EP 1: The Fixer

November 1, 2018·26 min·2 clips

At 5:45 a.m., a reporter stands on the Brooklyn Bridge watching an armored convoy escort El Chapo across in an egg-like coffin designed to survive a bombing.

The episode opens with reporter Keegan Hamilton standing on the Brooklyn Bridge at 5:45 a.m. watching a massive security convoy transport El Chapo from jail to court. Hamilton explains that Chapo has twice escaped maximum security prisons in Mexico, so US authorities transport him in a protective egg-like container inside an armored vehicle. Hamilton introduces himself as a journalist who has covered the drug trade for over a decade, starting with cocaine dealers and meth labs in St. Louis. He explains that to cover the Chapo trial properly, he needs to understand the broader ecosystem of people involved, which requires going to Mexico. In Culiacán, Sinaloa, he meets Miguel Angel Vega, a local journalist and fixer with silver hair who wears an LA Dodgers cap and has covered El Chapo and the Sinaloa cartel for years. Miguel Angel works for a paper called Rio Doce and estimates that around 50,000 people in Culiacán's population of over one million are involved in drug trafficking in some way. He argues that in a broader sense everyone in the region depends on narco money, including himself because foreign journalists pay him to cover the story. Hamilton acknowledges the cliché of VICE-style narco reporting and references a Saturday Night Live parody called Drones with a Z, but proceeds anyway. Miguel Angel arranges a meeting with an independent heroin trafficker Hamilton calls Jesus. Jesus is in his late 30s with a heavy build, former hitman background, and now runs a small crew trafficking heroin to US cities. He describes buying a kilo in Culiacán for $20,000, paying $8,000 for border crossing, then receiving $60,000 wholesale from US distributors. The process runs on handshake deals with no way to enforce payment from across the border. He clears about $120,000 a month. He has a tiger and a crocodile at his ranch and launders money through a restaurant. Jesus says he keeps his operation small deliberately because visibility brings death or arrest. That night, Miguel Angel calls to report a fresh murder. The team rushes to a crime scene where a man was shot through his truck window. About 50 people, including school children, gather around the tape. Miguel Angel says 80 percent of murders in Mexico go unsolved and speculates that the killers may be in the crowd. He explains that journalism in Sinaloa is extremely dangerous, that his paper Rio Doce suffered serious harm, and that he now only visits Culiacán for work. The episode ends with a teaser of an upcoming visit to El Chapo's hometown, where an armed checkpoint controls the road.

As heard by us

A grounded cartel story built on procedure, place, and the people around the trade.

EP 1 stays tight on the transfer from a maximum-security federal jail near the Brooklyn Bridge into court, and that focus gives the story its grip.

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Why you'd press play

You want a cartel story that starts with a dawn convoy and a maximum-security transfer.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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