Undercover FBI Agent Recounts Taking Down El Chapo | Screen Written | Vanity Fair

that's really up to others I've had a lot of fun Mike McGowan of a former FBI Special Agent we had an opportunity as law enforcement to make an investigation against the world's most powerful drug organization in which we targeted the Sinaloa cartel in chapo guzman so taking almost up to a year to prepare this we finally set the first meeting to take place in Florida in early 2010 if you were to write a script from that day this is how it would look the Sinaloa cartel was responsible for hundreds of murders in Mexico and billions of dollars of narcotics being transferred throughout the world and I remember clearly to this day that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up because to have an opportunity in 2009 to take a run at Guzman in the Solow cartel was unheard of when we first began this investigation we had a cooperating witness who came to us and said I can give you the Sinaloa cartel he chose to cooperate with the FBI in order to have some of his property which had been seized in his earlier cases returned to him and his family chapo who has been wanted to set up a pipeline from Mexico into Europe to supply all of Europe so we put a plan into effect in which he believed we would be drug traffickers out of Europe and specifically Italy after the informant went into Mexico he was able to convince the Sinaloa cartel that the United States would be okay to have meetings only we wouldn't buy or sell drugs in the meetings we would simply be businessmen getting together to have discussions in a neutral country we intended to represent that we were a Sicilian crime organization from Italy and the intention was to use a very experienced undercover agent who spoke Sicilian that agent unfortunately retired shortly before the investigations so at the last minute we had our Sicilian speaker not available we looked around and decided eventually that I would represent the head of the organization from Sicily that's a little bit difficult I obviously don't speak Sicilian I sometimes struggle with English but working in concert with three spanish-speaking undercover agents we felt we could overcome the language barrier needed to target the Sinaloa cartel the meeting takes place in an oceanfront condominiums overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Florida you looked out for miles and miles beautiful ocean you take out wine you take out food you take out photographs you turn on a soccer match we spent a lot of time preparing the room the room is also equipped with audio and video recording and each agent has a responsibility of knowing where the cameras are will you want the subjects to sit so it's it's pretty much scripted and we went through it carefully so myself and the three other FBI undercover agents had specific and different roles in this case the first gentleman that I worked where there was a longtime friend of mine who is an expert in transportation his job was to get contraband from point A to point B and he knew all shipping routes transportation systems etc this gentleman had worked in South Florida for many many years and had the South Florida look clothing he had the tommy bahama's and the right sunglasses the right car when you work around the country there's certain parts where every criminal looks the same and South Florida is one of those we had a second gentleman who was named Antonio he was responsible for our ports in foreign countries we knew we were going to receive large amounts of cocaine so we had decided that we were going to use ports or shipping as opposed to Airlines so we had ports that we use literally all over the world outside of the United States that we have access - through foreign law enforcement cooperation and then the third undercover was my underling Patricio he spoke both Spanish and Italian he was going to replace me I was the old man I was the head of the organization soon to be retired he was my right-hand man my most trusted associate if anyone spoke to me privately it would be Patricio my number two so again it's very important to set up this dynamic that they see a pecking order they see a criminal organization it has a chain of command in it and we have to convince a member of the Sinaloa cartel where criminals just like they are they're very very cognizant of who appears to be real and who does not so we had a sell ourselves as a criminal organization and that's why we married many of the same roles that the Sinaloa cartel had and representing the Sinaloa cartel was a gentleman named Manuel hey-zeus Guzman who was identified as a blood relative of chapo guzman he would be chapo spokesman during these negotiations Manuel Guzman entered in netted States we sent the informant to pick him up at the Miami International Airport and deliver him to our oceanfront condominiums for negotiations so as we're waiting for the meeting to happen as I said I was dressed appropriately as a crime boss and I noticed my friends and fellow agents were nervous as was I and it was typical and naturally be nervous we had a lot expected of us and just prior to the Manuel arriving at the condominium I went in to use the men's room and double-check everything and I looked behind the door and I found a gaudy purple velour bathrobe that for some reason I thought would fit the scene better so without telling any other agents I got out of my $5,000 suit and I put on this hideous velour bathrobe I walked out into the room and the place cracked up everybody went nuts laughing it really broke the ice everybody calm down and at first I was going to go back and change and then I said he would never suspect this is the FBI so I kept on purple velour bathrobe for the remainder of the meeting you have to understand when you're an undercover agent you have to do things that the bad guys don't expect FBI agents would do Manuel arrives he was dressed in a business suit as if it was a important business meeting so Manuel enters the room in the company of the informant he's now meeting the three Undercovers I'm out on the deck sunning myself in my purple bathrobe and after five or ten minutes I don't see him coming out where he was supposed to be introduced to me so I went inside and lo and behold we found out that Manuel has a fear of heights which we didn't know so here we are 30 stories up on the ocean and he's hunkered down in a corner of the building and he won't come anywhere near the camera range it took a while but we were able to calm him down at least enough to come out and sit on the couch and begin negotiations with us I make a point of introducing myself and then walking immediately away from him because I don't want to talk to him at that point you have to understand we set up relationships so if I was the old man or I was the El Jefe the boss I wouldn't negotiate with Manuel I'd only negotiate with chapo II and I stayed out on a quarter I ignored him for the first couple of hours so the other three Undercovers have the responsibility for making him comfortable I also had a very attractive female FBI agent with me who was my date for the meeting and so I'm literally getting a suntan and putting lotion on having a drink relaxing with my lady friend it's you try to make it as natural as possible patricio my number two would come out whisper in my ear and I would whisper something back and send the message in from where I was outside I could see in and I could see the transformation in his uneasiness roll away at one point he started slapping the hand of one of the Undercovers like they were there were old buddies I could tell by the body language that things are going well when you negotiate a massive drug deal it takes hours it's a very long negotiation and I waited until it was going well until I came in and when I did come in as we had all agreed I was never going to speak directly to Manuel so I would just sit there and listen you know go get something to eat I would I wasn't being rude to him but I wasn't waiting on every word that's what my underlings are there for he offered to send an initial shipment in like five thousand kilos which if you know anything about cocaine that's a lot of cocaine and we said no it's the first deal with no one's doing 5,000 kilos so here you have cops turning down the Sinaloa cartel a lot of cops would say yeah give me all five that's not how drug negotiations go we had to lower the quantities we were interested in we wanted to set up a system that would last for years and years not just one deal it's like any business deal initial meeting the group set it off they've thrown some numbers back and forth and now they're going to go have more discussions he didn't even want to leave he was having such a good time seriously 2011 we began to exchange what's called test loads with the Sinaloa cartel they would send vessels from Mexico to Europe no drugs would be on those vessels they were plantains pineapples everything under the Sun except cocaine but you have to do that if you're a real drug trafficker that's how it works so we had to be patient and pay for this after almost three years of investigation in July of 2012 the Sinaloa cartel shipped us approximately 700 pounds I believe it's 346 kilograms of cocaine which in conjunction with a Spanish national police the FBI seized in Algeciras Spain as a result of those arrests and subsequent investigation we were able to charge in the United States chapo and of his executive board members with drug trafficking even though chapo was in Mexico we couldn't get our hands on him at that point he was indicted in our case which was later one of a number of cases that led to Guzman's eventual extradition into the United States

Channel: Vanity Fair

Views: 844,469

Keywords: true crime, vanity fair, vanity fair true crime, screen written, screen written vanity fair, true crime screen written, screen written true crime, el chapo, el chapo guzman, undercover fbi agent, mike mcgowan, taking down el chapo, joaquin guzman, undercover agent, fbi analyzes, fbi agent, criminal expert vanity fair, mike mcgowan vanity fair, mike mcgowan el chapo, undercover fbi agent el chapo, sinaloa cartel, screen written el chapo, fbi agent el chapo

Id: 0x5zTiGHpBk

Length: 11min 9sec (669 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 23 2020

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