Hunting El Chapo Read online

  Image courtesy of the author

  My Google map showing pertinent locations in Sinaloa, including clandestine airstrips throughout the Sierra Madre mountain range, marked with blue plane icons.

  Imagery © 2017, Digital Globe; map data © 2017 Google, INEGI

  My Google map showing the pings of the Top-Tier devices (yellow) and other important targets and locations.

  Imagery © 2017, Digital Globe; map data © 2017 Google, INEGI

  Screens used to monitor the surveillance videos at all of Chapo’s safe houses—located in the garage of Safe House 1.

  Image courtesy of the author

  Lying down for the first time on my potato sack cot in the makeshift SEMAR “barracks” in Culiacán.

  Image courtesy of the author

  SEMAR arriving at Safe House 2, making entry in the early morning of February 17, 2014. Taken on my iPhone.

  Image courtesy of the author

  Brady and me sitting in Chapo’s driveway outside Safe House 3, taking a quick rest before the next raid.

  Image courtesy of the author

  Several heavily armed subjects were detained inside Picudo’s house.

  Image courtesy of the author

  Below Safe House 3, in a tunnel lit by fluorescent lamps, large quantities of cocaine were stored on makeshift racks.

  Image courtesy of the author

  Brady exiting the tunnel underneath the bathtub in Safe House 3.

  Image courtesy of the author

  Three photos of Chapo taken on my iPhone inside my armored vehicle in the underground parking garage of the Hotel Miramar on February 22, 2014.

  Image courtesy of the author

  Brady and me moments after the capture at the Hotel Miramar; I’m wearing Chapo’s black ball cap and carrying the AR-15 rifle found in the hotel room with Guzmán.

  Image courtesy of the author

  Brady and me with Chapo in custody: the world’s most-wanted drug lord during interrogation at the SEMAR base in Mazatlán.

  Image courtesy of the author

  Chapo paraded in front of the world’s press after he arrived at the Mexico City International Airport from Mazatlán on February 22, 2014.

  AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo

  The 1.5-kilometer-long tunnel in which Chapo escaped from Altiplano prison on July 11, 2015. PVC pipe pumped fresh air throughout the passageway, and metal tracks had been laid so that Chapo could get away on a railcar rigged to the frame of a modified motorcycle.

  AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo

  Chapo and Cholo Iván sitting in the backseat of a vehicle after their capture on January 8, 2016, in Los Mochis, Sinaloa.

  Source unknown

  Chapo sitting inside Cefereso No. 9 prison in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

  Official Twitter account of Secretary of the Interior Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong (Mexico)

  Chapo being extradited from Mexico to the United States on January 19, 2017.

  Source unknown

  About the Authors

  ANDREW HOGAN is the DEA special agent who led the investigation and capture of El Chapo Guzmán. He now works in the private sector and lives in an undisclosed location.

  DOUGLAS CENTURY is the author and coauthor of such bestsellers as Under and Alone, Barney Ross, Brotherhood of Warriors, and Takedown: The Fall of the Last Mafia Empire, a finalist for the 2003 Edgar Award in the category of Best Nonfiction Crime.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Also by Andrew Hogan and Douglas Century

  BARNEY ROSS

  TAKEDOWN

  STREET KINGDOM

  ICE

  IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

  BROTHERHOOD OF WARRIORS

  Copyright

  HUNTING EL CHAPO. Copyright © 2018 by QQQ, LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  FIRST EDITION

  Cover Design by James Iacobelli

  Front Cover Photograph © Stephen Carroll / Plainpicture

  Back Cover Photograph Courtesy of Andrew Hogan

  Digital Edition APRIL 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-266309-2

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-266308-5

  Version 02162018

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  * Narcocorrido: a ballad in a traditional Mexican musical style whose lyrics recount the exploits of drug traffickers.

  * Short guys are always brave

  So the saying goes

  * The Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, informally known as the Kingpin Act.

  * HSBC accepted responsibility for the alleged conduct, entering into a deferred prosecution agreement with the US government.

  * Report of Investigation (DEA-6) almost always referred to by DEA agents as simply a “six.”

  * Associated Press, March 12, 2012.

  * Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and two other Guadalajara Cartel kingpins, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Rafael Caro Quintero, were all ultimately convicted in connection with the Kiki Camarena murder.

  * Unlike the United States, whose federal law enforcement system comprises many specialized agencies—DEA, HSI, ATF, and FBI—Canada has only the RCMP, also known as Mounties.

  * “Pattern of life” is the investigative term of art for a target’s location history up to the present moment.

  * The Mexican army—short for Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional.

  * Under United States law, a “roving wiretap” is a wiretap that follows the surveillance target rather than a specific communications device. If a target attempts to defeat surveillance by throwing away a phone and acquiring a new one, by moving, or by any other method, another surveillance order would usually need to be applied for. However, a “roving” wiretap follows the target and defeats the target’s attempts at breaking the surveillance by changing his location or his communications technology.

  * Los menores—literally “the minors” or “youngsters”—was frequently used within the DTO to refer to Iván and Alfredo.

  * The complaint filed against Sánchez alleges that she has continued to deny reports that she was Guzmán’s lover. However, in a probable-cause affidavit attached to the federal criminal complaint, a cartel member cooperating with US investigators alleged that Sánchez was indeed Guzmán’s long-standing girlfriend, and that she’d admitted to having fled with Chapo through the tunnel on February 17, 2014, moments before SEMAR entered the dru
g lord’s safe house in Culiacán.

  * We never did confirm the identity of Lic-F, even if I still held my suspicions. In early May 2017, the Mexican attorney general’s office announced that authorities had arrested Dámaso López at an upscale apartment building near downtown Mexico City.