Читать книгу Hunting El Chapo: Taking down the world’s most-wanted drug-lord - Douglas Century, Andrew Hogan - Страница 13

EL CANAL

PANAMA CITY, PANAMA

June 14, 2009

THE ROOFTOP HOT TUB was kidney-shaped, and the Panamanian beer was Balboa—named after the conquistador. The palms and mirrored skyline view seemed to have been laid on in thick streaks of tropical paint. Panama City gleamed like a Caribbean Dubai.

“Salud!” Diego said, hoisting a silhouette glass of Balboa. “A la Nueva Generación!”

“Salud!” I said, raising my own glass.

The New Generation had finally stepped onto the international stage.

We’d taken down Bugsy’s crew that night in San Diego and Phoenix—collapsing his entire organization, seizing another thousand pounds of marijuana and more than $450,000 in assets, including Bugsy’s personal yacht, a string of Mercedes-Benzes, jewelry, and bulk cash.

But with a takedown of that scope, there were bound to be key evidentiary remnants—wide-ranging paper trails and criminal tentacles still left unexploited.

One of those loose ends happened to be in the form of Tweety’s father, Gerardo, who over the past year had been selling pounds of Mexican methamphetamine to our confidential source.

Gerardo was well connected in Nogales, Mexico, and casually mentioned that he had a friend who needed some money moved. She was middle-aged, with porcelain skin, and her black curly hair was always pulled back tight in a ponytail. Aside from smuggling loads of meth and cocaine across the border from Nogales in her Toyota RAV4, Doña Guadalupe, as everyone called her, put out the word, through Gerardo, that she was actively seeking someone who could transport money. Not just a couple hundred thousand dollars, but tens of millions.

As an undercover, Diego had played dozens of roles over the years and could slip effortlessly into many personas, but he’d never posed as a money launderer before.

“This is our chance to follow some serious cash,” I told him over lunch at our favorite Chinese joint in Mesa.

“Think we can pull it off?” I asked him.

I could see the wheels turning in Diego’s head, contemplating ways we could win the contract from Doña Guadalupe and begin moving the numbers to which she claimed to have access.

Within the week, Diego had finagled an introduction to Doña Guadalupe, and he immediately sold her on the services of his “company.” Diego seemed to be exactly the man she was looking for, but it turned out Doña Guadalupe was just a glorified gobetween, a buffering layer—the first of many, as we’d soon come to find out.

And that’s how we found ourselves soaking in a hot tub on the roof of a Panamanian hotel, our first time traveling abroad—so that Diego could be introduced to Doña Guadalupe’s people face-to-face.

JUST A FEW HOURS before our first undercover meeting, Diego was acting as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Like any good actor, he was supremely confident in his ability to negotiate his way through any business deal. But his confidence also came from meticulous preparation. We’d spent months creating our undercover legend: Diego would be playing the role of a senior executive, the director of operations for a US-based company—supposedly a covert criminal network—operating a ton-quantity drug-and-money transportation organization. Doña Guadalupe had already sold Diego to her people, including the head of a sophisticated money-brokerage-and-laundering cell led by Mercedes Chávez Villalobos and several of her associates, based in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Bogotá, Colombia.

When Diego spoke with Mercedes, she had been aggressive, fast-talking, and extremely demanding. Diego told me she was a tough chilanga from Mexico City.

After doing a quick international work-up on her, I discovered that there was a warrant out for Mercedes in Amsterdam, for laundering money back in 2008. And she had connections all around the world, country-hopping almost weekly. She was always looking for a better deal, for someone trustworthy who could move hundreds of millions of dollars quickly—and strictly on a handshake.

“Do you really believe she’s sitting on all this money?” The night before the sit-down, I was staring at streams of data on my MacBook, and the dollar amounts were staggering. “She’s supposedly got a hundred million in Spain. Fifty mil in Canada. Ten mil in Australia. And some two hundred million in Mexico City?”

“Look, I’m skeptical, too,” Diego said, “but what other options do we have? We need to play her out to see if she can deliver.”

“What we need to know,” I said, “is who all of this money really belongs to.”

“Agreed.”

OUT ON THE HOTEL BALCONY, I gazed over the thin glass wall down at the city below. Mercedes was staying at one of the few luxury hotels in town that had been completely finished. So much of the Panama City skyline remained half-constructed: cranes and scaffolding and exposed girders. Brand-new buildings had been abandoned half-complete, while many of the finished ones were empty.

Panama City was the money-laundering capital of the Western Hemisphere. Banks had sprouted up on every corner like cactus along the sidewalks of Phoenix. Citibank, Chase, RBC, Bank of Montreal . . . but also lesser-known Latin American ones: Balboa Bank & Trust, Banco General, Mercantil Bank, and Centro Comercial de Los Andes . . . There was plenty of legitimate banking business, but some, like HSBC, faced criminal prosecution for “willfully failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program” in connection with hundreds of millions of dollars of dirty drug money belonging to Mexican cartel bosses.⁴

Over the months of phone-wooing, Mercedes had suggested meeting Diego face-to-face in Mexico City, but the DEA brass considered it too dangerous, and our Mexican police counterparts would never allow it. “El Canal” was perfect: Panama was known as a neutral zone for drug traffickers from all around the world to meet without threats of territorial disputes or violence. It was also geographically convenient if you wanted to meet Colombian or Mexican contacts. Many in the narco world felt at ease in this glitzy isthmus.

Eventually we wandered back to our hotel rooms. I had at least an hour of writing ahead, typing up the sixes, without which this entire Panama City operation would have no evidentiary value.⁵

As I slogged away on the reports, Diego sat on the edge of the bed, filling me in on the details from his recent phone conversations with Mercedes. But as the UC, Diego had to get his mind right—mingling with the locals, feeling the vibe of the city—so once he’d finished briefing me, he went down to the third-floor casino for another round of drinks. I sipped a fresh Balboa and continued banging away on the sixes. Fifteen minutes later, the hotel door opened.

“It’s looking really good down there,” Diego said.

“Meaning?”

“Lot of hotties.” Diego smiled. “A few of them were checking me out—for real. One of them was eye-fucking me hard, brother.”

“C’mon, dude, I gotta finish up this fuckin’ six,” I said, laughing, then Diego slid another Balboa across the desk. I took a deep breath and slapped my MacBook closed, and the two of us headed down to the third floor. Diego wasn’t exaggerating. As those elevator doors opened, the casino bar was swarming with some of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen—some in slit miniskirts, tube tops, stiletto heels, and tight jeans showcasing the work of some of the top Colombian plastic surgeons.

It took a few minutes of Spanish small talk before I realized these women were all high-dollar Colombian prostitutes on “work visas” from Medellín, Cali, and Bogotá. Diego shrugged, and we decided to hang out with the girls anyway, dancing as a live band played, even though I had no idea what I was doing—the merengue steps were easy enough to fake, but with the sophisticated swirling salsa moves, I had to let my colombiana lead. Then we all hopped in a cab and headed out to one of the city’s hottest nightclubs. A few more drinks, a little more dancing. Then another club...

Diego and I made it back to our rooms just in time to get three hours of sleep before the big meet. But Diego’s mind was right now: he was ready to negotiate with some of the Sinaloa Cartel’s most powerful money brokers. This became the typical pattern for our first night in any foreign country: we’d tear it up until nearly dawn, taking in the nightlife like the locals and getting a firsthand understanding of the streets, which would prove invaluable when we entered UC meetings.

When I was on the verge of sleep, I caught a flash of an infamous face on my hotel room TV. In Spanish I heard that, for the first time, Forbes had listed Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán as a billionaire, one of the richest and most powerful “businessmen” in the world.

WE HAD SELECTED a popular high-end steakhouse called La Rosita—located just inside the front door of a luxury shopping mall—for the next day’s undercover meet with Mercedes Chávez Villalobos.

The plan was this: Diego and Mercedes would sit at an outdoor table so I could keep my eyes on my partner throughout the meeting from inside the cab of a Toyota Hilux pickup, the G-ride that belonged to one of the DEA agents permanently stationed in Panama.

Neither Diego nor I could carry: Panamanian law wouldn’t allow us to bring our handguns into the country. But Diego was armed with one high-tech gadget: a secret key-fob camera that looked like an ordinary car key remote but was capable of discreetly recording hours of audio and video.

Diego was dressed in a well-tailored three-button dark gray suit, a white shirt, and a solid maroon tie pulled so tight it made the bottom of his neck puff out against his collar.

“Kill it, baby,” I said, leaning over, hugging him. Diego nodded, mouth drawn tight as if he were already running scenarios in his head.

I set up the G-ride in the busy parking lot as close as I could to watch Diego enter the restaurant, discreetly parked, but with a perfect line of sight to the terrace tables.

But after two minutes, there was still no sign of Diego.

Three minutes passed. Then five. Then seven. I still couldn’t see him on the terrace. I thumb-typed a text in our prearranged code, in case they checked his phone: innocuous Mexican slang for “What’s happening, dude?”

“K onda, güey?”

No reply from Diego.

“K onda?”

My leg began twitching nervously.

I kept hitting resend on the BlackBerry.

Nothing.

I felt sweat drenching the front of my shirt.

This was the worst scenario for an undercover meet: we had no backup agents inside the restaurant with eyes on the UC, and no armed Panamanian counterparts watching our backs.

I couldn’t sit for another second. I bolted from the Toyota and headed straight for the entrance of La Rosita.

What if Mercedes had switched up locations at the last minute?

What if her people had snatched Diego to pat him down, make sure he wasn’t a cop?

In the restaurant, the hostess smiled and, in heavily accented English, said, “You have a reservation, sir?”

I was so focused, scanning for Diego’s gray suit at the restaurant tables, that I barely heard myself answer.

“No, I’m meeting a friend,” I said. “He’s already seated.”

I scanned every table hard but didn’t see him anywhere.

Fuck! Had they grabbed him already?

I started to feel everyone’s eyes locking on me as I frantically walked through the tables.

I hope to hell we’re not compromised.

Where is he, for fuck’s sake?

I had nowhere to go. I spun in a circle in the center of the restaurant, the walls becoming a blur. I quickly grabbed a busboy by the shoulder.

“El baño?” I asked, and no sooner had the kid gestured to the left than I saw that I was standing right next to Diego—in fact, I was literally looking down on the crown of my partner’s head.

Diego was in an intense but muted conversation with Mercedes. And not only Mercedes, but two older Mexican-looking males. They were heavy hitters, I could tell. One appeared to be wearing a pistol, bulging behind the flap of his tan blazer.

Three targets? The meet was only supposed to be with Mercedes. I knew that Diego would be trying to hold his own, with no backup for his story, but even at a quick glance, I sensed that the sit-down had turned tense. Mercedes and the two henchmen had hard gazes; they weren’t buying Diego’s story.

Before anyone noticed me looking, I darted for the bathroom. A single trickle of sweat ran from my chest down to my navel. I could hear myself breathing loudly. Right before I reached the bathroom, I noticed a steak knife on a table ready to be cleared.

Could I grab it without being seen? There was no other option. I needed a weapon and had to take the chance.

As quickly as I could, I snatched up the knife, placed it flush against my wrist, and slipped it into my pocket.

In the bathroom, I turned on the sink and splashed cold water on my face, attempting to calm my nerves, hoping one of the bad guys wouldn’t stroll in suddenly to take a piss.

What the hell can I do if they plan on kidnapping Diego? What if this meet is all a setup to take him as human collateral?

The door suddenly swung open—I straightened up, my face still dripping with cold water, but it was just a regular restaurant patron. I knew one thing: it was crucial to get photographs of Mercedes and the two heavies so I could identify them if they took Diego by gunpoint. It would also be critical for future indictments, and I couldn’t rely on the key fob Diego was carrying.

I had the steak knife ready in one pocket; in the other, I had a small Canon digital camera, which I flipped on, to video mode.

Keep the camera steady in your hand. Don’t make eye contact. They won’t see it’s on—just stroll by naturally...

I walked slowly past Diego, unable to aim the Canon’s lens, just hoping I’d capture the faces of everyone at the table as I walked toward the door. I knew I couldn’t hang out in the restaurant alone, so I found a discreet place outside where I could watch Diego through the windows of the front door. I sat there, my hands trembling as I waited for Diego to exit.

AFTER ANOTHER HOUR, Diego got up from the table, shook everyone’s hands, and gave the half-hug—Mexican style—to all three, then walked out of the restaurant.

I followed him on foot as he walked on into the mall, staying thirty yards behind, making sure we weren’t being followed by any of Mercedes’s people.

Finally, I looked back over my shoulder three times and met up with him in a back parking lot. We were clean. We jumped in the cab of the Hilux and sped off.

Diego was silent for a long time, staring out the window and trying to make sense of what had just happened. His expression was trancelike.

“You all right, brother?” I reached over and grabbed him by the shoulder, attempting to shake him back to reality.

“What?”

“Bro, you cool?”

“That was so fuckin’ intense,” Diego said at last. “A straight-up interrogation. She kept hitting me with question after question. ‘Who’s your company? Who do you work with?’ ”

“How’d you play it?”

“Just started making up shit, story after story—how we’re moving millions in tractor-trailers, our fleet of private aircraft. Ships. Told them we transport coke—by the tons.”

“And?”

Diego grinned.

“She bought it, man!” he shouted. “She fuckin’ bought it! I had all three of them eating out of the palm of my hand.”

“Outstanding! Did she say whose money it is?”

“Yeah, it’s his,” Diego said.

“His?”

“She said it’s his,” Diego repeated.

Diego went quiet, smiling.

“His?” I asked again.

“Chapo.”

“Chapo.”

“Yes. She said, ‘It’s all Chapo’s money.’ ”