All language subtitles for Drug.Lords.The.Next.Generation.S01E03.720p.HULU.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV Eng

NEWSREADER: The hunt
for Pablo Escobar,

the Colombian drug lord,
ended today.

PETER: The Sinaloa Cartel,
under the leadership
of El Chapo Guzman,

rose to become the
wealthiest, most powerful
cartel in the world.

BONNY: Chapo was an
evil person, and I don't
use that word lightly.

DEREK: We're talking multi
billions of dollars.

We're talking about
violence that's worse
than Afghanistan and Iraq.

RUBEN: A good 80 percent of
the cocaine that finally
gets to the United States

is probably going
through Guatemala.

PETER: Guatemala became
a critical geographic

and operational area
in the global narco
trafficking industry.

PETER: Otto Herrera was the
player in Central America.

He was the largest,
wealthiest, most powerful
Guatemalan trafficker.

STEVE: The Herrera
organization moved in excess
of 50 tons of cocaine

into Central America
on behalf of the
Sinaloa Cartel.

OTTO: I never envisioned
how big this was going
to get.

The logistics, the loads,
the storage, the whole
entire Guatemalan operation

was being run by me.

OTTO: My name is Otto Herrera.
I was born in Guatemala.

STEVE: My name is
Steven Fraga.

I'm a Special Agent of the
United States Drug
Enforcement Administration.

OTTO: My father used to
work for an American company
down in Guatemala so,

we had the chance to
attend American school.

I did my high school in
the United States, in
Riverside, California.

After school I had, you
know, a couple of jobs
here in the United States

and I worked construction.

Did a lot of work
for oil companies,
building gas stations.

STEVE: When he was in
California, he married
an American woman.

When he returned
to Guatemala, he had a
wife and a young family,

so he was looking for work.

OTTO: I returned to
Guatemala with my wife and
my first daughter, and,

as I come back to my
hometown, I meet
with old friends,

and I started, I started a
new business with them.

A trucking company.

I'm making a living,
but it's not enough.

We were aware that
there were airplanes
landing in the area,

from Colombia and they
were bringing cocaine
into the area.

The reason that we
knew this, because a
few months earlier,

there was a plane
crash close by.

An airplane crashed with
a full load of cocaine

and cocaine was spread
out all over the fields.

STEVE: Because of
where Guatemala sits
in Central America,

it is an ideal location
geographically, as a landing
point for cocaine shipments

from Colombia that were
transferred by plane.

OTTO: One of my friends,
we always, spoke about

how well his brother
was doing, you know?

Making real money and how
little did we see him work.

We had our yard where we
parked all our equipment,

and I noticed that his
brother had a box truck

parked at the yard
that hardly ever moved.

So, I opened up the
box truck.

What I found was
lights and generators,
and radio equipment

to land airplanes
during the night.

So we came up with an idea.

We blocked the fuel line so
the truck wouldn't start.

And sure enough, about two,
three weeks later, I got the
call from him and told me

that he needed help because
he wanted to move the truck.

So we told him that we
wouldn't fix the truck
unless he told us

what he was doing and,
you know, he came clean.

For me at first, it was
like the opportunity
of making real money.

I could assume that it was
going to be risky, so it
had to be good pay.

STEVE: Otto Herrera saw an
opportunity and provided
valuable assistance

to that organization.

OTTO: I knew what
I was getting into.

I knew there was a
big responsibility.

There was the fear of
failure more than
anything else.

STEVE: Herrera maintained
a couple of skill sets
that were unique

that could be used within
the drug trafficking arena.

OTTO: I grew up in a banana
plantation, watching the
crop dusters work every day.

So that was my dream, to
become a crop duster and
that's why, you know,

I took the lessons and, I
was never able to finish.

But the knowledge
is there, you know.

STEVE: He knew how to
fly planes, he knew how
to assess properties

that could be utilized
as airfields.

OTTO: I was very handy
with GPSs and all the
navigation equipment

so I was being sent out
to get coordinates from
these airfields

and trying to help with
the logistics of the jobs.

I was just thinking about
getting ahead, making
money and trying to,

provide my family
with a better life.

I never envisioned how
big this was going to get.

I never did.

The operation was
centralized in
Guatemala because

of the geographical
position.

From that area, you can
access the Mexican
borders very quick.

OTTO: The shipments came
into Guatemala, and it
was our responsibility

to help these aircraft land.

And after that, we needed
to safeguard and store the
cocaine till the Mexicans

were ready to transport,
this cocaine into Mexico.

RUBEN: To call them
airstrips is an insult
to airstrips,

but these are basically
small roads in the
grass that they make,

where they have the small
planes land with cocaine.

STEVE: The first
representative of the Sinaloa
Cartel that Otto Herrera

established a working
relationship with,

was an individual
known as Chuy.

His true name was
Jesus Soto.

OTTO: Chuy played
a very important role
in the Sinaloa Cartel.

He was pretty much in
charge of Guatemala

and the rest of the countries
in Central America.

Everything I learned
about trafficking,
about drug trafficking,

I learned from Chuy.

The way to approach people,
the way to negotiate deals.

Most important was to
learn what the people
in Sinaloa liked.

To be loyal to them and
to work strictly for them.

Mayo Zambada, I was very
close to Mayo Zambada.

I visit Mayo several times.

The first person that
introduced me to Mayo
Zambada was Chuy.

I did spend a lot
of time with Chuy.

I drove him around all over
the country, scouting places,

meeting people and I got
to know him quite well.

Our relationship grew closer.

At the same time, there
was a lot of rumors being
spread about Guatemalans

I was working for, in
relation with shipments
getting stolen.

Portions of shipments
and full shipments.

This is a subject that me
and Chuy used to talk about.

I was instructed to
take the shipment
over to the border.

The plan was for the
shipment to disappear on the
way to the Mexican border.

I did fear for my life,
cause I had a feeling
that, with that shipment,

I was gonna disappear too.

They knew about my
relationship with
Chuy already.

They knew I was
very close to him.

So I figured that if
the load disappeared,
I would disappear too.

I got a hold of Chuy
and told him what I
was gonna do.

I switched the drugs to
a different truck, and
I took off.

I took off without
telling anybody.

And I got to the rendezvous
spot, okay, and turned in
the merchandise.

OTTO: Chuy brought me in
and told me, from here on,
you will be my employee.

You have nothing to
do with them anymore.

I knew they were
not gonna be happy.

The transition was kinda hard
and, it was just another
matter of laying low.

As time went by, more
responsibility was laid on
me and I became that link

in between the Colombians
and the Sinaloa Cartel.

STEVE: Chuy, on behalf of the
Sinaloa Cartel, recognized
Otto Herrera's discipline,

communication, attention
to detail, business sense,

the fact that Otto Herrera
was a person that did
desire attention.

OTTO: I kept a very low
profile around my family.

It was a secret to my
wife, what was going on.

If you were going to work
for me, you had to
you had to be straight.

I didn't allow anybody to
use drugs, because I
didn't use.

It's a different story
with the Mexicans.

I think It's part of
their Narco culture.

Chuy always struggled
with drug addiction, a
heavy drug addiction.

And I tried to stay away
from him when he was in
his rampages,

because he was a totally
different person.

He got very violent.

Chuy, at a social
event in Mexico,

he started drinking and
he started doing drugs
at the event

and, first thing he did
was go after a gun.

And by mistake he
shot a family member.

It was a tragedy.

He never got over that.

I think his drug use
increased after that.

And from there it
was downhill.

After a year or a little
longer after a year, he
came to me and said, Otto,

you can run this yourself.

STEVE: Herrera ultimately
became his own

drug trafficking
organization within
Guatemala.

The Herrera organization
moved in excess of fifty
tons of cocaine

into Central America on
behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel.

I don't think Otto
Herrera ever considered
that he would be arrested.

OTTO: What we have
here is a Piper Aztec.

This particular aircraft was
used many, many, many times

to smuggle drugs from
Colombia into Central
America.

OTTO: In order to get this
done with this aircraft,

you have to do a lot of a
lot of custom work on it.

The main idea is
to create enough space
to put our load in it.

Anything from 700
to 900 kilos.

It's about 16 to 1800 pounds.

The wiring of these
aircraft is very heavy,
believe it or not.

So a lot of the wiring
is stripped out.

The transponder is used when
the plane has an accident, so
It's stripped out of it too.

One of the most important
things that came out was
the radio system,

which is very heavy.

Most of the seats go,
all the upholstery goes.

This seat right here
was always removed,

and it was replaced with
an extra fuel container.

So as you remove
equipment, that makes
the aircraft lighter

which increases the
payload on it.

When the custom work
was done, that would
put it up to, you know,

close to 6 million
dollar loads when it
was at full capacity.

STEVE: It's an incredible
amount of money.

At the same time, there's a
very, very significant cost

to manage these
transportation
infrastructures.

For instance, a single‐engine
aircraft may be upwards of
one or two million dollars.

It includes the payment to
pilots to fly the airplanes,

people who load the
aircraft with the cocaine.

The air traffic controllers,
police or military in
corrupt countries

to allow aircraft to
safely exit countries.

There's a very, very
significant amount

of money that's paid
into the operation.

OTTO: The Mayan Landing
System, It's just a nickname
we gave to a procedure that,

we came up with to
operate during the night,

and basically, do manually
what an instrument landing
system does.

The idea was to
minimize the risk of
losing a load, so,

night operation was
very important.

You know, we came up with a
system that would help the
pilots find the airfields

very easy, and land
very easy.

We would take an aircraft
and we would fly the
last part of the route,

and we would record every
single part of the route.

We would take elevation,
speed coordinate.

We would trace the
final approach.

We would give them all the
information of the speed
they needed to take,

and this facilitated the
landing during the night.

The main idea is to fly
into international waters
as quick as possible,

and the route takes you
through the Caribbean

and into the Caribbean
shores of Guatemala.

The main idea is for the
receiving end to have a
clandestine airfield,

the closest to the
ocean as possible.

STEVE: The flights would
enter Central America during
the hours of darkness,

early morning, one, two,
three o'clock in the morning.

OTTO: As they do their
final approach, everything
is done in the dark.

Last two or three minutes
of the final approach
are the most crucial.

That's when they'll ask
to have the lights on
the airfield turned on.

They'll be turned on, and
as they land, as soon as
they touch ground,

those lights are out.

OTTO: Yeah, very
dangerous stuff.

These operations are not
for, for normal pilots.

It's a special breed of
pilot that can do this
type of operations.

We had casualties.

Sometimes, you know,
at the beginning when
we first started,

the planes were overloaded.

We did not know enough to
know that the plane could
not take the weight.

Sometimes the runway was too
short, or you simply just
had a pilot that didn't have

the experience and,
malfunctions in the engines,
especially on piston engines,

it was very common, that
an engine would fail.

And once one of these
engines failed and you have
that type of load on it,

It's very hard for a flight,
you know, to continue.

I did lose a friend.

Ah, the person just
misread his instruments

and crashed against a
mountain coming out
of Colombia.

You can't do nothing about it
but wait for the authorities

to come and rescue whoever
is alive and, you know,

recover the load and
that's how you find
out, through the news.

STEVE: It was common
within these organizations

to use planes for
one‐time occurrences.

They would use bulldozers
to dig massive holes.

The planes would be buried
at landing strip sites,

and simply turned inti
aircraft graveyards.

OTTO: We were running an air
operation and a fast boat
operation at the same time.

We had two fronts
going full bore.

There was airplanes landing
in my area every other day.

I would say in a good
month, you can say, anything
from 8 to 10,000 kilos.

At that time, the price
of one kilo in
Guatemala was $6,000.

So if you do the math, that
is quite a bit of money.

So Chuy told me how he feels
that I can run the whole
entire Guatemalan operation.

There's going to
be a difference.

You can have a percentage
on every load that comes.

I will not pay you a salary
like I've been paying.

From here on, you know, 10
percent of everything, every
load we get into, you know,

into Guatemala and that you
handle is gonna be yours.

STEVE: It's typical in the
drug trafficking trade for
people to be paid in cocaine.

OTTO: If I have a shipment
coming in from Colombia
with a thousand kilos,

that means that a
hundred kilos are mine.

And that I can do with that,
you know, whatever I want.

I think at the time I still
believed that, I'd done things
the right way and I was,

invisible, that
nobody knew about me.

I think I was not
being careful enough.

You know, after a while you
do this so often that for you
it becomes just, you know,

another day at the office,
and you start doing things
a little bit more careless.

As the operation grew,
I started taking, more
precautions.

I knew that, the
responsibility lay on me,

so I'll take better
care of myself.

From there on, I really
screened every single person
that I had contact with,

and that was my
safety mechanism.

OTTO: As the shipments
escalate, the cash flow
gets bigger.

I had a safehouse in
Guatemala, in Zone 14.

A house that was
used to store money.

In a given time, we had
30, 40 million dollars, you
know, stored in that house.

A lot of the money
was not ours.

It belonged to different
people and different
organizations.

STEVE: In early 2003, there
was a location identified in
Guatemala City that was being

used by Otto Herrera and his
organization to store money.

OTTO: Somehow, they found
the house.

They raided the house and
they confiscated, a little
bit over 14 million dollars.

That's what they claimed
that was confiscated.

At that moment, it
was an eye opener.

A lot of things hit me.

After the money was
confiscated in Guatemala,

you know all chances of
being invisible, you
know, were gone.

STEVE: Right after that
seizure agents in Guatemala,

paid a visit to Otto
Herreras wife, and made
it very clear to her,

that he should make contact
with the Drug Enforcement

Administration, with the DEA.

OTTO: DEA agents approached
my wife, and told her that,

they had a lot of
interest on me.

You know, your husband is
involved in drug trafficking.

This is what he's doing.

If he doesn't talk to us,
you know, he was going
to run into problems.

At this moment, we just
want to talk to him and see,
you know, how we could help.

I think that was an
eye opener for her.

It was the first time that it
was confirmed to her that I
was doing, something illegal.

This is when we first
started parting out,
you know.

She really felt that I was
not being honest, I think.

She could feel that I
would continue to do
what I was doing.

And she didn't want
to have anything to do
with me at that point.

I know I had attracted
attention to myself so
for me it was to,

the best thing to do was to
go into hiding, lay low,

and try to, not be
involved in it as directly
as I was being involved.

JEREMY: Once a trafficker's
been identified,

his or her shelf life, in full
operational mode got shorter
and shorter and shorter.

OTTO: Late 2006, I have
a visit from another
Sinaloa Cartel member,

and he tells me this story.

They found Chuy in his car.

Chuy got killed.

He gets killed in
Culiacan, Sinaloa.

I think it had to do with
his craziness, I think it had
to do with all his drinking.

I think that he disrespected
a lot of people while he was
that way,

while he was drunk and
stuff and I got a
feeling that they just,

it was decided to just,
you know, get rid of him.

STEVE: He gets adopted
by the Sinaloa Cartel, and
he's detailed to Colombia.

He was detailed
to work an individual
named Pacho Cifuentes.

OTTO: Pacho Cifuentes is the
person that is in charge of
shipping all this,

cocaine to the Mexicans.

Shipments that
have been delayed.

So I get instructed to go
to Colombia, to find a way,

to continue to do
business with Pacho,

in a way that he can be a
little bit more diligent.

JEREMY: Francisco
Cifuentes Villa, better
known as Pacho Cifuentes,

was a pilot for Pablo Escobar
and the Medellin Cartel.

After Pablo Escobar's
death he goes into
business for himself,

and he sets up an
extremely prolific
and lucrative route,

via Central America,
particularly Guatemala.

OTTO: We met for a couple
of days and it started a new
era of business with him.

STEVE: Pacho Cifuentes
was another person
that recognized

the skill sets of Otto
Herrera, in the sense that
it made the organization

from the South America
side more efficient.

OTTO: We shared an
office together.

This huge complex, in
the middle of Medellin,

and everybody knew that
if you wanted to broker
a load out of Colombia,

that's the place to go.

Pacho was very good
at what he did.

At that time, I think there
was not a better person to
ship drugs out of Colombia.

Pacho had a network
of pilots, traffic
controllers, authorities,

that gave him a very,
very high percentage,
of positive loads.

You know, of success.

Pacho was a very
easy going person.

Hardly ever raised his voice.

And I still believe that
he was kind of naïve.

He really thought that
he was untouchable.

He really thought that
nobody was going to
harm him.

He drove around on
his own, everywhere.

Pacho didn't have
a bodyguard.

Pacho didn't drive in a
bulletproof car so,

I think he just ah,
miscalculated things.

JEREMY: Pacho Cifuentes
is assassinated.

This killing creates
serious shockwaves,

in the Medellin underworld.

OTTO: Ah. Pacho was a good
friend. I did, really
feel unprotected,

because I could move around
as freely as he could,
because of his shade.

So what's going to
happen to me now?

There was a certain fear.

STEVE: At any given time
in the drug trafficking
industry,

there are invisibles
that are out there.

The question becomes how
long do they stay invisible?

I was assigned in 2005 to
a unit of the Drug
Enforcement Administration

called the Bilateral
Investigations Unit.

When I arrived to that
unit, Otto Herrera was one
of the case file titles.

A very wanted subject by
the Drug Enforcement
Administration

and the US Government.

We were not positive of
what his whereabouts were.

There was rumor that
he was in Mexico.

My sense at that time that he
was in hiding somewhere in
remote locations in Guatemala.

We just weren't positive
actually where he was.

I received a phone call
from some of the DEA
agents in Miami,

where they told me that
during the course of
their operation,

they had identified someone
in Bogota that was using
the name Toño.

But all indications was
that this individual was
actually Otto Herrera.

It was actually quite
a surprise to us.

We had no idea
that he was there.

PETER: We couldn't
quite figure out why he
thought it would be safe,

to effectively hide out in
Colombia, given the large
number of Colombian

and US resources dedicated
towards, combating Narco
trafficking.

OTTO: You know the Pacho
event had just happened,
and I'm trying to lay low.

I did try to keep myself
invisible for a while,
and I was very low key.

I've never been a flashy
type. I always lived a,
a humble life.

I think that kept me
invisible for a while.

OTTO: Out of nowhere, you
know these, I could only
see three officers,

a lady and two guys.

They put me not in a police
car, just in a normal car.

And they start driving
through Bogota.

I truly thought that I
was going to get killed.

STEVE: Otto Herrera was
arrested in Colombia.

The DEA Miami Field Division
took the lead with working
with the Colombian police,

in confirming that this
individual named Toño
was in fact Otto Herrera.

STEVE: And it ultimately
resulted in him being
arrested on the street

in a vehicle car
stop in Colombia.

OTTO: I knew that I had been,
you know, laundering money.

I knew I'd been
trafficking drugs.

I knew that this was
going to catch up with
me sooner or later.

And basically,
that's what happened.

BILL: My name is
Bill Clay. C‐l‐a‐y.

I'm a criminal
defense lawyer.

My caseload tends to be,
complex Federal criminal
cases involving

drug trafficking, drug
transportation, money
laundering.

So when I saw Otto
got arrested, told
my receptionist,

be on the lookout for
a mystery call,

I call it, cause sometimes
people call me, they don't
identify who they are.

So sure enough, within two
hours he called me and says,
hey, do you know who this is?

And I said, you're Otto.
So when he said, when
can you come down?

I said, I'll get on
a plane tomorrow.

OTTO: For me, Cómbita
was an eye opener.

BILL: High security at
Cómbita. And when I
got in there,

Otto got brought out to
an area which is, not
an interview room.

No privacy. Then something
very interesting happened.

A young prison guard, maybe
looked like 18‐year‐old
kid to me, comes up,

he leans in and he says,
he's on the wrong side.

The guard literally turned
white as a sheet, and
he said, he's not safe.

It's not safe for me to
say anything anymore.

OTTO: Ah. They had put
a price on my head.

I guess it was people that,
had a lot of fear that I'd
gone to the States,

and tell the story.

So they wanted to make
sure that didn't happen.

BILL: You can be killed in
any place in any prison,

probably anywhere
in the world,

but you're a higher risk
in Colombia than you
would be in a US prison.

And at that point in
time, I think the risk
was very high for Otto.

OTTO: Bill approached
the right people so

I could be in a safer
area in the prison.

BILL: DEA had Otto
transferred with the
other extraditables.

And then they instituted
security procedures
to safeguard him,

that they would wake him
up every two hours to see
if he had been poisoned.

RUBEN: Really the only
way that you can
effectively lower

your criminal liability,
your sentence,

under the Federal
system is to cooperate.

It is the pretty
much the only way.

I mean, you can argue
that you're old, that
you're sick, you're tired,

you've got a disease,
whatever it is, you know,

your Mommy beat you up
when you were a kid,

that's not really
gonna work, especially
not at that level.

BILL: My goal is
to mitigate or reduce the
sentence he's going to get.

So I'm looking at all
the possibilities.

I go right to work.

My mind just focusses on,
what can we do to maximize
benefits for Otto?

STEVE: I received a phone
call from Bill Clay, and
he said,

what is it that needs
to be done?

BILL: As Colombians would
say, what kind of positivos

can we produce for the
United States government.

STEVE: And I told Bill, I
said, there's no question

that Otto needs to get on
board or cooperate with us.

OTTO: It was totally
against what I believed.

RUBEN: Okay, look,
lets think about this
for a second.

Since we were kids, in
school, nobody wanted
to snitch, right?

Snitches get stitches.

What makes you think that a
grown man is any different?

OTTO: It's everything,
everything that I was against.

You know, to sit in a
room, to tell stories
about what I did,

when I know that I'm not
supposed to be doing that.

When I know that my loved
ones are being in danger,
by everything that I'm,

that I'm narrating.

RUBEN: You are giving up
a lot of your former
friends, cohorts,

who know where
your family lives.

Know where you live and can
really exact retribution.

STEVE: I thought, you
know, how the hell
are we gonna get,

like, across to this guy?
How am I gonna get this
point across?

I've found over the
years that I've been
doing this job,

the greatest success that
you have is to treat
people like people.

OTTO: I could tell he
was a man of his word,
lets put it that way.

STEVE: In his mind, his job
was done when the bales of
cocaine arrived in Guatemala,

and they were turned
over to the Mexicans.

And that was the end of
what the Herrera
organization had to do.

Were two guys that are
almost the same age.

We both have families,
there's parents,
there's kids,

so I went in the
office and I said,

print me out like 12
pictures of the end
result of crack use.

BILL: Steve, just to
kind of make the point,

he reached into his
briefcase and he presented
some photographs.

STEVE: So, I took the
pictures and I slid
them across the table

as like I was dealing
a deck of cards.

BILL: Addicts, who were
in decrepit condition.

Said, this lady, she's 29.

She looks like
she's 65 or older.

Look at her. Look at
this person. Lets
get serious here.

STEVE: I said, we can
either continue the way
that were continuing,

or we can consider
going to a trial.

But in the United
States, this is what
they see as an end game.

This is what they
see on their streets.

BILL: And, whoa.

And that did the trick.

OTTO: Yeah, it was a
big impact for me to
see those pictures.

To have somebody look
at me, in the eye, and
tell me, you did that.

And it was the first time
that it really hit me hard.

So it was, I think,
a turning point.

BILL: I mean, it was
a humbling moment.

A brilliant moment.

STEVE: In the cocaine
trafficking industry,
it is powered by greed,

and It's powered by ego.

People think that they
are untouchable or in
some cases, invisible,

until they get caught.

OTTO: My process
is not over yet.

As part of my sentence, I
have supervised release.

I'm fifty percent
done with it.

It's something that reminds
me every day that, I have
to walk a straight line.

BILL: Well let me just
say, I've seen them all,

all of the types of
drug traffickers.

I've seen the soulless
ones, which may be kind
of presumptuous

to say someone's soulless,
but by the way they act,
they sure look soulless.

They sure look like
they have no remorse.

Otto has remorse.

STEVE: I've been involved
in this case for 14 years.

I know the agents that were
involved in this case before.

We have never been
able to substantiate
any act of violence

that's attributed
to Otto Herrera.

OTTO: I think because of the
way that I carried myself,

ahh, that kept me most of
the time away from
all those events.

I would never recommend
anyone to follow up on
my footsteps.

It's just not gonna
bring them any good.

The pressure and all
the stress, everything, the
responsibility takes over you,

and the fact that you
know you're doing
something illegal.

So you change as a person,

and you forget what's
important in life.