lawless, murderous. he was willing to kill whoever he needed to kill. the drug lord, el chapo. the most wanted fugitive besides osama bin laden. they said, no one will ever catch him. but him in this team did it in the most astonishing way. surprise you? i could not believe it. the american agent who helped capture el chapo comes out of the shadows. i did not know who we would be able to trust. exclusive details of this white-knuckle man hunt. we would jump out of the back of the helicopter, pure chaos. pictures seen here for the first time. secret drug dens, hidden escape rooms. it was like harry houdini. every single time we got close, the chopper would escape. it was beyond imagination. to catch the bad guy, you have to become the bad guy. you are inside this real life thriller. this is it. he is there. he is there. it was like living in a movie. hello, and welcome to dateline. he was the infamous kingpin who inspired fear amongst crim
out of the shadows. i did not know who we would be able to trust. exclusive details of this white-knuckle man hunt. we would jump out of the back of the helicopter, pure chaos. pictures seen here for the first time. secret drug dens, hidden escape rooms. it was like harry houdini. every single time we got close, the chopper would escape. it was beyond imagination. to catch the bad guy, you have to become the bad guy. you are inside this real life thriller. this is it. he is there. he is there. it was like living in a movie. hello, and welcome to dateline. he was the infamous kingpin who inspired fear amongst criminals and law enforcement, on both sides of the border. his name was el chapo. for over a decade, he evaded authorities by disappearing into a secret network of tunnels built under his many safehouses. but one man was determined to capture the fugitive and would lead his team to great lengths, even risk his own life to get the job done. here is
this is culiacán, mexico. the base of operations for the sinaloa cartel. and in 2013, fortunes for the world s most dangerous drug lord, el chapo. by tracing the burner phones used by el chapo s underlings, the dea s drew hogan was zeroing in on his target. all that mattered this entire time was his location. where was he at? that was the only question i wanted answered. as you realized, you were building this ladder, potentially to el chapo, what was that like? and you read the messages? read the messages, piecing together the structure of his organization, his day-to-day operations. must have been an eye opener? it was like reading a novel you could not put down. culiacán. does not sound like a place the dea or even mexican authorities could easily infiltrate.
couldn t believe it. he was always one step ahead. turns out it was all caught on tape. mexican authorities had installed a security camera in el chapo s cell as a precaution. you see el chapo just walking back and forth inside the cell, and then you suddenly stop seeing him. he just disappears off the frame, and that s when he left. as the world learned, el chapo escaped through a tunnel dug right under the prison and up in into his cell. the job to retake him was now in the hands of the mexican marines and virtually the same group of u. s. agents minus drew. but this time they weren t starting from scratch. they understood his organization. they understood the network. they understood the movements. he wasn t as clever as he thought. learning from and building on the 2014 playbook, the mexican and u. s. team cornered el chapo on january 8th, 2016, just six months after he escaped. but this time he didn t go down without a fight. and it was wild. this helmet cam footage shot
someone he trusted, the dea, armed with information from another case track to the cell phone of the campaign chief enforcer, picudo. he had driven at a high rate of speed from culiacán down to mazatlán. turned around, and came right back to culiacán. you have actually seen the location of where that phone is? yes. did you see it go from culiacán to mazatlán quickly? and then return? no other mission other than to take el chapo to safety? right. a famous beach resort on the mexican coast that has attracted thousands of u.s. tourists a year. it was just a two hour drive from culiacán. drew hogan and the team were ready to go, but they needed a plan first. we could not take 300 marines down to mazatlán. he would know we are coming in an instant. instead, they would stick into mazatlán under the radar