Transcription
[music] [music] Welcome, welcome. We have now reached the seventh episode of the fifth season of Red Territory, this exclusive videopodcast from MBC Noticias. I am Óscar Valderas, holder of the Criminal Nation column, and in this seventh episode, I will tell you how one of the most bloodthirsty men in organized crime in Mexico was apprehended. A cartel leader also sought by the United States, as the White House feared his malign influence would infect them. And how a wish that sounded delusional was fulfilled 12 years later. Thanks to the fact that, contrary to what Hollywood movies say, the United States does negotiate with terrorists. Let's begin. Red Territory. Red Territory with Óscar Valderas. Fifth season. In 2009, a rupture changed the country forever. The Zetas broke away from the Gulf Cartel. Their creators. They believed themselves bigger than their bosses and left Tamaulipas to seek new strongholds. Coahuila seemed like a great place for them to settle. Their dominance in that state was omnipresent between 2010 and 2015. So powerful that they managed to keep the Allende massacre, the extermination of a town in northern Coahuila, hidden. Between March 18 and 20, 2011, the Zetas killed 300 people without authorities appearing to stop the slaughter [music] of the same town. The motive for that atrocity had to do with the appetite for revenge of Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, the Z40, leader of the Zetas, along with his brother Omar, the Z42. The most accepted version is that Z40 flew into a rage when someone in the federal government informed him that they had an infiltrator in his organization, who had given the DEA the Blackberry PIN of the brothers and cartel leaders. The suspicion fell on a man known as Poncho Cuellar and his trusted men, El Negro and La Hicha. Z40 went mad with rage. He ordered the Zetas to occupy and assassinate those traitors, but also their families and friends, and in a small town where everyone is related or everyone knows each other. The instruction translated into a massacre with hundreds of victims who cried out for the help of a country, and no one listened to them. The Allende massacre, as that dark episode is known, made the United States take Z40 seriously as a threat to its national security. After all, that extremely violent man operated only a few kilometers from the city of Eagle Pass in Texas, and his malign presence could metastasize at any moment by crossing the border. Two years later, in 2013, Z40 was already one of the most wanted men in Mexico and the United States. President Enrique Peña Nieto had included him in his blacklist of 122 priority targets and ordered the Secretariat of the Navy to join in his search and arrest. At the same time, the DEA was pressuring and pressuring and pressuring. That year, a marine arrived in Coahuila to support the mission of finding Z40, Captain Raúl Sánchez Labrada, whose reputation as an upright and tough man preceded him. His tracking began in the city of Monclova, far from the border. But there was a problem. The Zetas had instilled so much fear throughout the state and also in Monclova that the inhabitants did not speak with the authorities. So Captain Sánchez Labrada devised a plan: to create an anonymous tip program that only the marines would answer, and for each correct clue, a household appliance donated by local businessmen would be offered at the naval base. The plan worked. An informant named GEPa 3 provided hard data, so detailed that it was difficult to believe it was fabricated. He told them that Z40 was hiding in Anáhuac, Nuevo León. Finally, there was a starting point for the mission. The informant GP 3 said more things when he realized that Captain Sánchez Labrada was truly committed to the search. He revealed that Z40 had an 8-month-old daughter in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, and to see her, he frequently traveled from Anáhuac, Nuevo León, or Colombia, Nuevo León, a Bermuda Triangle where the Zetas made people disappear at will. Although the marines knew more about their target each time, they still believed it was an impossible mission. Z40 was so careful about cameras that no one knew for sure what he looked like. The only photo of him was old and outdated, and there were rumors that he had undergone plastic surgery to go unnoticed. Until one day, the informant GP 3 called again and offered the best possible clue. He said that on Sunday, July 14, 2013, Z40 would leave Anáhuac, Nuevo León, to see his baby in Nuevo Laredo. He would go unarmed and only with a driver and his accountant. It was the ideal moment, but there was a huge problem. Z40 could choose to continue through Anáhuac or triangulate through Colombia. That is, there were two routes, and there were not enough reliable marines or military personnel to be on both routes. They had to choose one of the two at random and put everything in the hands of luck. Captain Sánchez Labrada gathered his team and told them, "We are going to go out for Z40, and if we fail, we die. I will understand anyone who wants to step back." And all 15 stepped forward. They advanced decisively towards Nuevo Laredo until they reached a fork. Which way to go? Would the leader of the Zetas continue straight through Anáhuac or would he divert through Colombia? Heads or tails. Heads it was. The military went towards Colombia, and to do so, they had to take a path called La Gasera, which has three separate sections with fences that are also locked with padlocks that Z40 opened and closed as he advanced. He did this to make it difficult for anyone to follow him. The marines were heading to La Gasera when Captain Sánchez Labrada received a message. A commander saw two license plate-less trucks moving at high speed on that lonely road in the distance. The marines accelerated, and the two license plate-less trucks did too. A crazy chase began, but Captain Sánchez Labrada had anticipated this possibility and hours earlier had requested that an armed Black Hawk helicopter be placed at the exit of La Gasera to block the path. The license plate-less trucks suddenly made an unexpected move. One turned sharply and managed to escape through a narrow ditch. The other stopped abruptly, and the three occupants got out with their hands up. Captain Sánchez Labrada was furious when those three said they were simple escorts, that Z40 had escaped in the other truck, the first one. Despite the fiasco, they were taken to a ranch in Nuevo Laredo. The interrogation took place there. The three clung to their version that they were bodyguards. Until Captain Sánchez Labrada remembered an important detail. GP 3, the informant, had once told him that Z40 had a false identity that he backed up with a forged credential from the Kansas City Southern railway company, in which he called himself David Estrada Coronado. The captain searched the wallets of the detainees, and surprise! In one of the detainees' wallets was a credential in the name of David Estrada Coronado. The marine shouted at the top of his lungs, "It's him! It's Z40!" And the one who was posing as a bodyguard just lowered his head, stepped forward, extended his arm to shake his interrogator's hand, and said, "Gentlemen, I am Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, Z40, and I want to negotiate." Of course, he did not manage to free himself. July 14, 2013, was his last day of freedom. He first offered 5,000 pesos to escape, then 10, and ended up at 20, and stopped when he realized that Captain Sánchez Labrada and his marines were priceless. At that moment, he knew he was lost. By the way, the heroic Captain Sánchez Labrada never received a decoration or a medal for his bravery; quite the opposite. Today, he is imprisoned in Military Prison No. 1 in Mexico City, accused of forced disappearance and murder. The marine has repeatedly stated that he is imprisoned for having apprehended Z40, because after his arrest, several municipal police officers in Nuevo León and Coahuila were left without the salary that the Zetas paid them, and in retaliation, they framed him for two of the worst crimes that can be accused of a marine, to put him behind bars for life. Today, Captain Sánchez Labrada is still fighting for the recognition of his innocence and seeks freedom to return home to his family. In any case, let's return to Z40. Two days after the operation, on July 17, the cartel leader was already in Mexico City. A military plane had taken him from the ranch in Nuevo Laredo to an office on the second floor of building 73, Reforma Avenue, the headquarters of the now-extinct Specialized Unit for the Investigation of Organized Crime (SIEDO). Z40. By then, he already had a grim mood. His bad temper was famous throughout Tamaulipas. If you looked at him wrong, if he didn't like you, if he was simply angry and you crossed his path, he would order you murdered with ferocity, with hatred, as if he knew you and had been wishing for your suffering for years. It was 11:45 at night when he received visitors. Two Public Ministry agents from Coahuila stood before him. If he were free and in Tamaulipas, Z40 would have already shot them, but he was not in his territory and he was detained, so he had no choice but to listen to them. "Who are you?" Z40 asked, annoyed. The agents, Ángel and Juan, responded that they wanted to take a statement from him regarding a horrific crime, and they didn't need to say which one they were referring to. One of them was carrying a Proceso magazine in his hand, and on the cover, it read "Allende Massacre" and a photograph of the town that the Zetas had devastated. Z40 grunted, shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and looked at his lawyer, Antonio Aguilar Domínguez, who tried to calm the volcanic man who was about to erupt. "You already know what you have to say," the lawyer told him. Z40 repeated from memory what his lawyers had taught him hours earlier. "I do not wish to testify and I invoke Article 20 of the Constitution." That is, the right not to self-incriminate. The statement taking seemed about to end before it began. Z40 did not want to talk, and if they pressured him a little, he could accuse them of psychological torture before the National Human Rights Commission. So, better not. The Public Ministry agents, Ángel and Juan, turned to leave the office. Suddenly, they heard Z40's voice. "You are not just anyone," he told them. And he continued, "You are the only ones in the entire country who have come to talk to me. Only the marines have interrogated me." And he uttered a phrase that Mexican criminals do not say. "I am going to request that I be extradited to the United States." The office fell silent. No narco says that. Z40 loosened his tongue and said, verbatim, according to a document to which we had access, the following: "I am going to request that I be extradited to the United States, where at most they will give me 20 years in prison, and the years I will be in jail I will take as a rest, and I am very tired of running. After all, I don't have to worry about my family. I have enough money to support them for at least three generations. I am going to ask for extradition to become a protected witness, and that will help me." A few days later, Z40 had his first stop in a maximum-security federal prison, and for many years, he toured the Mexican Penitentiary System and was held in Sonora, Jalisco, Chihuahua, Michoacán, Chiapas, State of Mexico, and Nayarit. Until February 27 of this year, Z40's wish came true. It took 12 years, but it became a reality. A guard came to his cell and informed him that a plane was waiting for him to take him to Texas, where he would answer for drug trafficking to the United States. The cartel leader protested, complained, but his fate was unchangeable, just as it happened to 28 other drug traffickers who were also transferred to the neighboring country that same day, including his brother Omar, the Z42. Everything indicated that upon setting foot in the United States, Z40 would face a trial that would very likely punish him with the death penalty, a sanction revived by President Donald Trump for narcoterrorists, or at least a life sentence in a harsh American prison. However, it seems that none of that will happen. Just a few days ago, the United States Attorney's Office announced that it will not seek the lethal injection for Z40, which opens the possibility that he will become a protected witness and that one day he will be a free man again, despite all the suffering caused. And so, will he have been right? His arrest did not harm him, but rather helped him, as he will become a cooperator of United States justice, and perhaps they will let him keep the money he amassed through the suffering of others. Z40 wanted extradition, and they gave it to him. He was right. Perhaps very soon he will be a free man. Thank you for joining us in this seventh episode of the fifth season of Red Territory. In the next episode, the eighth, I will tell you about El Chapo Guzmán's last escape. And if you think you know everything about it, watch the next episode, because the trial of the founder of the Sinaloa Cartel in the United States took twists and turns, and the plot, I promise you, is more interesting than any Netflix movie. To ensure you don't miss the next chapter, please activate notifications and, of course, follow the MBC Noticias channel and share this episode on your social media. Thank you very much for being with us. See you soon.