Narco Wars (2020) s01e08 Episode Script
Narco Cult
1
♪
♪
♪
♪
Reporter (over tv):
Shake this square world
And blast off for kicksville.
Nixon (over tv): Public enemy
number one is drug abuse.
Nancy (over tv): Just say no.
Reagan (over tv): Halting the
drug problem in america is
Like carrying
water in a sieve.
Bush (over tv):
Take my word for it.
This scourge will stop.
Woman: There's now an
understanding that the war on
Drugs was an abject failure.
Man: You have to stop
and ask yourself,
How did we get here?
Trump (over tv): We
will build a wall.
(theme music plays)
(sirens)
Carl: I was a special
agent with the
Drug enforcement administration.
And I was in charge
of the mexico section.
All of a sudden you see
this new group popping up
On the radar screen.
They went to a nightclub,
And a small nightclub
there in michoacán.
♪
(cheering)
And our men dressed
in black came in.
(cheering)
(gunshots)
Shot the guns off
into the ceiling,
Made everybody
lay on the floor.
And then they threw five
freshly decapitated heads
In the middle of
the dance floor.
Ioan: Next to these
five decapitated heads,
There was a narco
message saying,
"la familia doesn't
kill for money.
It doesn't kill women.
It doesn't kill
innocent people.
Only those who deserve to die.
Everyone should know that
this is divine justice."
This was one of the weird
features right away when
La familia michoacana
broke onto the scene.
They were claiming this
religious inspiration.
They were claiming
to be holy warriors.
Man (over tv): The
cartel's philosophy is
rooted in religion,
Saying that they are
protecting the state's people
As part of god's work.
Ioan: This was one of the
wake up calls about something
Really bad is
happening in mexico.
Who are this crazy drug
cartel down in michoacán?
What the hell is
going on down there?
♪
Man (over tv): Drug
enforcement officials call it
The crack of the 90s.
Ioan: You had loads of people
right across america who were
Getting really bad
crystal meth addictions.
Philippa: Meth gives
you a rush of euphoria.
You feel immense pleasure.
You feel invincible.
Even the most repetitive task
feels totally mind-blowing.
Carl: It's just such
a devastating drug.
You see people that you would
think were in their 50s and
Find out they're only
in their early 20s.
They would sit there
and just shake,
scratching their face.
Man (over tv): Meth destroys.
The high is a lie.
Philippa: The
problem with meth
Is that you can
make it yourself.
Man (over tv): What you need
to make meth is all legal.
Available at a hardware
or a discount store.
Philippa: A number of labs
exploded in the united states
And that's when it became
the wild, wild west.
Ioan: Now because the
united states saw a bunch
Of profit off crystal meth,
They passed the 2005 combat
methamphetamine act.
And this banned the
precursors for meth.
Carl: They pushed
the production from
the united states,
South of the
border to michoacán.
Ioan: Michoacán is a state
on the west coast of mexico,
To the south of the
sierra madre mountains.
About the size of virginia
in the united states.
Michoacán is a place with
having lazaro cardenas,
The biggest port in mexico.
Right on the pacific.
You could buy the raw
ingredients from
countries like china,
Bring them in
through lazaro cardenas,
And then create
massive super labs
And really start
churning meth out.
♪
Carl: This group was basically
started by a man by the name
Of nazario moreno gonzález.
The most crazy one
was his nickname.
Ioan: Nazario is one of the
most mysterious figures in all
Of mexico's narco wars.
There is no video of
him and few photos.
And even with
the ones we have,
There is doubt whether
they really are of him.
But we do have his writings.
He came out with this book,
me dicen: El mas loco .
They call me the maddest one.
He talked about growing
up in wretched poverty.
♪
Ioan: He grew up in a little
hamlet in the tierra caliente,
In the hot land of michoacán.
I mean, really kind of
desolate bandit country.
They had a long history
of drug trafficking,
Certainly a lot of people
living on the edge
Of the law there.
When he was a, a young man,
He had a really
crazy temper.
He would snap very fast.
He was playing soccer,
there was a fight broke out.
And these guys started
really smashing his head in.
So he was flown to a
hospital in mexico city
And they cut his head open
And put a metal plate
to bind his skull up.
His face would like
bulge as he got angry
Because he had this kind of
weird look with a metal plate.
So he was kind of a scary guy.
A kind of james bond villain.
He was kind of seen as the,
the craziest of all.
El mas loco.
♪
Ioan: Nazario moreno
was the founder
And head of la
familia michoacana.
His right-hand man is servando
gomez martinez, la tuta.
♪
Carl: What we saw was
it literally came in
Like a flood.
They made an enormous
amount of money very, very,
Very fast.
Ioan: So this one regional
cartel were suddenly pumped
With billions of dollars
and became a major player
In mexico.
♪
♪
Ioan: Now there's a lot of
bad publicity of the zetas.
We were seeing in the
newspapers about massacres
By the zetas.
About how evil, horrible
this drug cartel was.
So nazario moreno
declared war on them
And the familia michoana was
about defending the state of
Michoacán from the zetas.
Carl: La familia became so
dangerous because that was
Their instrument,
to run the zetas off,
So they could
regain their state.
Within three years of throwing
the heads on the dance floor,
Mexico declared la familia
the most dangerous body
To the security of
the state of mexico.
(laughs)
Carl: They do this thing we
call the robin hood effect.
They would repair a road
or they would clean out
an irrigation ditch,
Or build a school house.
And then they would
publicize that.
They were very
good at publicity.
Letting people know,
Especially in areas
they want to control,
What they were
capable of doing.
Either in a good
or bad situation.
The la familia essentially
became the de facto government
Because the local
government were so weak.
♪
Ioan: I mean you know, 2006,
nobody really understood or
Expected the level of
violence that would blow up.
The homicidal rate
skyrocketing by mass graves
Across mexico.
♪
Ioan: Felipe calderon
wants to show
He's the new sheriff in town.
That the state is
having power again.
♪
(speaking native language)
♪
Ioan: I went to aqualia
one of these big narco towns
And I saw the troops
pouring into the town.
Helicopters and
lining people up,
Putting their t shirts
over their head
And guns to their head.
Very quickly you start
seeing big problems
With military offensive.
(rapid gunfire)
♪
The military could
win those gunfights,
But the cartel could just
disappear into the mountains.
♪
So apatzingán is, is the
biggest city of the hot land,
Tierra caliente area.
Cradle of the la
familia michoacana.
Very close to where
nazario moreno grew up.
Ioan: But nazario moreno and
the la familia michoacana
Had the advantage of
knowing the territory,
So they have a guerrilla
group which is fighting very,
very dirty.
♪
Carl: What they realized was
they could move their market
To smaller rural cities.
But they were sending
people up there that
didn't have addictions,
Didn't have problems.
Just fit into society.
Strategy wise it was a
pretty brilliant move.
Woman (over tv): In
this surveillance video,
A man removes
methamphetamine from the
wheel well of an automobile
And hands it to a woman
who wraps it in a
Blanket before
picking up her child.
This is part of the smuggling
and distribution network
Of the mexican cartel
known as la familia.
Eric: While this cartel
may operate from mexico,
The toxic reach of its
operations extends to nearly
Every state within
our own country.
♪
Carl: We had to stop them.
We had to stop la familia.
Man: Stand by.
Man: Good to go.
(gunshots)
(shouting)
Adrian: You're good.
Alright guys.
Here's, uh, here's
how this is gonna go.
We're gonna take this
house from the back.
Meth is our number one
narcotics issue in our county.
We've been conducting a
two-month investigation
On this drug dealer.
Man: Good?
Man: Good to go.
Adrian: We had intel that
he went to phoenix last
night and re-supplied,
So we're hoping
to find methamphetamines.
The intel we got is that
this subject's armed.
We don't know what to expect.
He's very dangerous.
Chris: Once you're on scene we
should have both doors taken
And breached.
Hopefully within a minute.
Okay guys, stand by.
I want you to stand by.
Man: Stand by.
Man: Stand by one.
(gunshots)
(shouting)
Man: Hey, come down here
and get a gun on this.
Man (over loudspeaker):
Residents, come out of
the house.
Man: Sheriff's office,
third floor!
Come out now out of the house!
Man (over radio): We got
the main target out.
Chris: Come to me!
Come to me!
Yeah, we got it.
We got cuffs?
It's here guys,
it's here somewhere.
It's here.
We just gotta find it.
It's right here.
Man: Nice.
Adrian: Mike, if we found
two little baggies with meth,
It's here.
Like there has to be more.
Another one?
Oh yeah, there you go.
Have you checked that jacket?
Oh, right here.
Woman: Woo!
Adiran: Boom, look it.
Woman: Good job.
Adrian: Jacket.
This is a war against
the drug cartels.
We're in southern
part of arizona,
united states,
And we're seeing this.
This came from mexico.
This came from a drug cartel.
♪
(speaking native language)
Ioan: The federal police found
out that nazario moreno would
Be in a little village
called el alcalde.
He would be there for some
kind of christmas party
Handing out presents.
They went in there with 2,000
federal police officers.
But the familia michoacana
were burning
Trucks on the road.
And there was about
500 cartel gunmen.
They were ambushing
the federal police as
they were coming in,
From the side of the hills,
And they just fired
down at them with
everything they could.
(speaking native language)
Ioan: Firing ak-47s
and firing 50 calibers,
Just laying onto the
federal police there.
(speaking native language)
♪
Man (over tv): Drug cartel
boss nazario moreno gonzalez,
Alias el chayo,
Was killed in a shootout with
the mexican army on Thursday.
Mexican authorities trumpeted
the incident as a significant
Victory in the country's
fight against organized crime.
♪
(speaking native language)
Ioan: Then these bizarre
stories came out,
Where mexican security
forces would raid cartel
safe houses and find,
Like, plastic helmets
they say were being
Used in rituals
of a drug cartel.
Ioan: So the story gets from
kind of being completely crazy
To being over the line nuts.
♪
Ioan: The knights templar
distributed this little
Pamphlet around with this
kind of weird series
Of religious commandments.
Ioan: There was a
real narco religion
And that was different
than anything we've seen
in mexico before.
♪
Ioan: They began
to extort people
On a very systematic level.
They began to shake
down lime farmers,
avocado farmers.
Really control little
institutions, mayors,
Security forces.
Really beyond corruption,
they really controlled the
Mechanisms of the state.
Some we could call
state capture,
And this was very,
very powerful.
Very hard to defeat.
♪
♪
♪
Falko: I first stepped into
tierra caliente in 2012,
I had heard all these horror
stories about the area.
They had told me,
of course you can get in,
But you will not be able
to make it out again.
I'm falko ernst,
I was a student
trying to learn
And find out about the
drug cartels in mexico.
I was able to link up with
local peasant organizations
And just by lucky coincidence,
one of the leaders happened to
Have gone to school with
servando gomez martinez,
or la tuta.
After three days on apatzingán
I received a visit by a
local envoy of the cartel,
Who was asking questions.
Checking out if I
really was a student.
And then a couple of days
later I find myself in the
Middle of nowhere in front
of an abandoned cemetery
Waiting for la tuta,
Who rolls in with
his security.
(speaking native language)
Falko: La tuta liked
to hear himself talk.
We got along.
He apparently took
a liking to me.
He promised me a even
better interview
With his boss,
as he said.
And I was kind of like, okay,
I thought you were the boss.
Because your boss
had gotten killed.
So this is me catching a ride.
I'm out off apatzingán,
into the more rural parts.
This one is gonna take us
right into the heart
Of the templar territory.
I get an invite to one
of the rural communities.
As the party was going on,
I see a convoy of six black
suvs are rolling in.
Heavily armed people setting
up a security perimeter.
One of his lieutenants came
over and told me that I was to
Accompany him to a
table to see el patron,
to see the boss.
He invites me to take a seat.
Introduces himself
as el chayo, nazario.
He had placed a anti-aircraft
rifle right next to him
On the ground.
He had supposedly shot on a
federal police helicopter
With that very gun.
He handed it over to me.
I handed it back
pretty quickly.
Very much, I think,
to the amusement
Of the by-standing sicarios.
This is so bizarre.
It's so out there that you're
talking about one of the most
Bloodthirsty narco warlords
in mexican history,
And then he
appears before you.
♪
♪
♪
(speaking native language)
♪
(radio chatter)
Ioan: This was a
breakdown of the rule of
law in mexico completely,
To the point where people were
committing vigilante justice.
And people were dying for it.
(speaking native language)
(rapid gunfire)
(speaking native language)
(woman crying)
(speaking native language)
♪
♪
Ioan: It's all very tense.
And I'm watching this thinking
when are the vigilantes gonna
Seize apatzingán?
When is the battle of
apatzingán gonna be?
And this is gonna
be a bloodbath.
♪
(speaking native language)
(radio chatter)
♪
♪
Ioan: Now I heard a
story from people in
the vigilante movement
And they said that the
vigilantes had plotted
With some bodyguards
of nazario moreno.
And they turned on him.
And, and beat him and shot him.
And he was killed
by his own people.
You had this figure,
this warlord,
Who really wanted to
be loved and venerated,
And he ended up being
hated and having people
turn against him,
Damning his legacy.
♪
(speaking native language)
Ioan: Very early on when
you had people raising guns
Against the knights templar,
Another cartel right away
saw this as an opportunity
To gain ground
in michoacán.
So it infiltrated elements
of the vigilante movement.
After the collapse of
the knights templar,
They went on to become
one of the most powerful
cartels in mexico.
(rapid gunfire)
Captioned by
cotter captioning services.
♪
♪
♪
♪
Reporter (over tv):
Shake this square world
And blast off for kicksville.
Nixon (over tv): Public enemy
number one is drug abuse.
Nancy (over tv): Just say no.
Reagan (over tv): Halting the
drug problem in america is
Like carrying
water in a sieve.
Bush (over tv):
Take my word for it.
This scourge will stop.
Woman: There's now an
understanding that the war on
Drugs was an abject failure.
Man: You have to stop
and ask yourself,
How did we get here?
Trump (over tv): We
will build a wall.
(theme music plays)
(sirens)
Carl: I was a special
agent with the
Drug enforcement administration.
And I was in charge
of the mexico section.
All of a sudden you see
this new group popping up
On the radar screen.
They went to a nightclub,
And a small nightclub
there in michoacán.
♪
(cheering)
And our men dressed
in black came in.
(cheering)
(gunshots)
Shot the guns off
into the ceiling,
Made everybody
lay on the floor.
And then they threw five
freshly decapitated heads
In the middle of
the dance floor.
Ioan: Next to these
five decapitated heads,
There was a narco
message saying,
"la familia doesn't
kill for money.
It doesn't kill women.
It doesn't kill
innocent people.
Only those who deserve to die.
Everyone should know that
this is divine justice."
This was one of the weird
features right away when
La familia michoacana
broke onto the scene.
They were claiming this
religious inspiration.
They were claiming
to be holy warriors.
Man (over tv): The
cartel's philosophy is
rooted in religion,
Saying that they are
protecting the state's people
As part of god's work.
Ioan: This was one of the
wake up calls about something
Really bad is
happening in mexico.
Who are this crazy drug
cartel down in michoacán?
What the hell is
going on down there?
♪
Man (over tv): Drug
enforcement officials call it
The crack of the 90s.
Ioan: You had loads of people
right across america who were
Getting really bad
crystal meth addictions.
Philippa: Meth gives
you a rush of euphoria.
You feel immense pleasure.
You feel invincible.
Even the most repetitive task
feels totally mind-blowing.
Carl: It's just such
a devastating drug.
You see people that you would
think were in their 50s and
Find out they're only
in their early 20s.
They would sit there
and just shake,
scratching their face.
Man (over tv): Meth destroys.
The high is a lie.
Philippa: The
problem with meth
Is that you can
make it yourself.
Man (over tv): What you need
to make meth is all legal.
Available at a hardware
or a discount store.
Philippa: A number of labs
exploded in the united states
And that's when it became
the wild, wild west.
Ioan: Now because the
united states saw a bunch
Of profit off crystal meth,
They passed the 2005 combat
methamphetamine act.
And this banned the
precursors for meth.
Carl: They pushed
the production from
the united states,
South of the
border to michoacán.
Ioan: Michoacán is a state
on the west coast of mexico,
To the south of the
sierra madre mountains.
About the size of virginia
in the united states.
Michoacán is a place with
having lazaro cardenas,
The biggest port in mexico.
Right on the pacific.
You could buy the raw
ingredients from
countries like china,
Bring them in
through lazaro cardenas,
And then create
massive super labs
And really start
churning meth out.
♪
Carl: This group was basically
started by a man by the name
Of nazario moreno gonzález.
The most crazy one
was his nickname.
Ioan: Nazario is one of the
most mysterious figures in all
Of mexico's narco wars.
There is no video of
him and few photos.
And even with
the ones we have,
There is doubt whether
they really are of him.
But we do have his writings.
He came out with this book,
me dicen: El mas loco .
They call me the maddest one.
He talked about growing
up in wretched poverty.
♪
Ioan: He grew up in a little
hamlet in the tierra caliente,
In the hot land of michoacán.
I mean, really kind of
desolate bandit country.
They had a long history
of drug trafficking,
Certainly a lot of people
living on the edge
Of the law there.
When he was a, a young man,
He had a really
crazy temper.
He would snap very fast.
He was playing soccer,
there was a fight broke out.
And these guys started
really smashing his head in.
So he was flown to a
hospital in mexico city
And they cut his head open
And put a metal plate
to bind his skull up.
His face would like
bulge as he got angry
Because he had this kind of
weird look with a metal plate.
So he was kind of a scary guy.
A kind of james bond villain.
He was kind of seen as the,
the craziest of all.
El mas loco.
♪
Ioan: Nazario moreno
was the founder
And head of la
familia michoacana.
His right-hand man is servando
gomez martinez, la tuta.
♪
Carl: What we saw was
it literally came in
Like a flood.
They made an enormous
amount of money very, very,
Very fast.
Ioan: So this one regional
cartel were suddenly pumped
With billions of dollars
and became a major player
In mexico.
♪
♪
Ioan: Now there's a lot of
bad publicity of the zetas.
We were seeing in the
newspapers about massacres
By the zetas.
About how evil, horrible
this drug cartel was.
So nazario moreno
declared war on them
And the familia michoana was
about defending the state of
Michoacán from the zetas.
Carl: La familia became so
dangerous because that was
Their instrument,
to run the zetas off,
So they could
regain their state.
Within three years of throwing
the heads on the dance floor,
Mexico declared la familia
the most dangerous body
To the security of
the state of mexico.
(laughs)
Carl: They do this thing we
call the robin hood effect.
They would repair a road
or they would clean out
an irrigation ditch,
Or build a school house.
And then they would
publicize that.
They were very
good at publicity.
Letting people know,
Especially in areas
they want to control,
What they were
capable of doing.
Either in a good
or bad situation.
The la familia essentially
became the de facto government
Because the local
government were so weak.
♪
Ioan: I mean you know, 2006,
nobody really understood or
Expected the level of
violence that would blow up.
The homicidal rate
skyrocketing by mass graves
Across mexico.
♪
Ioan: Felipe calderon
wants to show
He's the new sheriff in town.
That the state is
having power again.
♪
(speaking native language)
♪
Ioan: I went to aqualia
one of these big narco towns
And I saw the troops
pouring into the town.
Helicopters and
lining people up,
Putting their t shirts
over their head
And guns to their head.
Very quickly you start
seeing big problems
With military offensive.
(rapid gunfire)
♪
The military could
win those gunfights,
But the cartel could just
disappear into the mountains.
♪
So apatzingán is, is the
biggest city of the hot land,
Tierra caliente area.
Cradle of the la
familia michoacana.
Very close to where
nazario moreno grew up.
Ioan: But nazario moreno and
the la familia michoacana
Had the advantage of
knowing the territory,
So they have a guerrilla
group which is fighting very,
very dirty.
♪
Carl: What they realized was
they could move their market
To smaller rural cities.
But they were sending
people up there that
didn't have addictions,
Didn't have problems.
Just fit into society.
Strategy wise it was a
pretty brilliant move.
Woman (over tv): In
this surveillance video,
A man removes
methamphetamine from the
wheel well of an automobile
And hands it to a woman
who wraps it in a
Blanket before
picking up her child.
This is part of the smuggling
and distribution network
Of the mexican cartel
known as la familia.
Eric: While this cartel
may operate from mexico,
The toxic reach of its
operations extends to nearly
Every state within
our own country.
♪
Carl: We had to stop them.
We had to stop la familia.
Man: Stand by.
Man: Good to go.
(gunshots)
(shouting)
Adrian: You're good.
Alright guys.
Here's, uh, here's
how this is gonna go.
We're gonna take this
house from the back.
Meth is our number one
narcotics issue in our county.
We've been conducting a
two-month investigation
On this drug dealer.
Man: Good?
Man: Good to go.
Adrian: We had intel that
he went to phoenix last
night and re-supplied,
So we're hoping
to find methamphetamines.
The intel we got is that
this subject's armed.
We don't know what to expect.
He's very dangerous.
Chris: Once you're on scene we
should have both doors taken
And breached.
Hopefully within a minute.
Okay guys, stand by.
I want you to stand by.
Man: Stand by.
Man: Stand by one.
(gunshots)
(shouting)
Man: Hey, come down here
and get a gun on this.
Man (over loudspeaker):
Residents, come out of
the house.
Man: Sheriff's office,
third floor!
Come out now out of the house!
Man (over radio): We got
the main target out.
Chris: Come to me!
Come to me!
Yeah, we got it.
We got cuffs?
It's here guys,
it's here somewhere.
It's here.
We just gotta find it.
It's right here.
Man: Nice.
Adrian: Mike, if we found
two little baggies with meth,
It's here.
Like there has to be more.
Another one?
Oh yeah, there you go.
Have you checked that jacket?
Oh, right here.
Woman: Woo!
Adiran: Boom, look it.
Woman: Good job.
Adrian: Jacket.
This is a war against
the drug cartels.
We're in southern
part of arizona,
united states,
And we're seeing this.
This came from mexico.
This came from a drug cartel.
♪
(speaking native language)
Ioan: The federal police found
out that nazario moreno would
Be in a little village
called el alcalde.
He would be there for some
kind of christmas party
Handing out presents.
They went in there with 2,000
federal police officers.
But the familia michoacana
were burning
Trucks on the road.
And there was about
500 cartel gunmen.
They were ambushing
the federal police as
they were coming in,
From the side of the hills,
And they just fired
down at them with
everything they could.
(speaking native language)
Ioan: Firing ak-47s
and firing 50 calibers,
Just laying onto the
federal police there.
(speaking native language)
♪
Man (over tv): Drug cartel
boss nazario moreno gonzalez,
Alias el chayo,
Was killed in a shootout with
the mexican army on Thursday.
Mexican authorities trumpeted
the incident as a significant
Victory in the country's
fight against organized crime.
♪
(speaking native language)
Ioan: Then these bizarre
stories came out,
Where mexican security
forces would raid cartel
safe houses and find,
Like, plastic helmets
they say were being
Used in rituals
of a drug cartel.
Ioan: So the story gets from
kind of being completely crazy
To being over the line nuts.
♪
Ioan: The knights templar
distributed this little
Pamphlet around with this
kind of weird series
Of religious commandments.
Ioan: There was a
real narco religion
And that was different
than anything we've seen
in mexico before.
♪
Ioan: They began
to extort people
On a very systematic level.
They began to shake
down lime farmers,
avocado farmers.
Really control little
institutions, mayors,
Security forces.
Really beyond corruption,
they really controlled the
Mechanisms of the state.
Some we could call
state capture,
And this was very,
very powerful.
Very hard to defeat.
♪
♪
♪
Falko: I first stepped into
tierra caliente in 2012,
I had heard all these horror
stories about the area.
They had told me,
of course you can get in,
But you will not be able
to make it out again.
I'm falko ernst,
I was a student
trying to learn
And find out about the
drug cartels in mexico.
I was able to link up with
local peasant organizations
And just by lucky coincidence,
one of the leaders happened to
Have gone to school with
servando gomez martinez,
or la tuta.
After three days on apatzingán
I received a visit by a
local envoy of the cartel,
Who was asking questions.
Checking out if I
really was a student.
And then a couple of days
later I find myself in the
Middle of nowhere in front
of an abandoned cemetery
Waiting for la tuta,
Who rolls in with
his security.
(speaking native language)
Falko: La tuta liked
to hear himself talk.
We got along.
He apparently took
a liking to me.
He promised me a even
better interview
With his boss,
as he said.
And I was kind of like, okay,
I thought you were the boss.
Because your boss
had gotten killed.
So this is me catching a ride.
I'm out off apatzingán,
into the more rural parts.
This one is gonna take us
right into the heart
Of the templar territory.
I get an invite to one
of the rural communities.
As the party was going on,
I see a convoy of six black
suvs are rolling in.
Heavily armed people setting
up a security perimeter.
One of his lieutenants came
over and told me that I was to
Accompany him to a
table to see el patron,
to see the boss.
He invites me to take a seat.
Introduces himself
as el chayo, nazario.
He had placed a anti-aircraft
rifle right next to him
On the ground.
He had supposedly shot on a
federal police helicopter
With that very gun.
He handed it over to me.
I handed it back
pretty quickly.
Very much, I think,
to the amusement
Of the by-standing sicarios.
This is so bizarre.
It's so out there that you're
talking about one of the most
Bloodthirsty narco warlords
in mexican history,
And then he
appears before you.
♪
♪
♪
(speaking native language)
♪
(radio chatter)
Ioan: This was a
breakdown of the rule of
law in mexico completely,
To the point where people were
committing vigilante justice.
And people were dying for it.
(speaking native language)
(rapid gunfire)
(speaking native language)
(woman crying)
(speaking native language)
♪
♪
Ioan: It's all very tense.
And I'm watching this thinking
when are the vigilantes gonna
Seize apatzingán?
When is the battle of
apatzingán gonna be?
And this is gonna
be a bloodbath.
♪
(speaking native language)
(radio chatter)
♪
♪
Ioan: Now I heard a
story from people in
the vigilante movement
And they said that the
vigilantes had plotted
With some bodyguards
of nazario moreno.
And they turned on him.
And, and beat him and shot him.
And he was killed
by his own people.
You had this figure,
this warlord,
Who really wanted to
be loved and venerated,
And he ended up being
hated and having people
turn against him,
Damning his legacy.
♪
(speaking native language)
Ioan: Very early on when
you had people raising guns
Against the knights templar,
Another cartel right away
saw this as an opportunity
To gain ground
in michoacán.
So it infiltrated elements
of the vigilante movement.
After the collapse of
the knights templar,
They went on to become
one of the most powerful
cartels in mexico.
(rapid gunfire)
Captioned by
cotter captioning services.