Amado Carrillo Fuentes: The Enigmatic Narcos Who Ruled the Skies

this video is brought to you by Squarespace the all-in-one platform which allows entrepreneurs to create and customize their own personal or professional website more on Squarespace later in the video so hello everybody and welcome to another episode of biographics I'm your interim host KL Smallwood that's car with a K and small wood with small wood and today we're talking about Amado CIO Fuentes the enigmatic Naros who ruled the skies and I should point out before we continue this video um this is not a meta thing I've got a cold so if you if you see me sniffing and like rubbing my nose it's not me trying to make a meta joke CU we talking about a guy who smuggled bricks of cocaine I legit have a cold also I've taken a bunch of like cold and flu pills with caffeine in them so if I seem a bit manic that's also not a meta thing I didn't do like a bump of cocaine before doing this I'm just on the verge of being Delirious because of how many of those things I've taken to try and get into the right frame of mind to talk about a cartel drug Smuggler I don't know where I'm going with this um also there's a lot of like hard to pronounce words in this one that very helpfully the author of The Script today's video is based on araldo Tani has provided for me if I do pronounce any words wrong I do apologize I'm trying my best the US Drug Enforcement Administration henceforth short to the DEA because I'm not saying that 15 times once described today's carried as the most powerful drug trafficker of his time this was not an understatement as the head of the drug cartel of the sead harez in northern Mexico the man flooded the US with cheap cocaine amassing a fortune worth billions of dollars thanks to his Innovative use of Boeing Jets he almost monopolized the drug roots in Central and Northern America surpassing in wealth influence and power his more notorious Colombian counterparts except for of course that one and yet he always succeeded in in maintaining a surprisingly low profile for a drug Smuggler and evading The Unwanted attention of the press and the authorities this made him a mysterious figure of which very little was and still is known this is the story of amardo kuo Fuentes the lord of the Skies when we start as we often do at the [Music] beginning ladoo Creo Fuentes was born on December 17th 1956 in guamu Shoto in Western Mexico Amato meaning Bel loved in Spanish was the second of 10 children born to parents Walter ventti and Aurora Walter made a decent living as a modest landowner but the Spectre of poverty was always looming just around the corner little is known of Theo's childhood save for the fact that he said to have looked up to a very wealthy uncle called Ernesto fona kuo who headed up the drug cartel of guadalahara worthy of note here is that fona was arrested in April 1985 and sentenced to 40 years in jail for the kidnap and murder of Enrique Kik carmania a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration the DEA back in 1968 a 12-year-old Amado decided to leave his hometown declaring to anyone who'd listen I won't come back until I'm rich the boy relocated to Chihuahua where his uncle anesto took him under his wing with the toage of a cartel boss Amado learn all the secrets of the drug trade from the cultivation of marijuana and Opium poppy to the refinement and distribution of the shall we say end product little else is known of amado's formative years except that he thrived with within the Mexican gangs first in guadalahara then in harez during the 1970s and ' 80s as kuo grew in confidence influence and power so did the cartel they became better organized and more violent wrestling Authority and control of their territory away from the hands of the government and police during the same period mexan syndicates forged alliances with the Undisputed masters of cocaine production and trade Colombian kingpins such as Pablo Escobar or the AOA Brothers they produced the merchandise shall we call it refined and shipped it to the US using the Mexican cartels as little more than glorified mules mules that could carry tons of cocaine but mules nonetheless and they smuggled these shipments of powder across the border Yung amardo had observed the transport routes and taken note of the business agreements with the Colombian gangs the Mexican Runners only earned a comparatively small amount in cash per each kilogram of cocaine transported into the United States during the 1980s kuo entered the good graces of a man known as Miguel Angel Felix skado known as simply El padrino this powerful crime figure was able to temporarily pacify the four main cartels who'd often been at war with one another the Sina the harez the gulo and the Tiana gadoo was able to coordinate the bosses of these syndicates into a Cooperative conglomerate known simply and quite ominously as the Federation as gard's Protege aralo kuo was able to shape and influence the future strategy of the Federation kuo's plan to establish dominance within the violent and often chaotic world was simple ambitious and we dare to say quite brilliant it's not really clear when or how but kuo gradually somehow a master Squadron of more than 20 Boeing 727 Jets he reassured his Colombian Associates that with these Jets they didn't need to risk transporting cocaine to Mexico he would take care of picking up the again merchandise from Colombia by just using his Fleet of planes and then he had his second innovation in exchange for his Transport Services ker refused payments in cash what he demanded in dead for his cartel was a payment in product a small percentage of the cocaine transported by the Mexicans which would be sashed away for their own use koreo had picked the perfect time to put forward this offer as Escobar and the aoas and their colleagues had been under increasing pressure from both the Colombian and US law enforcement agencies to them it was very convenient to hand over transport operations to the Mexicans as it greatly decreased the risk of them being arrested while in transit they didn't really care if the Mexicans want to be paid in cocaine instead of cash they had a lot of cocaine I mean they had a lot of cash as well but they probably had more cocaine and that is how armaldo CUO became the lord of the Skies his boeings sword southwards across Latin American Skies Landing in Secure private air streets in Colombia that have been purchased and controlled by the cartels there then they flew back northwards with their holes filled with fresh loads of as they put it off season snow after the Boeing landed in Mexico the lord of the Skies would then distribute the goods to his gangs of trusted Smugglers and Distributors now some of these groups can be recognized to make very distinctive image in blaz anded upon their clothes and cars now looking at a picture of Tweety Bird you can probably tell that he's supposed to be a canary but Mexican gangsters consider him to be instead a chicken a poo which is also slang for an illegal border Crosser so they may Tweety Bird their mascot of sorts now kuo's poos did exactly that they crossed the boorder with the states using the corridor running from HZ to El Paso Texas they were largely undisturbed thanks to kuo knak for getting allies amongst potentially rival gangs and especially the authorities both North and South of the Border he did so by trading favors but mostly by just giving them big fat bribes of money and cocaine once across the border kuo's Runners deposited kilos and kilos of cocaine into safe houses using a fairly ingenious method devised by Kio himself and his W as Associates so the Naros were frequent clients of stripper bars in huarez like what else are you going to do with like mountains of cocaine and cash and they did this out of pleasure of course because they were drug dealers with stacks of cash but also with a business intent now Creo soldiers would strike up conversations with American exotic dancers who were active on both sides of the borders and then made them a lucrative almost impossible to resist offer the offer was as follows once back in the US the dancers would be asked to lease a house in their name the cartel would pay the rent of course and then for good measure throw in an extra ,000 a month in cash for the girls then the dancers were instructed to not move into those houses but simply pop in every now and again to make them look inhabited all the while CIO soldiers entered regularly to deposit hundreds of bricks of pure cocaine which would later be sold in bulk to local dealers now most of the cocaine smuggle across the border was the property of the Colombian sure but let's not forget kuo's deal a percentage of all that powder was his rightful payment so the lord of the Skies was thus able to penetrate us markets especially in California with the cocaine he had paid virtually nothing for well except for like plane Fuel and the risk that he took but all of that would soon be recuperated and then some and you probably noticed at this point in the story there were a lot of different people smuggling a lot of cocaine into the US and in Korea case the cocaine he was trying to sell was literally the exact same kind of cocaine that the Colombians were selling so how did he ensure that people bought his cocaine instead of the Colombian cocaine well he sold it in bulk for a lower price than the Colombians and thus pushed them out of the market trading places style so by the early 1990s the US Department of Justice or doj referred to amado's Enterprise as the Coro Fuentes drug trafficking organization which makes it sound way too legit he had later Consolidated his hold over the harez AL Paso smuggling route in 1993 after assassinating the nominal head of the huarez cartel a man called Raphael agalar guado thank you for the pronunciation guide there and Alo much appreciated cuz I would have messed that one all the way up this control over the most frequented smuggling route allowed kuo to enact his third big innovation he allowed other gangs to run drugs across that route but they had to pay a tax to amardo and his second in command his own brother vente known simply as the Viceroy the doj noted that amardo and the Viceroy maintain their grip on the hirz cartel by a chain of favors given and received well mostly with big fat bribes of cocaine and cash Amo had been credited with handing out some $500 million in bribes every single year a figure that's kind of difficult to confirm as his accountant didn't exactly file these bribes under business expenses although they technically were and fun fact for people at home in the US at least illegal income can be taxed and there is actually a tax form that you can fill out for illegal income and if you could wondering if I'm making money illegally why would I willingly pay taxes on it um because that's how they got Al Capone when favors and bribes failed to meet kuo's goals he did not shy away from violence he was the head of a Cel after all he said to have ordered the assassination of some 400 people during his not so illustrious career as a drug kingpin and yet despite all this violence and the enormous amounts of wealth surrounding him the lord of the Skies always succeeded in maintaining aining a incredibly low profile shunning the flashy lifestyle of his Colombian counterparts like he still had lots of money and flaunted it but just not publicly too CIO drug trafficking was business plain and simple one that wouldn't a some $25 billion sure a fortune rivaled only by that of Pablo Escobar but he was just a plain and simple businessman with a sense of Duty towards his employees Legend has it that a priest tried to convince him to abandon his life of crime to which Creo is said to have replied I cannot retire I have to go on I need to provide for thousands of families those families being his employees which admittedly were drug dealers and Smugglers and assassins for higher but they were still these employees which you kind of have to respect right oh I guess I'm back in the void T to talk about today's sponsor Squarespace nearby Nisha would you like to join me in the void talking about today's sponsor of course I would yes no one escapes the void Squarespace is an all-in-one website platform used to create websites by professionals and am like well sounds like it includes me because I'm somewhere in the middle of amateur and professional so hell yeah perfect what else do they do you can use square space to sell products content time or advertise your business well it all sounds like things I want to do online and I can make a website that would allow me to do all of those things that is very interesting tell me more about your service and our product so a good thing about Squarespace is you can check the analytics and learn where your visitors to your site come from so you're telling me that I could use this to find out where the people in the world come 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sponsor Squarespace but I'm going to end as I often like to to do with a bonus fact for everyone at home did you know Folks at home that scientific Studies have proved conclusively that dogs like regga in 1994 the US DEA set up a task force to bring down the Creos once and for all and their leading assets were special agents Edward folis and Steve Whipple both based in El Paso during one of their raids the two agents uncovered one of kuo safe houses in El Paso containing about 800 key of pure cocaine the agents found out that had been leased in the name of Carolina Morrison a 24-year-old exotic dancer also known as Tammy almost right away folis and Whipple set about trying to find Tammy grilling the owners of all the major strip clubs in town Unfortunately they learned later that they moved just a little too late a squad of narcos had abducted her and she'd been taken South of the Border and you can probably tell what happened next in the eyes of kuo Tammy had committed a capital crime she'd been found out and she had to pay like many others who' Fallen foul with the lord of the Skies Tammy was killed k at the hands of the cartel her body dismembered and then dissolved in acid folis now needed another conduit to get closer to Creo by working his sources in El Paso he managed to recruit an informant a young gangster called Palomo Palomo advised FIS to put under surveillance one of kuo's underlings a man called wah Guzman soon to visit El Paso this to turned out to be a dead end as it appeared that Guzman was in town on a legitimate business to purchase some kitchen supplies the de left him alone on that occasion a decision they would certainly come to regret this Guzman guy would let to become one of the most dangerous kingpins in all of Mexico better known by his nickname El Chapo yes that's El Chapo but that's a story for another day let's not lose sight of kuo his most trusted Squad of coke Smugglers were the esposas a gang of brothers and cousins whose shipments have previously been thwarted by special agent Whipple who is a wizard at intersecting radio chatter among the cartels this was a promising lead for folis the special agent an expert under cover work Dawn the Persona of fast Eddie a corrupt private investigator with a side hustle as an assassin in for higher how is this not a movie and I know it's in Naros but how is that sounds like something out who believe that I'm a I'm a corrupt private investigator call fast Eddie bang bang bang that's clearly a guy undercover with the help of paloma fast Eddie arranged a meeting with the esposas during which he suggested that he too had a grudge against agent Whipple and in very veiled terms fast Eddie hinted that he could take care of that annoying DEA man folis was very careful to give plenty of opportunities for the esposas to back down Les his undercover action be classed as entament but the Tweety Birds took the bait and offered him $10,000 for the assassination of Whipple it's the idea about $10,000 for someone's life next with the help of a team of frenzy experts fly stays the murder of Whipple smearing his friend in ketchup and fake blood before taking some very convincing Polaroids unfortunately the esposas must have smelled something was a Miss as they refused to meet again with fast eddit to settle the payment which was admittedly another setback as the second meeting could have been the stepping stone to finally incriminating Korea in any case folis had C their early conversation on tape and the espinos were arrested for conspiracy to commit murder the federal agent FIS and Whipple did not desist though and they planned how to bust the kuo brothers themselves but amardo and viente kuo had a strict policy of meeting directly only with other Mexicans which prevent Foles from infiltrating their Inner Circle the agents were thus then forced to basically rely on that only real Source the informant Palomo the Allco appropriately wired was able to meet with the Creos on nine separate occasions recording countless incriminating bits of evidence on tape and with those tapes the DEA and the US attorney's office were able to build a pretty convincing case against Korea when FIS and Whipple were about this close to obtaining the extradition order for the lord of the Skies apparently this would be the beginning of the end for ker and his fall would be as quick as his rise although the exact chain events is not clear and still debated to this day now going to FIS in the mid1 1990s koreo got win that something was a foot he not known how but Foley speculates that a high ranking mole either in the US or in Mexico inform the so-called lord of the Skies that the DEA was about to take him down as we've already discussed Creo did not exactly lack friends in high places and for example in the early 1990s he secured on his payroll none other than the head of Mexico's anti-drug agency you cannot make this stuff up a man called General Gutierrez REO but even being friends with a guy literally in charge of the drug agency of Mexico was not enough for koreo to feel safe Mexican authorities were still closing in and the lord of the sky needed more friends in the military now according to the Washington Post in January 1997 Creo entrusted his right-hand man a guy called Eduardo Gonzalez corer to organize a meeting with high ranking military officials and to propose an arrangement of sorts and the Cliff's version of the deal that Korea proposed is that if the government agreed to leave him alone and let him do his own thing he would agree to only traffic his drugs in the US and Europe not in Mexico moreover he would commit to pumping back some of the money he made from his trafficking into the Mexican economy and then as a final bargaining chip he offered to collaborate with the police and authorities to suppress what he called freelance drug smuggling which is just a euphemism for his own competitors while again this sounds like something straight out of a movie The Mexican defense secretary immediately admitted that such a meeting had taken place with kuo's rightand man but that the involved officials had declined the drug kingpin's offer this said in February 1997 the Mexican police did arrest General Gutierrez rivo after a wire tap on his phone revealed that he had been negotiating Bri with kuo the crookie general was arrested and sentenced to 31 years in prison during the trial he confirmed that kuo's Associates had indeed met with the defense officials including the Secretary of Defense himself that the right-and man quete had paid the Secretary of Defense a bribe of $6 million according to Gutierrez the officials had pocketed the kickback and later refused to meet their end of the deal and you don't know how I feel I'm going to take money off the drug Kingpin but then we're not going to do what the drug ping Kingpin asked which is really ballsy considering like you know kuo's modus operandi when it came someone not doing what he said was to hack off their legs and boil them in acid so I get well on those government officials so to recap kuo was losing his once many friends in high places and this became evident when shortly after the arrest of General Gutierrez police raided coro's sister's wedding reception amardo managed to escape just before the AR of the officers now pressure was indeed mounting and the once uncontested king of harez began to fear for his life and indeed his freedom moving around the city Only in specially kitted out Vans inside they were as luxurious as a high-end limousine but outside looked like a regular ambulance a vehicle no police officer would dare to stop but he knew the long-term solution was to flee Mexico for good so on March 3rd 1997 Creo entered Chile by car alongside his family his personal physician and his right-hand man the aforementioned Gonzalez quete the the drug lord then spent three months in the capital city of Santiago during which he bought 11 cars bought or rented 12 real estate properties and founded a company he called Hercules limited to act as a front for his illegal operations then on June 6th kuo relocated to Cuba where he spent 3 weeks in a residential compound reserve for government guests according to the DEA Fidel Castro's government had no idea they were playing host to a Cel leader to them kuo was just a wealthy businessman willing to invest in Cuba's economy and then for unknown reasons kuo decided to cut short his visit to Havana and return abruptly to Mexico in early July Creo checked into a private Hospital in Santa Monica de palanco in Mexico City he' arranged for his personal physician and three other surgeons to perform lipos suction and facial reconstruction procedures clearly he wanted to change his appearance and disappear into the wind for good during the surgery the doctor had radically changed the features and appearance of cio's face and removed some 14 kilos of fat from his waistline but when he woke up Amo CIO did not feel well at all as is want to happen when you just had Radical Face altering surgery the pain was just too much and he asked the anesthesiologist for painkillers lots of them and then he asked the more the doctor was reluctant but didn't really want to argue with a drug kingpin who hacked people's legs off and boiled them in acid and eventually complied and so it was that the lord of the Skies the Untouchable leader of the Warz cartel a man who smuggled literally tons of cocaine into the United States died as a consequence of a simple drug overdose irony was invented for moments like this and his death set off a ma chain of consequences first as soon as news spread of his death conspiracy theories mushroom suggesting that his death was not an accident but a planned hit ordered by his enemies similarly other conspiracists believe that armad Korea was still alive in death his face was unrecognizable bruised and distorted there's actually footage out there of Mexican officials like going to his open casket funeral to determine whether or not it's him and the comments are filled with people saying he's not dead he's not dead because Narco is the TV show suggested that he survived not realizing that Narco is the TV show took a lot of liberties with the truth but the fact that even to this day people still like are conspiring this guy is still alive I think speaks to um the extent of the conspiracies and just you know the mudded facts surrounding them so yeah so what if he had faked his death to evade the authorities or to quickly retire from the drug business and hand over his Empire to his brother viente aka the vice Roy and for any conspiracy out there it's noting that the forementioned DEA agents FIS and Whipple did travel to amaro's birthplace to attend his open casket funeral where they were able to take a fingerprint off his corpse and match it to one kept on record at the DEA with kuo's death now confirmed his enemy Rampage through the streets of harez massacring members of his organization and after 30 days of violence and 94 murders the vice Roy did manage to assert his dominance over the cartel and restore order and finally the last Act of kuo's gruesome funeral rights took place on November 6th 1997 which is where where the remains of the three doctors who' operated on him were found dead inside three barrels in the Mexico City Acapulco Motorway like many among the victims of the cartel they had been dismembered and partially dissolved in acid the harez cartel continued to operate under Vincente kuo but he lacked The Authority the Brilliance of his late brother the alliances among the cartels broken by amardo eventually dissolved contributing to the increase of gang violence in Mexico eventually vente was brought to Justice and sentence to 28 years in prison in 2014 this could be considered the Final Chapter to the dark epic of the lord of the Skies a paradoxical figure whose ruthless Brilliance was always veiled by an almost impenetrable screen of mystery unlike many of his acolytes and colleagues in the darkest of Trades he did not fall under the bullets of his enemies nor the gavel of justice that is why perhaps he still enjoys a ct-like status in his native Mexico where to this day many are still convinced that he's alive Somewhere Out There planning to make his return as reported by the Mexican Outlet grandio MOS da administrator Thomas a Constantine confirmed that there is no doubt that kuo is indeed dead and spending eternity in a very special place stating and I quote he may have escate Justice on this Earth but I am sure there is a special place in hell for those like him who destroy countless lives and devastated families on both sides of the border so I hope everybody out there found this video to be entertaining informative and educational I certainly found the script to be all three of those things and if you are inclined to agree you can find the author of this piece aralo Tian and the links found below you can also find my social media links and while you're down there clicking on things you can like the video leave a comment feedback suggestions any word I pronounce wrong make fun of my nasly voice cuz I have a cold or my appearance cuz I'm a little bit pale or paler than usual for a British guy and subscribe for more content like this but as I always like to say to everyone out there go out there and have the day you deserve and don't do drugs or mess with the Mexican cartel they'll cut your legs off and melt you an acid that's not a good way to go [Music] cheers [Music]

Channel: Biographics

Views: 21,733

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, karl smallwood, Squarespace, crime, true crime, criminal, criminals, narcos

Id: LPKr0KADNtI

Length: 25min 3sec (1503 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 27 2024