El Mayo: The Undisputed King of Mexico & the Betrayal of El Chapo
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Yep. Go to Carvana.com to finance your car the convenient way. 2013, Sinaloa, Mexico. And Elmayo Zimbada, arguably the most powerful drug lord in Mexico, and maybe even the world, is not happy. El Chapo, his longtime friend, longtime business partner, and longtime co-leader of the Sinaloa cartel, has been uncharacteristically making a lot of mistakes that threaten both of their interests.

You see, at the start of their drug trafficking careers, El Mayo and Chapa were on the same page. They were business oriented, here to make money, not magazine covers. They followed their code. Keep an extremely low profile. Try not to be seen unless necessary. They didn't want to end up like so many of the other cartel leaders as the center of attention. Everyone knows where that leads. Though sometimes the allure of fame, it can prove to be too much for even the most powerful gangsters.

While El Mayo continues to live like that, hiding out in the mountainous region of rural Sinaloa, El Chapo has been out and about the last few years. He's been spending more time in the capital city of Culiacan and at resorts beach towns in Mexico enjoying himself, slipping up, getting too confident, arrogant, one could say. El Mayo is disappointed in his partner and thinks that these activities have led to not only more heat from the authorities on El Chapo, but more heat on himself and the cartel in general.

2,000 miles north, Elmayo Sandecente, who was once rumored to be next in line for the throne, is in another type of trouble. After being held for years in severe conditions in the U.S., he's starting to crack under DEA pressure. But, he reckons, there's just one last thing to do before he can turn witness against the cartel. Elmayo's phone rings in the middle of the night.

The call is coming from a federal prison in Chicago, and it's Vicente on the line. It's a secret call, sure, but the feds are listening, because it's a call made possible by many intermediaries and lawyers and okayed by the U.S. government to remain off the books. Vicente has a message for his father.

Dad, they got me, and it's either us or him. Him being El Chapo. El Mayo and Chapo have been fiercely loyal to each other for decades. Probably longer than any other drug traffickers who aren't immediate family. But

Things change quickly when it's you or them. He replies with a simple message, do what you got to do. And very soon after, the walls start to close in on El Chapo, the most famous drug trafficker since Pablo Escobar, but maybe not the most powerful. This is The Underworld Podcast. ♪♪

Welcome back to yet another episode of the Underworld Podcast, an audio experience hosted by two journalists who have reported all over the world on bad guys doing bad things and now can barely maintain the energy needed to go out drinking on a weeknight.

I am Danny Golds. I am joined by my colleague, Sean Williams. Sean, any dear diary moments you want to overshare quickly with the podcast listeners? Yeah, actually, it's been a really special week for us because my son just started kind of walking. Wonderful, wonderful stuff, bud. Really, really great. Great to hear it.

Before we get into the episode today, you know, I have to bring up a YouTube comment we recently got because it was just devastating, right? The guy said, I tuned out right when the morning radio host show joke started, which I think is like, that's a fair play. You know, I think it was on the Boris episode, so...

That guy has our number, and there's really no coming back from that. I mean, he won. Nah, I mean, he loses. Please flood the comments with glowing reviews and my jokes. My jokes especially, because it makes me very, very happy, very, very briefly. So yeah, please do that. Nah, he got us beat. But as always, bonus episodes, patreon.com. Or Spotify, where you should follow us, or you can even sign up on iTunes.

Patreon is only $3 a month and it helps us keep doing this. Okay, so where were we in the saga of El Mayo Zambada and the infamous El Chapo?

They are best buds and also colleagues, basically the C-suite executives of the Sinaloa Cartel, Sinaloa Federation, whatever you want to call it. They both have their own guys and own business interests, but they work in tandem and they came up together. But there are a couple of big changes on the horizon when we join in with them. I think we're around 2007, 2008.

Choppo is branching out, doing his own thing, getting into meth, just like a young Sean Williams. And he's also convinced El Mayo to make a move on his former allies in the Juarez cartel, or at least approve one being made against them. Okay, so this is your new thing, is it? That I'm a meth dealer. And yet, as we speak, I'm wearing a t-shirt that I've had since I was at university, which is about 20 years ago, which definitely disproves that theory.

Does it, though? I feel like it kind of fits right into that theory. You're wearing a 20-year-old t-shirt. Maybe. So, yeah, Mexico at this time, late 2000s. There's just a war going on outside that no man is safe from. Sinaloa is fighting the Zetas over the Nuevo Laredo Plaza. They're the, of course, psychopathic special forces killers. They're actually now going on the offensive.

And then in 2007, we get a narco peace summit where the top leaders of the Sinaloa cartel and the Zetas meet up. You know, imagine working that as like the caterer, right? It's just got to be terrifying. Just the worst event planning assignment ever. Those guys all gathering in a room. I mean, I don't know. I've been to plenty of tech conferences and I would hazard a guess that they are way, way worse personality and content wise.

Because they have to have snacks, right? You can't throw a conference without food. What's the rider for El Mayo? I don't know. So there is. I mean, it's a bad joke, but there literally is somebody who catered a meeting between Sinaloa and the Zetas. That's a real thing that happened. Yeah, you don't want to bring the out-of-date stale tortilla chips to that meeting, do you? That's going to go down really bad.

All right. So we're not 100% sure, but we're like 90% sure, not us, but the people who have written about these things, 90% sure that El Mayo is at this meeting and a deal is brokered and territory split up to end the war.

The Zetas get to keep Nuevo Laredo, Sinaloa keeps Acapulco, and they get some additional territory as well. And the Beltran-Leyva brothers are made the point person between Sinaloa and the Zetas to keep the peace. We talked about them last episode. We've talked about them a lot before. They're the brothers who worked with Sinaloa and controlled a lot of their own men, a lot of their own territory.

A lot of people in the know attribute this deal to El Mayo basically making it happen. He just has that reputation of peacemaking, negotiating, everything like that. He's the one that could actually bring these warring groups together and have them leave without killing each other.

But he's not invincible. And in 2008, his brother, El Rey, gets arrested in Mexico City. El Rey, which is Spanish for the Ray, is a top lieutenant for the cartel and in charge of the Mexico City airport, which is Mexico's largest. Yeah, I mean, sometimes when you play football against a really bad team, you say they brought you down to their level. And I feel like that's what just happened with that joke a little bit there.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like I should have made one last one about like the mayo, you know, but whatever. So I'm making up for that. But yeah, now that we get that arrest out of the way, we got to strap in because all hell is going to break loose in 2008.

In 2006, Mexico elects a new president, Felipe Calderon, who wins a really tense, heated campaign in a controversial electoral process. He wins by something like 0.6% of the total votes. There's a recount that takes months to confirm, and a lot of people have questions. But he takes office December 1st, 2006, and within 10 days, declares a war on the cartels. Some people think he may have done it to gain legitimacy after a questionable win, kind of like, you know, JFK moving on the mob.

He deploys thousands of troops to Michoacan, the first time army troops have been deployed in Mexico to battle the cartels. By late 2007, things are heating up and there's tens of thousands of troops deployed. Chapo and Mayo, they want their top people to keep a low profile. But one of the Beltran labor brothers, Alfredo, who they call the fire ant because of his temper. And how much of a temper do you have to have to get known for it in the cartel upper echelon? I don't know, but fire ant is just kind of like a...

I don't know. I feel like it's like an insulting... It's an insulting nickname, too. You know? Like, fire ants are scary, but they're also like... You know, they're little guys. So maybe he... Honey badgers. I don't know if he liked... Yeah, I don't know. I don't think that whole meme had become a thing back then. So fire ants is more fitting, but...

He is behaving like a young Sean Williams. He's partying it up in Sinaloa, going out to bars, just throwing Rangers, just drawing attention to himself, being loud, you know? And just like a young Sean Williams, he is soon arrested by the Mexican army this time in January of 2008. And his arrest is,

leads to trouble in paradise. There's rumors that Chapo gave him up to save his own skin by doing a secret deal with a Mexican government or to save his son who had been arrested but was soon released after Fire Ant got popped. There's another rumor that Chapo gave him up because he was beefing with the Beltran-Labor brothers over control of the Flores twins. They were two major distributors in Chicago. I think the biggest ones the Sinaloa cartel had at that point. Maybe even the biggest distributors in the U.S.,

They eventually got arrested. Years later, they became informants. And then 50 Cent did a podcast about them with them. I feel like it should have been a lot better than it was. I got bored of it. Anyway, interestingly, the Flores twins once claimed that the Belcher and Laver brothers, like their whole group, was trafficking more weight than Chapo and Mayo, which is something to think about because they definitely don't get the attention that those two get. Whatever happened...

The Belgian laborers, they blame Chapo. And it's not the kind of argument that's going to be resolved with like a straightforward apology and a promise to do better. So do these guys work with like stringers in American cities to distribute or do they have their own bosses in the cartel, get dispatched across the border? I mean, like I'm all for freelancers getting more work, but it seems like a pretty risky way to do business if you're getting freelancers in like Chicago, New York, whatever to do to spread out all this stuff.

Yeah, I mean, by stringers, you mean like guys who actually are in the cartel or not. But it's interesting. They're a good example of that and how stuff is. I think they definitely have people now. Back then, I wasn't paying too close attention to it, but I think the thing with the Flores twins is that

When you look at the indictments, when you listen to the feds, they're technically in the cartel. They're seen as guys from the similar cartel. I've seen other people say that they're kind of like, like you said, they're like freelance distributors, right? Who are aligned with them and work with them because obviously they're doing deals with them, but they're not officially in the cartel. And of course, if these guys are...

are, you know, it's like Pee Wee Herman in Blow or whatever the character that he was based on. If these are the guys that are the major distributors that have the network and can get your stuff out there, well, the cartels are all trafficking for themselves, right? They're going to want that guy to be working for them. So that's my assumption of what was going on with the Flores twins at that point. Whether they were technically in the cartel or not, I don't know, man. It's a weird gray area. So much of this stuff is just not

There's not concrete answers for it, right? And you see stuff, you know, you have witnesses, you have informants, you have the DA, you have the Mexican law enforcement. Everyone seems to have a different spin on how things actually work or who's actually in charge or what actually happens. Yeah, and everyone's on the take somewhere as well. They've got their own incentive to say something or whatever. Right.

So the violence at this time in the Sinaloa city of Culiacan, especially, I think that's the capital of Sinaloa, right? It gets so out of control. Even the imprisoned brother, the one who was originally, you know, whose arrest started this whole thing, he sends a letter to his other brothers to stop the war saying, you know, Chapo and those guys, they had nothing to do with his arrest. But it doesn't work. And they're also actually at the same time battling out with federal troops, police, all that. Everyone suspects that, you

You know, whether it's law enforcement, military, they're on the other on their rivals payroll. So it's just it's a really bloody affair. Meanwhile, in Tijuana, Mayo and Chapo, they're backing up another Sinaloan who is battling the remnants of the Tijuana cartel. And in Juarez, they're also battling the Juarez cartel, which is led by the Carrillo-Fentas family. That was...

Amato's family, we talked about him, Lord of the Skies. Mayo had betrayed him. So they're fighting everyone, like all the time. I mean, it just seems like a lot. They got a full plate on their hands. They're taking on three or four other cartels. But I don't want you guys to get lost in the weeds, even though I know this is super complicated. The basic takeaway is that Sinaloa is impossibly strong at this point, and they've gone to war against everyone, and they're just asserting themselves.

In Owen Grillo's El Narco, I think we've interviewed him, what, three times on this podcast? But that book is also fantastic. He says there's two reasons for Sinaloa going to war like this. The first is that President Calderon's war on the cartels is actually working. There's record seizures of drugs costing billions of dollars.

And the various traffickers, they start getting into fights over plaza payments, taxes, whose fault this shipment was lost, whose fault that one was lost, and just stuff like that. And, you know, there's pressure. And since the Sinaloans, they're not known for taking things lightly, we get bodies starting to drop. Yeah, a lot of stress. And these guys are bringing up kids at the same time, you know, running a drug cartel, doing crimes, murdering.

I mean, they got to find some downtime. Like their work-life balance is way out of whack. I think they probably had nannies, you know, I think they assume that they had help. They're not, they're not toughing it out. Like, uh, like you are tough for a nanny.

Yeah, there's a there's a second argument. And this one is favored by some Mexican journalists. Actually, cartel guys themselves have said that. And that's that the Sinaloa cartel felt so emboldened by their alliance with federal officers and all the other officials they bribed that they decided they were going to take over the entire game. And that, you know, people kind of wanted this people that were in those positions, because once you have the kingpin, once you have the group that oversees everything, there's a lot less warring over territory.

Grillo goes on to say that there's definitely evidence that federal officers were on the Sinaloa cartel payroll in support of their offensive, but there's other officers that were on the rival cartel payrolls, and he buys more into the first argument. At this point, basically every official in Mexico has been accused of taking bribes, and, you know, that point back then, but even now, right?

especially if they get high enough, up enough in the government, police, army, whatever it is. It's just seen as par for the course. And a lot of them do take bribes. So my brother later testifies that he was giving out $300,000 a month, which doesn't seem like that much if you're bribing a ton of officials. His son says that Elma was forking over an additional 1 million a month by himself. And that's just, that's just them.

And the former drug star of Mexico was found guilty recently in the U.S. for taking bribes from the San Lionel cartel. You know, there's a Chapo associate who went on trial in the U.S. who said he bribed the president of Mexico from 2012 to 2018. That's Enrique Peña Nieto with $100 million, which seems like a lot. But, you know, all these guys have been accused. And there's a lot of evidence that a lot of them have been doing it.

Yeah, I mean, I guess you're not a real drug star unless you're on the payroll of the cartel, right? So I guess he's doing his job in some sense. But I mean, even the current president, AMLO, has been accused of taking Sinaloa cartel bribes for years. Going back to like even before this bit that you're talking about. I mean, back in 2006, one of his campaign officials is said to have got dirty money from the cartel. So, yeah, it ain't getting any better. Any of this stuff, really.

We should get bribes from them. You know, like the, or like even the business ideas are flowing out of me. You know, last week it was the, the, the, the trouble tourism sort of stuff to, to among law and, and, and Burmese casinos. Now, what if we do like narco Caritos, except they're just podcast episodes that very few people listen to about various cartel guys. They'll pay us to do like their, this podcast is supported by FX is English teacher.

a new comedy from executive producers of What We Do in the Shadows and Baskets. English teacher follows Evan, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who learns if it's really possible to be your full self at your job, while often finding himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. FX's English Teacher premieres September 2nd on FX. Stream on Hulu.

I mean, yeah, that's basically what loads of singers and rappers do, right? Why can't we do it? Easily as cool as them. So yeah, let's go for it.

And Peso Pluma does get those death threats. It might not be worth it. But okay, back to the war and all the violence in Sinaloa. It gets so bad, the Mexican government allegedly tries to arrange a peace summit between the Beltran-Leyva brothers and Chapo at a ranch in Durango. Doesn't take. And then there's another summit in Durango with the heads of every major cartel or basically what's left of every major cartel. And this finally leads to a temporary peace for about a minute.

Then in March 2009, there's a seemingly big blow at El Mayo. His son Vicente, who's not only like his heir apparently in the drug game, but also a pretty high ranking member of the Sinaloa cartel himself.

is arrested in Mexico City by the Attorney General's office on his way back from a meeting with the DA in a hotel room. There's a theory that he had enough of the cartel life and was looking for a way out, and had actually gotten the blessing of Chapo and Mayo to do it, to cut a deal, and just be done with it. There's just, you know, no fortitude in these younger generations, am I right?

There's also a lot of allegations, though, that the DA was favoring certain cartels to take control, to stop the chaoticness of the all-out war on all these multiple fronts, you know, leave one all-encompassing cartel in charge because it cuts down all the various wars over territory, like I just said before.

Eventually, he's actually extradited to the US. Chaoticness. Just want to call that out. Chaos? That's a word. That's a word. Oh, yeah. Chaos is probably a better way to describe that. Yeah, chaos. There's no shortage, though, of insiders in Sinaloa who are giving info to the DA and have been and other law enforcement, but usually they're doing it sort of with the blessing of the higher-ups and against their enemies for the most part. In a 2012 article in Newsweek,

They interview a former middle manager of the Sinaloa cartel who talks about how he was instructed by a top Sinaloa operative to give information to the Americans, in this instance, against the Juarez cartel. He talks about going to ICE offices, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to meet with U.S. investigators. And there's a quote from the article, the agents he met with were very polite.

He was surprised by what they had to say. One of the ICE agents said they were here to help the Sinaloa cartel and to fuck the Juarez cartel. Sorry for the language. That's exactly what they said. I mean, this is starting to sound a bit like the plot of Sicario or maybe the second Sicario, which actually I saw accidentally dubbed into German at the cinema and Josh Brolin had a voice like Bart Simpson, which I'm not going to say ruined the movie. It just was a different experience.

The second one was pretty bad, but the first one was pretty solid. Especially that scene when they're driving over. Yeah. And the dude from Burn Notice just wrecks it. It's incredible. Yeah, I love that movie. Yeah.

The article goes on to talk about how there was a concerted effort by the Sinaloa cartel to have lieutenants act as informants to ICE, to DA officials, to every U.S. law enforcement agency they could. And there's an ongoing investigation into how ICE deals with the Sinaloa informants. It also tells the story of a lawyer who was working with the cartel as an advisor to CHAPA and was indicted in 1995.

He becomes a key informant in exchange for working off his indictment. And while his information was great, it was mostly about the enemies of the Sinaloa cartel, specifically the Tijuana cartel.

In one story, and this incident is backed up by WikiLeaks, the informant tells the DEA that the Tijuana cartel is hiring a trained sniper nicknamed the Monster to shoot DEA agents and frighten them into leaving Tijuana. Well, which, you know, obviously that's a ploy to get the DEA to focus even more on the Tijuana cartel when Sinaloa was trying to take them out during those years. But apparently he also gave some good info on the Belgian Levas while they were fighting Sinaloa. And he does actually sometimes give info on Sinaloa, but never on top people.

An academic who studies the cartel sums it up by saying, quote, the Sinaloa cartel is duping U.S. agencies into fighting its enemies. Typical counterintelligence stuff. It's smart. It's so smart. And who is likely behind all that, those smart moves? Well, it's probably El Mayo. Yeah, I feel like Dale should add in that DJ Khaled. You were genius soundbite whenever we do an El Mayo like 4D chess moment in this show because there's there's a few of them, right?

That's good. I mean, your references from RAP have moved up from 2009 to 2017, so we're making progress. All right. We're getting there. So the cartel wars, they continue through 2008 and 2009, especially in Sinaloa and Juarez, massive bloodshed. And the Mexican military, they're also on the attack and things are going crazy. At the end of 2009, the Sinaloa cartel gets a big win over...

when the top Belgian Lever brother is gunned down by the Mexican military. Another brother is arrested a couple weeks later. The last brother and the last remnant of the organization merge with the Zetas. But the Belgian Lever basically has a powerful organization. They're done. It's a pretty big win for Sinaloa, especially El Chapo, because again, this was in Sinaloa for the most part. Later that same year, one of the leaders of the Juarez cartel was arrested. And by 2010, U.S. and Mexican officials said that the Sinaloa cartel basically has control of Juarez.

Mayo and Chapo, they're emerging as like the victors in all this and as the undisputed most powerful cartel in Mexico. Around that time too is also when we see the emergence of, you know, Chapo mania in the American media. Forbes lists him on their billionaire list. I forgot which magazine it was also. Maybe the Times also had him as like one of the 100 most powerful people in the world. I remember all these articles about how he was like this genius level CEO who treated drug trafficking as like basically a Fortune 500 company and

He becomes not only the face of the Sinaloa cartel, but basically the face of drug trafficking in the world, not just in Mexico, but in the world. And, you know, it almost seems like we mentioned him a

a ton this episode instead of El Mayo. And it's for good reason. Mayo is a ghost. This time, all times. You know, information about him and his movements and activities is just that scarce. Yeah, I feel like that's probably the solid way to run a drug empire. Although not the best way to run a successful podcast, sadly. One of the only anomalies here is in 2010, where he does an in-person interview with the founder of the largest weekly news magazine in Mexico. He even takes a picture with a journalist for the cover.

Some cartel analysts think that he was actually announcing basically his retirement. He had just turned 60 then, but that turns out to not be the case. In the interview, he says the military war against the cartels is foolish because P goes down if the others go down. There's just more people to take their place. Quote, the problem with the narco business is that it involves millions. How do you dominate that? Zambada said. As for the bosses locked up, dead or extradited, there are placements already standing by.

He also said the drug war at this point, it's just too little too late because the cartels are so deeply rooted in society now. And there's just too much corruption. He goes on to say the talks of his wealth and high class lifestyle are foolish. And just to emphasize how he operates, this picture of him on the magazine cover, it's one of only a few pictures of him that exists. Even the DEA guys hunting him down say they have a ton of wiretaps of Chapo just yapping it up.

but they don't have any recordings of Amayo's voice and that he doesn't use cell phones ever. There's just, there's no slip-ups with him. A Mexican journalist says that if there are top-level meetings of the Sinaloa cartel at this time, with all the heavy hitters, Amayo wouldn't even say anything. And when he wanted to bring something up, he would walk outside, relay his message to an underling, and that guy would come in and repeat the message. It's just...

you know, insane levels of discipline that this guy has. Yeah. I mean, well, we've talked about the nannies and the people setting up the catering, but there is quite a lot of pressure on that underling too, right? Like the world's most dangerous game of Chinese whispers ever. It's like, you want us to take him out? Yeah. That's what my, I said, yeah, for a nice bowl of spaghetti, you doofus. And then cue the curb thing. That's my, that's what I'm saying. Oh,

Are you allowed to say, I never heard Chinese whispers, but I can't, you're definitely going to get canceled for it. I think you called it telephone when I was a kid. Oh, okay. Yeah. I definitely won't mention some cricket. No, it's good. It could be good. It could, this could finally get you on Rogan, which would be great. Oh, wicked. Good for us. I'm not going to get it lifted, am I?

Now, by the 2010s, the Sinaloa cartel is basically a multinational conglomerate. Though it starts off with weed and then coke, this point in time, it really is involved with all drugs and at a global scale. They have operations in basically every drug-producing country in South America, Central America. They're moving tons of drugs into Europe, working with the Endangueta and Comora and various other huge international organized crime groups.

They're importing drug precursors and other drugs from Asia. They've also got operations in Africa. I think I even read about a Sinaloan drug lab getting busted in Egypt of all places. And while they focus primarily on drug trafficking, whereas other cartels seem to expand into other stuff, they do have their hands in a couple other pots. Yeah. And just to tee up a show that we'll be doing pretty soon, they're

pretty massive over here too, all over the Pacific, like Fiji and New Zealand. They're getting really, really deep into those countries. So yeah, look at... Sinaloa or... Yeah, Sinaloa specifically. Sinaloa or... Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's nuts. There's a...

Yeah, we'll have an update at the end about where they're at right now. There's an interesting research paper from Brookings Institute, which goes into detail on how cartels extort people. It mostly focuses on Sinaloa and Jalisco and describes the Sinaloa cartel as pretty professional, even when it comes to that. Like their guys go in dressed in suits. They take out money payments and even sometimes help the businesses out with keeping away local crime and stuff like that so that the businesses can continue running, whereas Jalisco is a lot more aggressive cartel.

And like how they operate and how mental operates a lot more psychopathic, not even caring about these people and if their businesses survive.

And when Omaio says they're deeply embedded in Mexican society, he obviously is 100% right. They employ hundreds of thousands of people either directly or indirectly. They make up an estimated 5% of the Mexican economy. Sinaloa is probably way more. They actually provide all the services and infrastructure stuff that the government has completely neglected, building churches, hospitals, schools, and they do charity stuff all the time.

In 2011, we actually get an alliance between Sinaloa and all the other cartels or whatever's left of them because the Zetas are deemed too out of control for everyone.

You know, they are just rampaging, just too murderous, even for cartels. At this point, though, sooner rather than later, they start falling apart. They're wrecked by infighting. You can go listen to our full-length episode on them that was a couple months back that I think, yeah. Did you do it or did I do it? I did one on the CJNG ages ago in El Mencho. You did Mencho. Yeah, that was a good one. I did Zetas, which was...

An interesting one. So earlier we talked about how Elmayo's son Vicente had been arrested and extradited to the States. That's when we have that phone call from the cold open. According to DEA agents working the case, Elmayo tells him, do what you have to do.

There's another Mexican journalist who puts the call differently, and basically Vicente tells Amaya, they've got us. It's either us or El Chapo, which, you know, easy decision to make. Also, according to the DA agents, Vicente was telling the DA that Amaya was getting quite upset with Chapo over the last few years for going out and about and not hiding in the mountains, thinking that Chapo was bringing more heat to himself and the organization.

While Chapo had started out conducting himself similar to El Mayo with a low-key approach, there's always stories about him, you know, going to fancy restaurants, taking everyone's phone, making sure no one left and paying for all their dinners at the end. When he leaves, just basically being out in the open and not inconspicuous. Some of these sightings are probably nonsense, but some are probably real. And the other thing is that there are no El Mayo sightings, right? He just doesn't exist.

After Vincente cuts that deal, the news starts to tighten around El Chapo with arrests of key lieutenants. And then he gets arrested for the second time in 2014.

He escapes from prison in that famous moment in 2015. He's arrested again in 2016 after meeting Sean Penn, which like, come on, goofy move, man. After that second escape, you got to hide out after that. Yeah, I mean, he and Penn were being a little bit goofy at that point. Yeah. Yeah. But like, you're an international news story. You've embarrassed the Mexican government and you've annoyed the US too. So you might want to play it cool. They're going to be gunning for you like never before, no matter the bribes or connections. Yeah.

But, you know, if it was Clooney, maybe I'd understand. But Sean Penn, I don't know, man. Although Mystic River fucking owns, dude. Love that movie. That's incredible. Tree of Life.

You know, he's got some goodies. He's got some goodies. Yeah. Yeah. Or Walton Goggins, you know, love, love that by far the better of the Goggins, that guy. I'll take a rest. There's a second Goggins, but I don't even know there was one. Dude, do you know who Walton Goggins is? The dude from justified? No, I just know he's not. He's he and the shields. He is related to David Goggins. The guy does the long distance running. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Dude, he's the best. But yeah, in terms of El Mayo turning on him, I mean, their partnership, it lasted for decades, right? Which is way more than any other cartel alliance or partnership. So I guess that's nice, you know? It's one of those don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened sort of thing, Sean. Genuinely, because I thought you were talking about David Goggins, so I was like, oh, that must be a David Goggins quote, some inspirational thing. But it's not. There's another Goggins, which has blown my mind. That's a thing that girls used to have for their yearbook quote in the 90s.

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After El Chapo goes down, we get the rise of Los Chapitos in the cartel we've talked about before. There's four sons that are involved in the drug game. They're said to be under the protection of El Mayo at first as they start making their presence known within the Sinaloa cartel. Just, you know, classic Nepo baby stuff. They get off to a bumpy start when in the summer of 2016, two of them are kidnapped at a high-class restaurant in Puerto Vallarta, which is in Jalisco, which is in Jalisco New Generation Cartel territory, which is...

you know, they're not nice guys. I know we mentioned them a few times before, but just to be clear, they are at that point. I think the other big national cartel in Mexico, they're led by a Mencho who we Sean did an episode on and they're just certified lunatics. I mean, they, I think eclipse the Zetas in terms of their brutality and the heinous stuff that they do. They're at that time, the new clits on the block, fairly recent. Sinaloa is the old guard.

Why the Chapitos are dining in their territory, I don't know. But, you know, very rich second generation cartel kids. So probably thought they could get away with anything. And they did not. After being held for several days, just like Sean was sometimes in the basement of a Berlin discotheque, their release is negotiated by El Mayo. We don't know how or why this happens, but there's a wild rumor that he got a hold of El Menchil's family, like one of the members of El Menchil's family, and said, if you don't release them, we're going to kill this person.

Which again, master negotiator move right there. Following El Chapo's extradition to the US in 2017, a top lieutenant for Chapo calls a meeting of Sinaloa heavy hitters and a power grab move ambushes two of Los Chapitos and even allegedly El Mayo himself when they get to the meeting location. That was the cold open from the first part of this, which none of these guys are invincible, but if you're going to go for El Mayo, you got to finish him off because...

He is not the kind of guy you want to leave mad at you. Only a few months later, that lieutenant is, you know, surprisingly captured by the government and his son even goes so far as to turn himself into U.S. authorities at the border shortly after because he's in so much fear for his life.

In 2019, one of the Los Chapitos gets detained. If you guys remember, this was like a huge story and chaotic moment in Sinaloa. The military grabs in the middle of Culiacan. Within an hour, there's cartel hitmen just going nuts, shooting up everywhere, roadblocks, fires, hundreds of them just rampaging. I think there's tons of videos of this online.

It was like happening in real time, you know? They kidnap soldiers. They threaten that they're going to start kidnapping families. The whole thing lasts, I think, nearly a day until the president of Mexico just gives up and orders the release of the captured Chapo Chapito. Somehow, only eight people are killed. I think seven soldiers and one civilian. A bunch wounded. But yeah, it's a major victory for those Chapitos. They show off their strength. You know, they're standing up to the government and the military, forcing their hand, suppressing

Some people think this only happened because El Mayo okayed it and had their back. Others have said that El Mayo actually held his men back and that this eventually leads to a rift between Los Chapitos and Mayo. Again, it's not only like there are differing stories when it comes to a lot of this stuff, but they're just completely on the opposite ends of the spectrum.

So where do things stand now with the Sinaloa Cartel and El Mayo? Apparently Los Chapitos are doing their own thing and aren't aligned with him anymore. Plus El Chapo's brother controls his own faction of the cartel and Los Chapitos are getting to scraps with their uncle and with El Mayo's faction. There doesn't appear to be any friction between El Mayo and El Chapo's brother though. But I guess if there are three different factions that are no longer aligned, is it really a cartel anymore or even a federation, especially if they're warring with each other? It's hard to say.

Friend of the show, Luis Chaparro, he did a long video talking about this on YouTube, I think fairly recently. And he basically says it doesn't really exist like it once did. Yeah, I'm pretty keen to get Luis back on the show because he's always putting out amazing stuff on the cartels. But yeah, you said it before, right? They're so deeply embedded in society, culture, the economy that...

They're now just like working fully in legitimate businesses like farming, fishing, textiles, metalworks. They're just the economy in Mexico. There's loads of capos who I'm sure have just completely left the game. They're building tower blocks in like Jalisco or whatever at this point. It's really, really embedded.

I mean, hotels in Tulum, you know, but it's Miami in the 80s, right? Like, the city was built on cocaine. Yeah, Palermo in the 60s as well, right? Wasn't it 60s or 50s, I think? So where do we stand with El Mayo? He is 76 years old, which might as well be like, you know, a thousand years old in the cartel game. Basically, all the other high level dudes are either dead or in jail by their 30s or 40s.

Or sometimes there might be a guy who takes over far later when he's older, but he doesn't last long. In 2009, Mexico actually came out with a top 37 most wanted list. And he's the only guy on that list who has yet to be arrested or killed, which is insane. It's the testament to how powerful and smart he is. I don't think he's even gotten a speeding ticket as far as we know.

He's easily the most successful Mexican drug lord of all time. Probably the most successful drug lord of all time, if you think about it, except for maybe one of the Asian meth or heroin kingpins we've covered. So I don't know if he's the richest in terms of like total, but all the others have been killed or arrested, you know, like they're not.

out there living it up. I can't really think of anyone, I think, who comes close in terms of being on top for so long and not suffering the consequences. We don't know how much money he has. He's never been in the Forbes list, but that's all usually just a made-up media game, especially when it comes to criminals. They're really just guessing. When his son cut his deal and he was arrested at 35, he forfeited $1.4 billion in assets. I assume he's doing well.

As for his kids, Vicente's already been let out of jail for, I think, a few years ago. There was recently a leaked photo of him chilling at an airport. He's got another son that was arrested in 2013. And while the federal minimum for what he was arrested for was 10 years, he pled guilty. He got 5.5 years. He's out. His brother, El Rey, who we talked about earlier, got arrested in 2008. He cut a deal and is already out of jail. He's got another son that pled guilty in the U.S. and got nine years, but I think he'll be out soon.

And there's yet another son who's never been convicted. I think he's 41 or 42 and supposedly is now next on line to take over. I don't know. You know, I think it's kind of a power move if you're really that much in charge at this point to have your kids not be involved in the game instead, you know, living it up in Centrope or St. Barts or whatever. But, you know, maybe that's why I'm not a kingpin.

And also, much like his famous father, there's really not that much information out there about this son. Does he even exist? Do any of us really exist? What is existence? Suffering? I mean, it is for me. Yes. Yes, it is. The DEA also believes that Elmayo is sick with diabetes and they think that he's still hiding out in the mountains of Sinaloa, much like every other cartel guy ever when they go on the run and the heat is on.

He's still as powerful as ever. One Mexican journalist even said that the Enderangueta, one of the most powerful organized crime groups in the world, we've done a few episodes on, needs to get a green light from El Mayo before buying drugs in South America. They go on to say that he actually is a stabilizing force in the global drug market. He guarantees a price. He defines a big part of the market. He sets the quality of product. I think right now the U.S. has a $15 million bounty on him and recently had their fifth or sixth indictment against him.

But, you know, who knows exactly what's going on with El Mayo and the U.S. government because everyone in his family seems to get those super sweetheart deals.

Yeah, that's a sweetheart deal. Sounds a little corrupt. Someone needs to check into this guy. Seems pretty sus. Yeah, it'd be nice to get that bounty. But yeah, till next week. Thank you for bearing with us on this one. Patreon.com slash NoWorldPodcast. And, you know, go on all the socials and the YouTube and the comments, whatever you have to do to help us. ... ...

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