communications directly from el chapo? yes. it took us a while to infiltrate this mirror structure that they had set up. a mirror structure, a ladder of phones belonging to el chapo s underlings, climbing to the top, from third tier, maybe a runner, to second tier, perhaps a driver, and so on. you essentially cracked the code? cracked the code. it was a high point in the search, after years of hunting, el chapo was in their sights. at last. coming up chapo knew instantly somebody was corrupt. drew hogan smells a rat and makes a move. we had to go into enemy territory and root him out. a bold strike with deadly stakes. the city is lighting up. it s on fire. the lookouts throughout the estate were alerting everyone that something is not right.
i provided this duck dynasty location to them. but the second they moved resources up to sinaloa, chapo knew instantly. you saw that in your intercepts? yes. how did you feel? devastated. you knew somebody was corrupt, somebody that you had just shared your both prized and protected intelligence with has just leaked that out to chapo s people. it was an eerie feeling. our next meeting walking in and sitting down with the admiral and his folks, you didn t know it could have been somebody in that room. the team had been betrayed. but no one knew who did it or why. but you still wanted him? was plan b to refocus on culiacan? so the heat in around duck dynasty deterred him from coming out.
hotel. got out. the marines began filtering inside. and i was standing out front in camouflage, wearing a black ski mask. at this time i had had chapo s black ball cap on my head. they determined el chapo was likely holed up on the fourth floor. knowing he and his bodyguards were most certainly armed, the team was worried the operation would turn into a fire-fight, catching civilians in and around the apartment building in the deadly crossfire. i was worried about our perimeter. we didn t have enough manpower. so i wanted to stay outside. drew watched as lights flicked on in the building the mexican marines had begun to make their entry. and that s when i heard the excited radio chatter, when i ran up to the guy that had the radio. and i said, what did they say? he said, they ve got the target. they have got him. him. el chapo. drew had spent four years hunting el chapo.
yourselves. no, we cannot do anything as the united states government without the host nation. from the beginning, i didn t know who we d be able to trust with this. i hadn t shared anything with the mexican government. i wanted to pinpoint chapo s location, have it ironclad, wrap it up in a big red bow and walk into the mexican government and deliver the package and say, do you want chapo. and the only unit i could do that with that i had some level of trust in was the mexican marines, semar. they re the elite? they re the elite. semar, the mexican marines, had a sterling reputation for integrity and the ability to keep a secret. but this time, something went wrong. as soon as we met, i provided chapo s location.
absolutely, at every level. but u.s. and mexican agents never gave up on capturing el chapo. a 30-year veteran of the d.e.a., derek maltz, ran the special operations division and oversaw his agents efforts to bring the drug lord to justice. even though they were unsuccessful, in the sense, of capturing chapo guzman, they were very successful in the developing intelligence, the knowledge of how these cartels were operating. drew hogan and diego first joined the hunt with a daring move by infiltrating el chapo s sinaloa cartel. when did he get on your radar in a way that i think i might be able to get him, or i want to hunt him? that would have been 2010 into 2011, where diego and i started moving sinaloa cartel money. he and diego worked as part of a task force. diego was a local detective not a federal agent like drew. these are photos taken during their operations. diego passed himself off as a big-time operator as drew coordinated behind the scenes.