You’re walking in the desert just outside
of Albuquerque, New Mexico, when you notice something strange...a little red ribbon tied
to a small sagebrush plant. Hmm, why would someone have tied a ribbon
around this desert shrub, an herbaceous plant that is widespread in certain areas of the
American West. That’s how you think…you’re a formal
type of guy. You’re clever, too, and you’ve seen the
entirety of “Breaking Bad”, three times. You assume of course that the ribbon is tied
around that shrub because some drug dealer who operates on a massive scale has buried
millions of dollars nearby. You then look over your shoulder to ensure
the cartels aren’t watching…Hey, you’ve seen those chainsaw videos, you don’t wanna
end up starring in a short film posted on LiveLeak. Nonetheless, you think, I’m coming back
at night with a shovel. It’s an age-old problem for drug dealers,
the ones who make a lot of cash. What does one do with all one’s money? Stash it under the floorboards? Fill the walls with it? Bury it in the desert? You really have to do something with that
cash, because if you don’t, someone is likely going to take it from you. Police once raided the house of a Colombian
drug dealer and just sitting around was $29 million. In the drug world, that wasn’t all that
weird. A few years ago the cops found up to $20 million
dollars at a house in Miami. The cash was hidden in buckets. We won’t go on, but will tell you that drug
traffickers have had their stash taken many times, and the hiding places weren’t always
that great. It’s thought at some point the drug Kingpin
named Pablo Escobar was worth an astonishing $30 billion, and even today people are hunting
for part of that buried treasure. In fact, Pablo’s brother, Roberto Escobar,
has said that buried somewhere out there, maybe in the desert, maybe in the walls of
houses now occupied by unknowing tenants, are tens of millions of dollars. So, with that in mind, maybe the next time
you see a red ribbon tied to a shrub in the middle of nowhere, you should start digging. But what about the money that once belonged
to El Chapo, where did that go? How much was he even worth? The problem is, drug cartel bosses don’t
usually do their taxes, so it’s hard to know how much they are worth. Forbes magazine actually had the Sinaloa cartel
down as making a cool three billion a year during El Chapo’s heyday, but we are guessing
Forbes is pulling that number out of thin air. How would Forbes know? One time the Mexican army pulled over a car
and inside was about $15.3 million, and that cash was said to be the property of one Joaquin
"El Chapo" Guzman. We might not ever know exactly how much he
had, but if you figure out how much he and his cartel friends got over the U.S./Mexican
border, we can safely say he was incredibly rich. Maybe El Chapo made a billion…let’s just
go with a billion for now. So, the cops didn’t just find El Chapo sitting
with a bunch of suitcases filled with a billion dollars. They didn’t find a savings account belonging
to one Joaquin Guzman Loera and there were millions and millions of bucks in it. Before we get to “hidden stashes”, we
should tell you that incredibly rich drug traffickers do the same as many other rich
people, in that they hide their money in off-shore accounts. That’s right, like former heads of governments,
celebrities, sports stars, business people and even the British Royal family, drug dealers
get their money in these tax havens where the cash is kept away from the prying eyes
of tax collectors. The money is owned by what’s called a “shell-company”,
meaning it’s fake, inactive... in reality, just a name. .
In 2016, it was discovered that another Mexican narcotics kingpin, a guy named Rafael Caro
Quintero, had one of these accounts in Panama. He got some clever dude to take his drug money
and diversify it, and then make it look like that money belonged to a made-up business
with accounts in a tax haven. In fact, a few years ago the British banking
giant HSBC admitted to laundering billions of dollars for Mexican and Columbian drug
dealers. An investigation found that the Mexican cartels
would turn up to a bank and in just one day hand over hundreds of thousands of dollars
in cash into one single account... no questions asked of course. The bank didn’t even face criminal charges
in the end, for the reason that an indictment might topple the bank and subsequently endanger
the financial system at large. HSBC just said it would defer bonuses for
a few years and settle to the amount of $1.9 billion. That was virtually nothing for HSBC, and you
can bet a lot of bosses got some dope bonuses when they were dealing with the traffickers. No one did any hard time, like you’d have
to, if you got pulled over and had a bag of weed on you. Anyway, there’s no doubt El Chapo has laundered
a ton of money. When he stood trial, we found out about his
personal zoo; his collection of jewel-encrusted guns and planes supposedly full of cash, but
U.S. officials weren’t quite sure where to look for the billions of dollars this guy
could have earned. His indictment was valued at $14 billion,
but that number was a bit of a guess based on how many drugs El Chapo and his cartel
had trafficked. In fact, at the time, a former federal prosecutor
in the U.S. said there was likely no way that El Chapo had $14 billion hidden some place,
whether it be a hole in the desert or a bank account in Panama. Some people said $14 billion was a “fantasy
figure”, but he certainly had quite a lot of millions hidden somewhere…but where? Well, more recently a 12-page document was
released talking about the money trail. It said in drug shipments El Chapo and his
gang made $12,666,181,704. How they came up with an exact number is beyond
explanation, but it is what it is. The investigators went looking for any legitimate
businesses owned by the cartel, which is what the traffickers did to make their money legal. The problem is, U.S. investigators can do
nothing about cash that was spent on businesses in Mexico. One investigator said cartel guys, or guys
that worked for the cartel, would arrive in the U.S. with prepaid credit cards loaded
with millions of dollars. They could then make a giant purchase, such
as lots of high-grade computers. Then they’d export the computers and the
cash from the sale ended up not in the U.S., but in Mexico. One person who testified against El Chapo
said the man did indeed spend a lot, but he spent all that cash in Mexico. He bought things like private planes, yachts,
and he had lavish properties all over the place. The U.S. can do nothing about that. What was bought in Mexico stays in Mexico. In fact, two wives of former cartel members
said sometimes vast quantities of street money would be taken through the U.S. into stash
houses in Mexico. They’d use counting machines there to count
the millions, and then package that cash. But where did it go, that’s the billion
dollar question? Guzman’s wife doesn’t act or live like
a billionaire, but she’s certainly not broke. People who testified against him also said
that the cartel buys things like dairy farms and shopping malls. The Mexican local authorities might turn a
blind eye because the cartel also invests in things such as charities and sports teams. El Chapo’s wife by the way, one Emma Coronel
Guzmán, has stood by her husband and said that he is a “humble” man and a lot of
lies have been told about him. She said the U.S. government and the media
have overblown just how big he was in the drug trafficking and she has also said the
billions he is presumed to have or be hiding just don’t exist. She doesn’t deny that he was a powerful
man, so powerful in fact, that she has gone on record saying the Mexican government wanted
him dead. The reason for that, she said, was because
he knew too much - meaning he had made many friends in the government during his drug
trafficking days. She’s even been called the Narco-Princess
Diana, since she has been known to be charitable. But does she have billions of dollars? So far, she has not done anything that would
tell us she has a ton of cash. No doubt her accounts have also been investigated. When asked about just how much cash she has
and how she earns her money, this is what she said in an interview:
“I have irrigation land, things like that, which I prefer not to talk about ... I do
not have anything illegal. I know the government has been checking or
verifying if I have something unlawful”. Investigations have found out that she gets
payments from what was called her “legal counsel” but she doesn’t live a glamorous
lifestyle and lives in a pretty normal, if not nice house in Mexico. Obviously if she did have billions she wouldn’t
be flaunting it, but right now the money trail doesn’t lead back to her. The DEA has said different, and has spoken
out about how this former beauty queen does actually live a fairly lavish life. That agency has said the Mexican government
could get on the money trail but it criticized Mexican officials for not even trying to find
the money. Hey, maybe some people are still on the payroll. As for Guzman’s two sons, well, they are
both wanted men and both in the drug trafficking game. One of them drives around in a $220,000 car,
so you would think that the Guzman family isn’t short of cash. Some reports suggest that it is these two
sons who are paying off the Mexican government, and that is why El Chapo’s billions will
never be found. El Chapo has bribed a lot of people in the
past, but right now he doesn’t have many options given the fact he is locked down in
pretty much a modern dungeon and is allowed very few visits. A former assistant U.S. attorney has said
that El Chapo will certainly have shell companies, but finding these off-shore companies won’t
be easy because they will be well-hidden. So far, the U.S. has recovered very little,
and the Mexican government has been accused of accepting bribes from the Cartels. While El Chapo is in prison the drug trade
still flourishes and most people agree that the war on drugs cannot ever be won. Right now the Sinaloa cartel and other cartels
are hiring very clever attorneys and other professionals to hide and invest their money. These days you can’t walk up to an HSBC
bank with half a million bucks and say, “I’d like to make a deposit.” Something the cartels do now is hire huge
gangs of people to deposit less than $10,000 in a bank account. That way, the cash stays off the radar, but
don’t be fooled into thinking anything has really changed. The cash still flows like a river that’s
burst its banks. More recent reports said that the Mexican
President wants any money from El Chapo to go back to Mexico, after all, it was earned
in Mexico. El Chapo himself has said if the cash does
get back to Mexico he wants it to go to the country’s poorest folks, the indigenous
communities. Alas, no one has found El Chapo’s cash. The U.S. meanwhile spent about $50 billion
last year on its war against drugs, with around 20 to 30 billion being spent on heroin and
cocaine prohibition. Obviously that wasn’t all spent on hunting
down cartel members, but you could safely say it cost a few billion to catch El Chapo. Meanwhile, other drug lords have taken over
and cocaine consumption in the U.S. is on the rise. We doubt El Chapo’s cash will be in a hole
in the desert, next to a sagebrush plant, but you never know, one day you might see
that red ribbon. Nonetheless, it’s much more likely his money
is tied up in properties and legitimate businesses, as well as hidden in offshore accounts next
to other very wealthy people’s money. Right now you have to watch these two videos,
“Insane Way El Chapo Escaped Prison” and “How Insane is El Chapo's Prison Cell Security?”
