as distribution
in the United States,

and we live at peace."

Because Amado Carrillo
was smart enough

to know that wars
expensive than peace is.

Now Colombians recognized
the threat for what it was.

Carrillo had both the
resources and power

to significantly cut them out
of the United States market,

a market that
consumes an estimated

400 tons of cocaine every year.

In the end, the
Colombians relinquished

part of their distribution
network in New York City

to the Mexican drug lord.

There was a point
in the mid '90s

in which Amado could
traffic cocaine

all along the entire nearly
2000-mile long border.

He could even go through Tijuana

up into San Diego
and Los Angeles,

even though some of his
bitter rivals were there,

the Arellano-Felix gang,
notorious for violence.

But Amado was
always a peacemaker.

He believed, you know,

as Miguel Angel Felix
Gallardo taught him,

that it's much better to work
with your brother trafficker

and make money than to kill him.

If you gotta kill him,
you gotta kill him.

But work together and
you can just make a min,

and that's what he
did for many years.

He created a monster, I think.

Before that, Mexico
had always had

four, five, six,
seven, 10 cartels.

Who the hell knows?

And essentially the government
could always stay on top

by playing one
against the other.

He consolidated and became
as big as the government.

At every turn, DEA
and other agencies

were stymied by
a lack of support

from their Mexican counterparts.

Carrillo's protection extended

high into the echelons of power.

Dramatic evidence of
Carrillo's top level collusion

surfaced a few years
later in US federal court.

Raul Macias, formerly
of the Mexican Federal

Judicial Police, testified
that the local highway patrol

had intercepted
one of Carrillo's
infamous air shipments

in the northern
state of Zacatecas.

The huge full body jet
put down on a dirt runway.

It was like a 727 or 707.

No seats, full of cocaine.

Typical Carrillo operation.

He had a fleet of them.

Macias testified

that when he and
the other Federales

arrived on the scene,
his commanding officer

ordered the highway
patrolmen to stand down.

Macias then helped load the
contraband onto waiting trucks.

Macias also testified that
inside police headquarters

he was ordered to
replace the cocaine

with wood and
other combustibles.

The cocaine meanwhile was
loaded onto a large truck,

presumably for delivery to
one of Carrillo's underlings.

The wood was then burned,
masquerading as cocaine

in a public ceremony
of destruction.

This exemplifies
the type of operations

that Amado Carrillo Fuentes had.

I can guarantee you that none

of the 10 tons were
destroyed, okay?

Eventually, they
found themselves

back into the American market.

Everything we shared with
the Mexican government

through the drug czar

would immediately be reported
to Amado Carrillo Fuentes.

In the spring of
'96, somebody in DEA

shared informants with somebody
in the Mexican war on drugs.

And for three months after that,

bodies littered the
streets of Juarez.

They're instantly translating
the names given to the cartel.

US customs
agents intercept

close to a million pounds
of narcotics every year.

The agency has had great success

with its domestic air
interdiction division

which monitors air
traffic across the nation.

When customs identifies an
illegal airborne shipment,

agents go on the offensive,

tracking and chasing suspects
until they are forced to land.

Ah
the guy's jumping.

He's
thrown something out.

Drop a load.

At the
border crossing,

gamma ray and backscatter
X-ray imaging devices

peer deep into the vehicles

to expose expertly
hidden narcotics.

Even with the latest
technologies employed
to stem the flow

of drugs into the United
States, weak links remain.

The border with the
most traffic on earth

is the United States and Mexico.

1/4 of a billion human
beings cross it every year.

There's no way to police it.

US customs doesn't inspect
10% of the vehicles coming in.

What that means is if you just
threw the dope in the trunk

and said, "The hell with
it,' 90% would get through.

At the border, the
odds favor the trafficker.

When cocaine first
enters Mexico,

its wholesale price is
approximately $2,000 per kilo,

equal to about 2.2 pounds.

By the time it
reaches the border,

that same cocaine is worth
approximately $5,000.

Once it crosses a border,

the cocaine can fetch
up to $20,000 wholesale

with a street price that
is potentially much higher.

Even if you assume a remarkable
confiscation rate of 50%,

the cartel still closed
200 to 500% profit.

And when you factor
in the potential

for corruption of US officials,

the odds improved even further.

There is documentation,
there's cases where inspectors

have been paid up to $ 1
million to look the other way

as a load of cocaine
goes through the port.

If you look at a
checkpoint on the border

and there's 30
guys working there,

you'd have to be
a fool to buy 30.

You only need one.

Just run it when
he's on or she's on.

You don't have to corrupt many.

And I'll tell you
what to do next then.

To protect your boy, you
throw that guy a load.

You say, "There's a
Buick coming through

with 200 pounds of coke in
the trunk," so he looks clean.

That's done all the time.

That's 'cause the
money's too big in drugs.

Drugs corrupts
everything and everyone.

♪ Oh

♪ Oh

The Juarez Cartel
had only one consistent

vulnerability: its cash flow.

Until the gargantuan
profits have been laundered

into legitimate-looking dollars,

Carrillo couldn't touch them.

Drug money is not hiding in
the ground in 55 gallon drums.

Drug money is in commerce
with the rest of the money.

It gets there because
money launderers

use the same facilities

that legitimate corporations
use who earn money.

The laundering
process was surprisingly simple.

By secret arrangement between
trafficker and banker,

cash generated from
drug sales in the US

was smuggled back into Mexico

and deposited in any one
of several Mexican banks.

The bank would then
issue the trafficker

or his representative
bank drafts in US dollars

drawn on the Mexican bank's
accounts at major US banks.

The cash itself would
then make its way

back across the
border by armored car

and be deposited in the US.

The bank drafts were
then free to be laundered

into legitimate business

and real estate holdings
around the world.

San Antonio, Texas
has a $3 billion surplus

every year in its banking
system that cannot be accounted

by any calculus in the
legitimate economy.

Miami's 20 billion, El
Paso is 750 million.

But if you wanted to hurt
drugs by hurting money,

you'd hurt it on both sides.

But one side can bite you,
meaning banking in this country.

The biggest lobby
for the NAFTA treaty

didn't exist in Mexico.

It existed in the US
financial institutions

because they were
the beneficiaries

of all the money
the Mexican banks

and corporations would
bring to the United States.

They're investing it
overnight and earning from it.

At his peak,
Carrillo was making

an estimated $10 billion a year.

In that same time, it
is belief he was paying

500 to $800 million in bribes.

Having risen to the
top of his profession,

there is evidence that
the Lord of the Skies

was looking for a way out.

In January of 1997,
Amado Carrillo Fuentes

through an emissary,
sent a message

to the President of
Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo.

He said, "I want you
to stop harassing me.

I want you to leave
my business alone.

I want you to leave
my family alone.

If you do that, I won't dump
any dope in this country.

If you don't, I'll
leave this country

and your economy will collapse."

And that's absolutely true,
it would, because in 1997,

Pemex was the biggest legal
export, petroleum in Mexico.

It earned 7 to 8 billion a year.

And in 1997, that same year,
cocaine, marijuana, heroin,

was earning Mexico
30 to 32 billion.

The ultimatum
may have been in response

to the January 6th raid on his
family's compound in Sinaloa.

Carrillo's sister
was getting married

and he had flown home
for the occasion.

The police intended to
capture the drug lord

while he was
relatively unprotected.

But an anonymous phone
call tipped Carrillo off

before the police could arrive.

Given how much money he was said

to be paying the
government for protection,

it is likely Carrillo viewed
the raid as an insult.

Amado, according to
his lawyer and others,

was a real nationalist.

He said that someone had
to get their hands dirty

for the sake of Mexico, and
if that meant moving drugs,

well, let's move them
if it helps the economy,

if it helps Mexico.

This wedding
video is some of the only

known footage of Amado
Carrillo Fuentes.

He looks like hell.

He looks like a CEO
who spent three weeks

on a corporate merger
and hasn't slept

and has been living off
either whiskey or cocaine.

And you can tell he's
a man under pressure

and that it's getting to him.

It's like watching
"Scarface," the last reel.

In February of '97,

Carrillo's empire
began to shatter.

General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo,

recently appointed Mexico's
newest anti-drug czar,

was discovered to be living
in a luxury apartment

paid for by Carrillo.

It was a scandal,
a huge scandal.

You know, to have the head
of your anti-drug agency

to be on the payroll

of the country's
biggest drug trafficker.

It's kind of like having
somebody working at Los Alamos

and giving all of our nuclear
secrets to the Chinese.

The General's
arrest came a mere two weeks

after having been
in Washington DC

to meet with US drug
czar, Barry McCaffrey,

and discuss confidential
counter-narcotics operations.

To the press, McCaffrey
even expressed his belief

that the General was an
officer of highest integrity.

After he was appointed,
General Gutierrez Rebollo

had a meeting with reporters.

He said, "You know, the
problem isn't these big

drug cartels in Mexico.

You gotta be real
concerned about

these little cartels,
the cartelitos.

They're the ones that are really

much more important
than the big guys

'cause if you add them
all up, they're bigger."

He was telegraphing his message.

He was saying, "I'm
not going after Amado."

♪ Oh

♪ Oh

Every year,
the United States

scrutinizes cooperative
anti-drug efforts
around the world

in the process known
as certification.

Countries that fail the
review face trade penalties.

The government and the media

have unearthed new information

confirming previous suspicions

about the extent
of narco corruption

within Mexican institutions.

This connection between
Gutierrez and Amado was exposed

by the government
of Mexico itself.

Mexico's failure to
confront these cartels

does not protect a single
child on any street of any city

in the United States of America.

We stand by the
decision, obviously,

to have the United
States certify Mexico

and we're very much opposed
to the efforts in Congress

to reverse that decision

because we don't see how
it helps the United States

to walk away from Mexico
when both of us are together,

working together in a
fight in the drug wars.

It's almost
become a ritual now.

Every time certification
comes up in February,

the Mexicans end up offering
something, a sacrifice.

It was a tremendous
shock to all of us

to have this General Jesus
Gutierrez Rebollo revealed,

alleged to be a criminal.

There's two things
about certification,

I think everybody should know.

One, it's a total fraud.

It doesn't change
anything in Mexico.

And two, it's a
preposterous action.

The country that should be
decertified is the United States

with 5% of the
world's population

and it knows it sucks up
half the world's cocaine.

It is just a damn lie
to say the Mexicans

are ruining our
country with drugs.

Any demand for drugs
will create a market.

The drugs will be here as
long as we want to buy them.

If it's not the Mexican,
somebody else will bring them.

But this is our
problem, not theirs.

After the General's arrest,

Carrillo went underground.

During this time, he was
reportedly seen in Cuba,

in Europe, and as
far away as Russia.

Officials eventually learned
that he was preparing

to move his operations out of
the country and down to Chile.

If he was no longer welcome
in Mexico, it was reasoned,

then Carrillo would
then run his drug empire

from the very
bottom of the world.

But Carrillo surprised everyone

when he returned to Mexico
City in July of '97,

ready to undergo
plastic surgery.

He checked into the hospital
under an assumed name.

For over nine hours,
a team of four doctors

operated on Carrillo.

Radical liposuction
removed 20 pounds of fat.

Facial sculpting
altered his appearance.

In the end, however, an
overdose of the tranquilizer,

Dormicum, kept Carrillo
from ever leaving the table.

When officials learned
that Carrillo had died

under such bizarre
circumstances,

few were willing to believe it.

After all, it wouldn't
have been the first time

a fugitive had
faked his own death

by leaving an
unrecognizable corpse.

It so happens that the DEA
or the FBI, I'm not sure,

but a couple of
agents were allowed

to take fingerprints of the body

and a comparison was made
with the fingerprint,

the thumbprint of Amado's
border crossing card

that was issued to him in 1985.

This allowed Thomas Constantine,

who was DEA Director
at the time,

to announce even before
the Mexicans did,

that it was, in fact, Amado,
and I think that's correct.

Four months later,

the bodies of Carrillo's doctors

were discovered stuffed
inside oil drums

along the side of
a deserted highway.

They had been
extensively tortured.

It's widely believed
that the family members

did this to the doctors.

That's very likely.

The family wanted to
find out why Amado died

and so they tortured
people to death

to try to find out
what the truth is.

Through sources,
I know of a person

who saw the body
the night he died,

and he said the sutures
weren't even stitched.

Well, plastic surgeons
closed the sutures.

You're paying to not have scars.

That's the whole idea to
change your appearance,

which would suggest
somebody deliberately

killed him by injection.

The question there is,
"Who injected the chemical?"

You know.

Did the government kill him?

Members of his own cartel?

Another cartel?

American law
enforcement or the CIA?

Mexican authorities are
convinced it was murder,

but they haven't
offered any evidence.

My theory is that he really
did die under plastic surgery.

He had been using crack
cocaine for at least 10 years.

That has a tendency to
degenerate your organs,

your heart, your liver.

What the truth is, probably
the Carrillo family,

they're the only ones
who will ever know.

♪ Oh

Carrillo's sudden
death the power vacuum

in the Mexican underworld.

Within the Juarez Cartel itself,

no clear replacement for
Carrillo has yet emerged.

After the death of
Amado Carrillo Fuentes,

a drug war in the true sense

of narco traffickers
fighting each other emerged.

We like to say Mexico
has been relatively quiet.

The FBI figures there's
been 1000 murders

in Mexico in the last 24 months.

I think that's low.

One of the emerging
figures is a guy

by the name of Juan
Jose Esparragoza Moreno.

His nickname is El
Azul, Blue, that means.

He got that because
his skin is so dark

it resembles the blue-black
sheen of a polished gun barrel.

El Azul is one of the
last old time traffickers

who really believes
in peace and unity.

And according to
the FBI and DEA,

he's back and he's big
in the Juarez Cartel.

Frankly, I think when
the new Amado arrives,

we'll never know his name

'cause he doesn't wanna
become dead like Amado.

It has been said that
if Amado Carrillo Fuentes

had been offered the
presidency of Mexico,

you would've considered
it a demotion.

And whether powerful
drug lords hold sway

over the Mexican government

or the Mexican government
holds sway over the drug lords,

in the end, the
citizens of Mexico

are left with the same familiar
question [speaks Spanish],

silver or lead?

Will they turn a blind eye to
the corruption and complicity

or will they fight the Amado
Carrillo Fuentes of the world?

We have in the past
won major battles,

but we're still a long
ways from winning the war.

Amado Carrillo
died in July of 1997.

I haven't run into a
single American who says,

"I can't find any coke
and I can't afford it."

Heroin's so damn cheap now
people won't inject it,

they just snort it.

No, no, his death meant nothing.

It was like the death of
the head of General Motors.

The Chevys just keep
rolling off the line.

But you have to give
the devil his due.

You build something durable.

In Mexico, if you ask
people about Amado Carrillo,

ordinary Joe Six-Pack on
the street is gonna say,

"Well, he's still alive."

You know, there's such belief
in his myth, his power,

his legend, that some Mexicans
think he couldn't be dead.

He's the Lord of the Skies.

He can't die.