Cowboy Cartel Season 1 (2024)(EN)Subtitles
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1 00:00:13 When you think of drug cartels, you think of the drugs,
2 00:00:16 you think of the violence,
3 00:00:17 you think of money,
4 00:00:19 but you do not think of horses.
5 00:00:28 There's this projected reality,
6 00:00:31 and then there's this whole world behind it.
7 00:00:35 Horses, cocaine, money laundering...
8 00:00:39 I'd never seen a case like this before. I don't think any of us had.
9 00:00:42 A drug cartel was able to exploit a US industry,
10 00:00:46 but possibly the most interesting thing
11 00:00:47 was that somebody bothered to do anything about it.
12 00:00:51 It was the biggest money laundering investigation in Texas history.
13 00:00:54 You know, for a new agent, it was the chance of a lifetime.
14 00:00:58 But trying to dismantle the Zetas,
15 00:01:01 it really just appears impossible.
16 00:01:03 The gunfire that you hear at this moment...
17 00:01:06 it is a confrontation between federal forces...
18 00:01:09 and organized crime.
19 00:01:12 Then it was like, holy shit.
20 00:01:15 We need to take 'em down before it got out of hand.
21 00:01:18 There's only so much you can view from the outside looking in.
22 00:01:23 What you really need is somebody on the inside of their world.
23 00:01:26 I'm just making sure, because you know, people in Mexico is pushing me.
24 00:01:29 On the other side of any approach you make...
25 00:01:32 ...could be you know, the barrel of a gun.
26 00:01:35 We are shot! We are shot!
27 00:01:37 I am an ICE Special Agent.
28 00:01:39 Three years to piece together this giant puzzle.
29 00:01:43 Yeah, we were trying to take down the most violent cartel in Mexico with paper.
30 00:01:48 Everybody was in way over our heads at that time.
31 00:01:56 Here we go.
32 00:02:38 Good evening.
33 00:02:39 This is the first time since taking the oath of office
34 00:02:42 that I've felt an issue was so important, so threatening,
35 00:02:45 that it warranted talking directly with you, the American people.
36 00:02:49 All of us agree that the gravest domestic threat facing our nation today is drugs.
37 00:02:59 Our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more
38 00:03:03 by hiring a record number of new border guards.
39 00:03:08 The system is broken because there are people
40 00:03:12 who are exploiting human beings for material gain.
41 00:03:19 We are continuing to speed up the delivery of equipment and training.
42 00:03:22 We're putting unprecedented pressure on cartels.
43 00:03:25 We will continue to send a clear message: that violence must stop.
44 00:03:31 - The Zetas. - Los Zetas.
45 00:03:32 - Los Zetas. - The Zetas cartel.
46 00:03:34 The horrific drug cartel.
47 00:03:35 It's incredible how violent the Zetas are.
48 00:03:37 Strangled, stabbed, beat to death.
49 00:03:39 They have changed the rules of the game.
50 00:03:49 The man, the legend...
51 00:03:51 The Scott Lawson. Mark.
52 00:03:54 See, that's what I need in my life.
53 00:04:08 We moved to the country in '98,
54 00:04:12 because I wanted to be around horses.
55 00:04:16 Put my hand on a horse every day,
56 00:04:18 and where I can smell those horses every day.
57 00:04:21 I'm hooked. You know.
58 00:04:27 One of my all-time favorite country songs, country and western songs,
59 00:04:32 was by Hank Thompson.
60 00:04:35 He had a song called "Money Trouble and Love."
61 00:04:40 And it's a great song. It says,
62 00:04:42 "It takes a lot of money to get you out of the trouble that love got you into."
63 00:04:49 Some real parallels there into... into the racehorse business.
64 00:04:56 We've got money, horses, drugs...
65 00:05:04 And a Mexican cartel.
66 00:05:14 The cartel guys, they're crazy about the horses.
67 00:05:18 They're really interwoven in the quarter-horse business.
68 00:05:23 And I just... I'd like to take some of those out of the web, you know.
69 00:05:27 Just get it down to good, honest people and good, fast horses.
70 00:05:34 Tough deal.
71 00:05:38 Go, go, go.
72 00:05:39 The quarter horse is the horse of the American West.
73 00:05:42 It's the horse that America's kids have grown up on.
74 00:05:47 You may think you don't know what a quarter horse is,
75 00:05:49 but you do, you've seen it.
76 00:05:50 When you see a cowboy riding a horse in the movies,
77 00:05:53 or when you see a horse loping across a ranch,
78 00:05:57 those are all quarter horses.
79 00:05:59 It's the cowboy's horse, and it still is the cowboy's horse today.
80 00:06:05 It's tough, it's stocky, it's smart.
81 00:06:08 They're work horses, but they can run.
82 00:06:11 We think of horse racing as thoroughbred racing.
83 00:06:14 the Kentucky Derby, right? They go around the track.
84 00:06:17 And we have a mint julep and we wear funny hats once a year.
85 00:06:21 But horse racing started in this country as quarter horse racing.
86 00:06:27 They call thoroughbred racing the sport of kings.
87 00:06:30 Quarter horse racing is the sport of cowboys.
88 00:06:34 It's dustier, it's a little grimier.
89 00:06:38 They're running for a quarter of a mile, and it all happens...
90 00:06:43 ...in the blink of an eye.
91 00:06:47 The quarter horse racing industry is...
92 00:06:49 It just is the epitome of the Wild West.
93 00:06:54 They're off!
94 00:06:56 It has a history of doping, illegal gambling, fixing races.
95 00:07:02 It's not particularly well regulated.
96 00:07:04 Cash just changing hands.
97 00:07:07 Quarter horse racing is pretty corruptible.
98 00:07:10 And anything that can be corrupted, organized criminals love.
99 00:07:16 They can do anything to win,
100 00:07:18 and winning for them is millions of dollars.
101 00:07:22 There's a certain kind of guy
102 00:07:24 who usually populates the winner's circle.
103 00:07:27 It's ranchers and wealthy businessmen
104 00:07:29 who tend to win these races
105 00:07:32 and dominate the sport of quarter horse racing.
106 00:07:35 Tempting Dash forging right to the lead.
107 00:07:37 But all of a sudden, on the quarter horse racing circuit,
108 00:07:41 there's this new owner who keeps showing up in the winner's circle...
109 00:07:45 ...named José Trevi?o.
110 00:07:48 Where will I find José Trevi?o?
111 00:07:51 Just like Tom pointed out,
112 00:07:53 this horse basically unknown in October was a sensation by November.
113 00:07:57 You've really got something special here, don't you?
114 00:07:59 Well, I think so.
115 00:08:02 And I, and I hope it can get better over time.
116 00:08:07 José Trevi?o, he was a bricklayer or something like that.
117 00:08:10 He goed out and winned the million-dollar race.
118 00:08:13 You know, life-changing experiences,
119 00:08:15 and that's the dream that, you know, everybody wants.
120 00:08:20 It was the American Dream.
121 00:08:22 A poor Mexican immigrant coming to this country,
122 00:08:26 making a living laying bricks,
123 00:08:28 turning that into a horseracing operation that was now making him rich.
124 00:08:34 And that's what everybody believed it was.
125 00:08:38 But everybody in the industry wants to know, who is this guy?
126 00:08:44 When there's a newcomer and they win an inordinate amount of races,
127 00:08:47 it kinda puts the spotlight on 'em.
128 00:08:51 Well, you've got a fantastic horse, that's for sure. Congratulations.
129 00:08:54 Yeah, thank you. I loved to buy that horse. It was cheap.
130 00:08:57 I think that, that's the reason they sell the horse,
131 00:08:58 because it got cheap.
132 00:08:59 And it was so small.
133 00:09:02 I know you guys notice that horse real small,
134 00:09:04 but he's real fast, too.
135 00:09:06 Small is good. Thanks very much, congratulations.
136 00:09:09 The champion two-year-old colt...
137 00:09:18 My name is Scott Lawson.
138 00:09:23 From the time I can remember, I always wanted to be a cop.
139 00:09:26 I grew up in a very small rural town in West Tennessee.
140 00:09:30 With my parents being divorced,
141 00:09:32 I would go see my dad on the weekends, and...
142 00:09:34 He was a chief deputy for the local sheriff's department.
143 00:09:37 I would ride on patrol with him, you know.
144 00:09:40 My mom obviously didn't like that at all.
145 00:09:43 But, you know, I had that hero impression of law enforcement
146 00:09:45 from a very young age.
147 00:09:47 I think by the time I was 14, 15 years old,
148 00:09:50 I was reading John Douglas.
149 00:09:53 The pioneer of profiling in the FBI.
150 00:09:56 Through my dad's wisdom, you know, he always told me,
151 00:10:00 if you want to be in law enforcement, you need to go federal.
152 00:10:04 And that was that seed that gave me this dream to join the FBI.
153 00:10:15 Atlanta!
154 00:10:16 I'd like to go east of the mighty Mississippi.
155 00:10:19 And south of the Mason-Dixon.
156 00:10:25 With that said, I'm going to New York City.
157 00:10:28 I've been to New York. You're going to like it.
158 00:10:36 San Antonio.
159 00:10:39 Criminal.
160 00:10:41 I thought, well, it's Texas,
161 00:10:43 It's... it's the South.
162 00:10:46 It's not quite as close to where I wanted to be as I thought,
163 00:10:49 but you know, that's manageable.
164 00:10:50 And one of the supervisors at the academy said, "Scott, come here."
165 00:10:54 So I walked over there and he said, "Son, you're not going to San Antonio.
166 00:10:59 You minored in Spanish and you used to be a police officer."
167 00:11:03 He said, "They're gonna send you to the border.
168 00:11:07 You're going to Laredo."
169 00:11:12 So I walked down to the library in Quantico,
170 00:11:14 and I Googled, "Laredo, Texas."
171 00:11:17 Two hyperlinks pulled up.
172 00:11:18 The first one said, "Laredo, Texas, the armpit of the United States."
173 00:11:23 And I was like, well that don't sound too great, you know.
174 00:11:25 The second article said,
175 00:11:27 "Laredo, Texas, the truck stop of the United States."
176 00:11:30 And I'm thinking, "What in the heck have I gotten myself into?"
177 00:11:50 When I first started working on the Texas border,
178 00:11:53 I worked for a daily newspaper,
179 00:11:55 and I thought it was really beautiful
180 00:11:58 how united the communities were on either side of the river.
181 00:12:03 Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, they are sister communities.
182 00:12:07 There's just this really beautiful symbiosis
183 00:12:10 between the two sides of the river.
184 00:12:14 People always say, "The river doesn't divide us."
185 00:12:19 But as the years have passed, that's become less of the case.
186 00:12:36 The bridge in Laredo is the biggest crossing of trade
187 00:12:40 between Mexico and the United States.
188 00:12:45 There are a lot of trucks flooding across the border.
189 00:12:51 Of course, those trucks are great places
190 00:12:53 to hide drugs coming into the United States.
191 00:12:58 So, on the Mexican side of the border,
192 00:13:00 whoever controls those choke points,
193 00:13:02 the best places to get drugs across the border,
194 00:13:06 holds all the power.
195 00:13:09 Around 2009, we started hearing about a new cartel in Mexico.
196 00:13:20 They really plunged the whole border region
197 00:13:22 into a lot of violence in Mexico.
198 00:13:25 And we were really just struggling to figure out,
199 00:13:28 like, what is... what is going on here.
200 00:13:43 So as I was settling in to my new desk as my first week as an FBI agent,
201 00:13:48 my boss told me, "Here, we work against the Zetas."
202 00:13:53 And I began to look at a binder that was about three inches thick,
203 00:13:57 and tried to ascertain and understand who the Zetas were.
204 00:14:05 And I began to learn that the Zetas originally were a military unit.
205 00:14:10 Part of the Mexican military.
206 00:14:12 They were not just gangsters.
207 00:14:15 They weren't your gang members running around with a gun.
208 00:14:18 They were highly trained GAFE, G-A-F-E,
209 00:14:21 which was their Special Forces military.
210 00:14:25 They had been trained at Fort Bragg in the US...
211 00:14:28 - Side! Windows this side! - I'm behind you.
212 00:14:30 ...to go back and combat the cartels.
213 00:14:34 But that's not a good job,
214 00:14:36 because it doesn't pay that well and you're losing all the time,
215 00:14:38 so they start to flip.
216 00:14:41 They were bribed to join the Gulf Cartel.
217 00:14:44 So slowly but surely, members of the Zetas
218 00:14:47 start breaking off from the military and joining the Gulf Cartel.
219 00:14:52 The Zetas get paid in money
220 00:14:53 for being security for the Gulf Cartel and helping them run their business,
221 00:14:56 and then at some point, they start getting paid in cocaine.
222 00:15:00 Well now they can sell the cocaine and make their own profit.
223 00:15:04 They start to figure out there's no reason
224 00:15:06 for them to work for the Gulf Cartel
225 00:15:08 and they can just be their own cartel.
226 00:15:12 And they become the cartel known as Los Zetas.
227 00:15:19 The Zetas became the kings of the border, and of Nuevo Laredo,
228 00:15:24 and that changed everything.
229 00:15:28 All the cartels use violence to achieve their aims.
230 00:15:33 The Zetas took it to a different level.
231 00:15:37 Everyone was talking about it.
232 00:15:38 I mean, it was sort of the number one topic of conversation in Laredo.
233 00:15:43 People checked Twitter before running an errand
234 00:15:45 or before running across the bridge
235 00:15:47 to make sure that where they're going is safe.
236 00:15:51 The police chief of Nuevo Laredo said,
237 00:15:53 "Wait. No, I'm not afraid of these guys."
238 00:15:57 And within hours, he was gunned down in just this hail of bullets.
239 00:16:03 The message is clear: Nobody goes up against us,
240 00:16:06 nobody tells us what to do.
241 00:16:08 We are the law here now.
242 00:16:17 So the Zetas, with this military background,
243 00:16:20 they had a naming convention numbered by when you joined the cartel.
244 00:16:24 Zeta One, Zeta Two, Zeta Three.
245 00:16:27 When I got to Laredo, the Zetas were led by Zeta 40, Miguel Trevi?o.
246 00:16:35 One of the scariest, most ruthless humans
247 00:16:37 that you've probably never heard of is Miguel Trevi?o.
248 00:16:42 There were stories that he had killed a rival's baby.
249 00:16:47 Sitting on a pile of bodies while you eat your lunch.
250 00:16:51 This guy was just psychopathic.
251 00:16:57 He was assisted by his brother, Omar Trevi?o.
252 00:17:01 Zeta call sign 42.
253 00:17:04 Both Miguel and Omar were on the most wanted list
254 00:17:07 with million-dollar bounties on their head.
255 00:17:11 The Zetas were violent.
256 00:17:12 Miguel and Omar Trevi?o were probably the most violent of the Zetas.
257 00:17:17 He and his brother Omar would kill just to kill.
258 00:17:21 Their code was if you disrespect us,
259 00:17:23 if you take money, if you snitch...
260 00:17:27 ...you're met with death.
261 00:17:39 In the smaller border towns, you know, like Laredo,
262 00:17:43 the tallest building is always the federal building.
263 00:17:48 That's where all the federal agencies are.
264 00:17:51 And they're stacked sort of like a layer cake, you know.
265 00:17:53 In Laredo, it's like, DEA is on the top.
266 00:17:56 They've got two floors, they have all the money.
267 00:17:58 Down below is the FBI in the middle, and then you've got HSI,
268 00:18:03 which is part of the Department of Homeland Security on the bottom.
269 00:18:05 They're the new guys.
270 00:18:08 And they all compete for cases, jurisdiction...
271 00:18:14 So they were all kind of gunning for, you know, the leaders of the Zetas.
272 00:18:21 Forty and 42 was at the top of every criminal organization chart
273 00:18:25 for every agency that worked the border.
274 00:18:27 That... just really just kind of scared me.
275 00:18:32 It was very intimidating.
276 00:18:33 I didn't know if I was ready, I didn't know how I would stack up
277 00:18:37 against the other experienced agents and analysts
278 00:18:40 who were trying to target the Zetas.
279 00:18:43 I knew there was lots to learn and lots of things to figure out.
280 00:18:53 When you started working with Scott, what were your first impressions?
281 00:18:57 So... Scott is a big man.
282 00:18:59 I think we used to call him Big Country when he first reported to the office.
283 00:19:04 Scott's Spanish wasn't great.
284 00:19:06 I mean, he could order a beer.
285 00:19:08 My Spanish was not anywhere as good as I thought it was.
286 00:19:13 So I learned pretty quickly that I was going to be a fish out of water.
287 00:19:18 But, what I knew is, I knew how to do the job.
288 00:19:25 As soon as Scott came out of the academy,
289 00:19:27 my supervisor wanted to sign me as his training agent.
290 00:19:36 I probably had about five years of experience in the bureau at the time.
291 00:19:40 What I could help him with was just understanding how the bureau operated.
292 00:19:45 This might sound like it's a tough post, but you know what?
293 00:19:47 If you come in here with the right attitude,
294 00:19:49 you could make a good go of it.
295 00:19:52 But when you come out of that academy, and you land in Laredo,
296 00:19:55 they're gonna throw you in deep water, and you're either gonna sink or swim,
297 00:19:59 so you're gonna figure out how to swim pretty quick.
298 00:20:06 At the time, we had some investigations that were starting to pop up.
299 00:20:11 The Zetas were a focal point,
300 00:20:12 especially the big ones, Miguel Trevi?o and his brother Omar.
301 00:20:17 And we wanted to make sure that,
302 00:20:19 you know, the Zetas don't get a foothold here in the United States.
303 00:20:23 But we couldn't go into Mexico and conduct any operations or investigations.
304 00:20:29 They're not gonna cross into the United States.
305 00:20:31 They seem to be insulated in Mexico by all these territories they control.
306 00:20:36 And I have zero jurisdiction on the south side of the river.
307 00:20:42 As investigative agents who are trying to target the Zetas,
308 00:20:46 it really seems kinda hopeless
309 00:20:48 as to how you would ever target Miguel and Omar themselves.
310 00:20:56 The drug war is an unwinnable war to begin with,
311 00:20:59 but for a rookie FBI agent
312 00:21:01 who doesn't speak Spanish and has never been to Laredo,
313 00:21:04 there's no hope for him to catch a big case.
314 00:21:11 I'd been in Laredo about two months
315 00:21:13 when Jason, he turned around in his chair and he said,
316 00:21:16 "Hey Scott, I think I got something for you."
317 00:21:21 Scott was sharp. He was a smart guy.
318 00:21:23 You know, these agents, when they come out of the academy,
319 00:21:26 they're young, they're full of energy, they want to save the world,
320 00:21:30 they want to come in, they want to make a difference.
321 00:21:33 Well, the best way for him to learn
322 00:21:34 is for us to go out and do some work together.
323 00:21:38 He said, "Well we got this tip, you know, that just came in from Mexico,
324 00:21:42 that there was this really expensive horse bought at an auction in Oklahoma City."
325 00:21:46 Ready to go! Somebody gonna get 200,000, get her on the money.
326 00:21:48 Two hundred where, hundred where. Three hundred...
327 00:21:55 Jason told me this horse named Dashin Follies
328 00:21:57 had been purchased for 875,000 dollars.
329 00:22:01 Seventy-five, eight seventy-five. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
330 00:22:06 His tip said that horse was bought
331 00:22:08 for the leader of the Zeta cartel, Miguel Trevi?o.
332 00:22:11 And I was thinking,
333 00:22:14 "What do horses have to do with the cartel?
334 00:22:16 How do they know it was Miguel?"
335 00:22:18 Like, all these crazy thoughts go to my head.
336 00:22:20 Now 75... 850. Are we gonna get 875...
337 00:22:23 So in the American quarter horse world,
338 00:22:25 it's a very common tactic to use an agent to represent someone at an auction.
339 00:22:31 So Jason told me they'd identified the buyer's agent
340 00:22:34 for the purchase of Dashin Follies.
341 00:22:36 Jason was going to go try to interview this buyer's agent
342 00:22:39 and try to determine who had he bought the horse for.
343 00:22:44 He goes up to meet this guy, Tyler Graham.
344 00:22:46 Tyler's the grandson of a famous rancher in Texas,
345 00:22:50 they've had quarter horses forever, at Southwest Stallion Station,
346 00:22:54 which is a breeding farm in Austin.
347 00:22:57 When Jason came back, he said that they had bought the horse
348 00:23:00 for José Trevi?o.
349 00:23:04 Miguel and Omar Trevi?o's brother.
350 00:23:08 So we looked into this and we learned that up until this time,
351 00:23:11 José was a bricklayer from Dallas, Texas.
352 00:23:15 So my first thought was, "Okay, we have this tip from Mexico
353 00:23:18 that says it was for the leader of the cartel,
354 00:23:20 and now we have a bricklayer buying a 875,000-dollar horse.
355 00:23:24 So it's not necessarily evidence, but it's not nothing either."
356 00:23:31 Knowing that a brother of Miguel Trevi?o was involved
357 00:23:35 went further to corroborate the tip that we had gotten.
358 00:23:41 We were learning more about their interest in this sport after this tip.
359 00:23:46 It was just a huge part of the Mexican culture.
360 00:23:50 And that has extended over time to the cartel leaders.
361 00:23:54 For Miguel and Omar,
362 00:23:57 to own these beautiful horses was a source of pride.
363 00:24:03 So we felt like, okay, there's something to dig into here.
364 00:24:07 So this buyer's agent, he bought a total of five horses for José.
365 00:24:12 But importantly for us, he brought these horses back to his ranch.
366 00:24:16 And he's been doing a legitimate job for José.
367 00:24:22 The care, the feed, breeding these horses.
368 00:24:25 All the things that make a horse operation go.
369 00:24:32 Jason says, "The buyer's agent, he's about your age.
370 00:24:35 He's in his twenties, he's a horseman, he's a country boy,
371 00:24:39 so I really think you may relate to him better than I do."
372 00:24:43 They kinda dressed alike, they kinda talked alike,
373 00:24:46 they both liked horses.
374 00:24:47 Yeah, they were almost like two peas in a pod, you know.
375 00:24:50 There were a lot of similarities.
376 00:24:53 He said, "I think, even though you're brand new,
377 00:24:56 you should be the handling agent for this potential source."
378 00:25:00 So an interview was set up for me to go back with Jason
379 00:25:02 to dig in and go a little further and, and see where this was going.
380 00:25:10 My first squad car for the FBI
381 00:25:12 was about a nine-year-old gold Impala with a dented hood
382 00:25:16 where another agent had run into a deer.
383 00:25:18 I remember thinking, "Only the FBI would send me to a ranch in a gold Impala."
384 00:25:25 So we're driving the three and a half hours to the Austin, Texas area.
385 00:25:31 I had all these emotions going through my head.
386 00:25:34 This is gonna be my first opportunity, I don't want to screw it up.
387 00:25:41 When I get to his office, we're both trying to size each other up.
388 00:25:46 He starts off with a super firm handshake.
389 00:25:51 Immediately thinking, "Is this like that challenge handshake,
390 00:25:53 or is that just his, 'I'm a good South Texan
391 00:25:55 and this is my presentation'"?
392 00:26:02 So we go to his office.
393 00:26:05 We ease into conversation about racehorses and what he's doing with his barn,
394 00:26:09 and what's going on with his breeding facility.
395 00:26:12 And as I kinda nervously start broaching the subject of José Trevi?o...
396 00:26:19 I'm thinking, "Does he know who he bought this horse for?
397 00:26:24 Does he know that José is the brother of the leader of the cartel?
398 00:26:30 Does he know what he's gotten himself into?
399 00:26:35 Maybe he already knows who these guys are, and maybe he's already working with them,
400 00:26:38 and he's gonna tell me to go get bent.
401 00:26:42 And he's going to tell them that the FBI's on their trail."
402 00:26:49 And he says, "Well, what do you know about Tempting Dash?"
403 00:26:52 And at that time, we didn't know anything about Tempting Dash.
404 00:26:57 They're off. Looking good... goes out to a slight lead,
405 00:27:01 Tempting Dash is fast. Whoa! Just ducked in sharply.
406 00:27:05 He tells me that Tempting Dash showed up on the scene in Texas in 2009.
407 00:27:09 He was kind of unheard of, was crossed over from Mexico.
408 00:27:12 He tells me he was ran in this guy's name, name of Ramiro Villareal.
409 00:27:16 They call him The Horseman.
410 00:27:18 He said he knew Romero.
411 00:27:19 Romero was known to represent Mexican clients at various horse auctions,
412 00:27:23 and he says that Romero Villareal worked for José.
413 00:27:27 He said Tempting Dash ran under Romero Villareal's name in three races.
414 00:27:33 Tempting Dash has been invincible!
415 00:27:36 Tempting Dash had already won approximately 400,000 dollars,
416 00:27:39 and this set him up to run for the Texas Classic.
417 00:27:43 They're off! For the Texas Classic Futurity.
418 00:27:46 In this race, he could win up to 650,000 dollars.
419 00:27:49 Tempting Dash clearly steals the show.
420 00:27:52 And... he won.
421 00:27:55 But just prior to this race,
422 00:27:57 Tempting Dash was transferred to José Trevi?o for 25,000 dollars.
423 00:28:03 So he kinda explained to me, it's very unusual
424 00:28:05 to have a horse that has the potential to win almost a million dollars,
425 00:28:09 and then just decide to sell it.
426 00:28:12 Well, you've got a fantastic horse, that's for sure. Congratulations.
427 00:28:14 Yeah, thank you. I loved to buy that horse. It was cheap.
428 00:28:18 He said, "Nobody in their right mind is gonna sell a horse
429 00:28:20 that won 400,000 dollars for 25,000."
430 00:28:25 So at this point, I'd gotten this very vague tip from Mexico.
431 00:28:29 Here we have this bricklayer who has bought a 875,000 dollar horse.
432 00:28:34 You got 800. Anybody got 825? You got eight hundred thousand.
433 00:28:37 Now I've learned that he had a high-stakes racehorse transferred into his name...
434 00:28:42 And it's Tempting Dash with another win.
435 00:28:45 ...just days before winning a high-stakes race.
436 00:28:48 This prize will be one million dollars for its owner, José Trevi?o.
437 00:28:56 So, little lightbulbs are going off.
438 00:28:57 I'm thinking, "I know something stinks, but I'm not sure what it is."
439 00:29:03 I basically kinda laid out, you know,
440 00:29:05 "Hey man, I don't know if you know who you're involved with,
441 00:29:08 but, uh... you just bought a horse
442 00:29:11 for the brother of the most violent cartel in Mexico,
443 00:29:14 led by Miguel Trevi?o, call sign Zeta 40."
444 00:29:19 And I said, "With the Zetas, you either work with them or be killed.
445 00:29:23 I think you're in over your head, and we want to throw you a lifeline."
446 00:29:29 I said, "You know, we can walk you through this situation
447 00:29:31 if you'll put your trust in me."
448 00:29:34 It was at that moment, you could see that his eyes perked up.
449 00:29:38 And he said, "I've got this photograph that I think you should see."
450 00:29:45 He pointed me to a photograph on the wall.
451 00:29:48 It was the winner's circle from Tempting Dash for the Texas Classic.
452 00:29:53 In this photograph, José's daughter is holding four-zero,
453 00:29:58 and José's son is holding four-two.
454 00:30:01 The call signs of Miguel Trevi?o and Omar Trevi?o.
455 00:30:07 So I'm like, right here in the United States,
456 00:30:09 they're paying homage to their brothers in this trophy shot.
457 00:30:14 We're definitely onto something.
458 00:30:16 I just kept trying to figure out the why and the how...
459 00:30:20 You know, what is José doing in Texas, in the United States,
460 00:30:24 and how does it relate to his brothers in Mexico?
461 00:30:30 Well, this definitely went good.
462 00:30:31 We didn't fall on our face, and we weren't told to pound sand,
463 00:30:36 no attorney was asked for.
464 00:30:39 Kinda left it with, "Hey man, hit me up when something happens."
465 00:30:44 Now it's my job to look at this and see...
466 00:30:48 ...had José had some stroke of luck to purchase these horses...
467 00:30:52 ...and was really living the American Dream?
468 00:30:55 Or had he had some type of assistance from his brothers
469 00:30:58 to spend that kind of money?
470 00:31:00 Money obtained from narcotics in Mexico.
471 00:31:17 I started Track Magazine in 1975.
472 00:31:22 We cover racing and horse sales and profiles of industry leaders.
473 00:31:28 We go to every major horse race in the country.
474 00:31:33 I had never heard of Scott Lawson
475 00:31:35 until I picked up the phone and he said,
476 00:31:38 "I want to talk to you about some issues in quarter horse racing."
477 00:31:42 Scott wanted to know what I knew.
478 00:31:44 Tell me everything you know about José Trevi?o.
479 00:31:48 The Spanish influence and the Mexican influence in this business
480 00:31:52 is... Is really big.
481 00:31:55 Some of our best owners, you know,
482 00:31:57 are, have been very successful-- Mexican businessmen.
483 00:32:02 I really wasn't around José very much.
484 00:32:05 But the little I was around him, he was-- he was a--
485 00:32:09 He was a nice guy.
486 00:32:10 As to their business backgrounds and their finances,
487 00:32:13 I said, "I have no idea."
488 00:32:19 So after that conversation,
489 00:32:22 we looked at José as somebody who could be on either side of the fence.
490 00:32:26 We really didn't know, what is his level of involvement.
491 00:32:36 When you're working an investigation,
492 00:32:38 there's only so much you can view, you know, from the outside looking in.
493 00:32:42 You really need somebody who is on the inside of their world.
494 00:32:47 When you're recruiting sources to assist you,
495 00:32:50 it's very much a question of trust.
496 00:32:52 You have to build that trust with them quickly,
497 00:32:53 that you're not gonna put them in danger.
498 00:32:57 And you have to trust them
499 00:32:58 that they're able to play that role without exposing you.
500 00:33:03 But with all those hurdles, in this case we had the gold nugget.
501 00:33:06 We had a source who was willing to record every conversation he had with him.
502 00:33:11 - Hello? - Hey Tyler. What's up, buddy?
503 00:33:13 Tyler Graham, who's like, the quarter horse racing industry.
504 00:33:16 He, you know, his family, his legacy,
505 00:33:19 and Tyler's connection with José Trevi?o.
506 00:33:23 He was the way inside of the organization.
507 00:33:29 So about two weeks went by, and I get a call from my source.
508 00:33:33 He tells me that José's operation is growing.
509 00:33:36 That he's planning to buy horses at upcoming auctions,
510 00:33:40 and that he's no longer gonna use Villareal, The Horseman.
511 00:33:44 He identifies to me this new guy named Carlos Nayen.
512 00:33:47 He's kind of José's right-hand man.
513 00:33:51 He describes him as this pretty guy
514 00:33:53 with his hair slicked back and his suits on.
515 00:33:56 He doesn't speak a whole lot of English,
516 00:33:58 so he introduced the translator for the group.
517 00:34:01 He looked more like a horse trainer.
518 00:34:04 And his name was Fernando Garcia.
519 00:34:07 He said, "I like Fernando.
520 00:34:10 He appears to me to be just a good old horse trainer."
521 00:34:16 - Hello? - What's up, homeboy?
522 00:34:18 - What's going on? - Not much, and you?
523 00:34:21 Just a little work.
524 00:34:22 But he also tells me that
525 00:34:23 ever since his Dashin Follies purchase in Oklahoma City,
526 00:34:26 that they owed 100,000 dollars still on that bill.
527 00:34:30 We're still working on getting the money together
528 00:34:32 so we can send it to you.
529 00:34:34 Talked to the accountant yesterday. I think we're going to have a good bunch
530 00:34:37 for you sometime soon.
531 00:34:38 You know, I gotta have some more money.
532 00:34:40 There's still over a 100,000 owed, you know?
533 00:34:45 So he tells me Carlos Nayen showed up
534 00:34:47 with Fernando at his ranch in a Cadillac,
535 00:34:50 and said, "Hey, I've got this 100,000 dollars we owe you."
536 00:34:57 And the source sees six backpacks.
537 00:35:00 Carlos opens one of them.
538 00:35:02 The source's thought was, you know,
539 00:35:04 I think all of the backpacks are full of cash.
540 00:35:07 They had half a million dollars in the trunk.
541 00:35:09 It screamed cartel to me.
542 00:35:19 Typically in the horse business,
543 00:35:20 you've got businessmen writing checks, occasionally wires.
544 00:35:24 So when I heard, you know, that Carlos had showed up
545 00:35:26 with half a million dollars in the trunk in bulk cash,
546 00:35:29 there's not a whole lot of businesses that deal in bulk cash
547 00:35:34 that have a legitimate purpose.
548 00:35:37 So that was the first time for me and probably for him
549 00:35:39 where we were like, "Holy crap."
550 00:35:42 So our thought was, you know what,
551 00:35:44 what kind of a problem do we have here?
552 00:35:46 You know, on the surface it might look like horses would be silly,
553 00:35:49 but you know, these were actually assets over here in the United States
554 00:35:53 that couldn't be touched by their rivals over there in Mexico.
555 00:35:56 And the horses win races,
556 00:35:58 so it could also be not only a hard asset, but a revenue stream for 'em.
557 00:36:05 I'm looking at José, Miguel, and Omar,
558 00:36:08 going through 'em one by one.
559 00:36:11 When I saw what may be developing with this horse case,
560 00:36:14 we were like, "Man, this could be that the Zeta cartel
561 00:36:19 is laundering money through the horse industry.
562 00:36:23 This could be a way to go after Miguel and Omar
563 00:36:26 and dismantle the Zetas in a way that has never been done before."
564 00:36:32 We didn't know where this case would go,
565 00:36:34 but knowing it could be tied to 40 and 42.
566 00:36:38 I mean, if you can bring charges against those guys,
567 00:36:41 maybe you can get them extradited over here.
568 00:36:45 And we could finally, you know, bring them to justice.
569 00:36:49 But it's one thing to know something in your gut.
570 00:36:53 But it's a whole nother thing to be able to prove it.
571 00:37:19 What's up amigo, how's everything?
572 00:37:20 Everything's good, man.
573 00:37:22 I'm just calling to check in. I ain't heard from you in a little while.
574 00:37:25 Yeah, yeah, no, everything's good.
575 00:37:27 I'm here in Ruidoso, waiting for the trials.
576 00:37:31 Welcome to Ruidoso, New Mexico.
577 00:37:33 This resort town lies in the rugged Sierra Blanca Mountains
578 00:37:37 of south central New Mexico,
579 00:37:39 and is home to the world's first million-dollar race:
580 00:37:42 the All American, quarter horse racing's richest race.
581 00:37:47 The, the All American Futurity,
582 00:37:49 if you only go to one quarter horse racing event a year,
583 00:37:54 that's the one you need to go to.
584 00:37:58 So in July of 2010,
585 00:38:00 I get this call from the source, and he says,
586 00:38:01 "The Kentucky Derby of quarter horse racing is the All American Futurity."
587 00:38:07 It's probably the hottest weekend in the American quarter horse racing circuit.
588 00:38:10 It starts with this auction...
589 00:38:13 ...and it concludes with the All American Futurity,
590 00:38:15 which is a two-million-dollar race payout.
591 00:38:21 Fernando had a horse named Mr. Piloto
592 00:38:23 who was actually qualified to run in this race.
593 00:38:26 He said, "He's been in Fernando's name all summer."
594 00:38:29 And he said, "I can bet you my bottom dollar
595 00:38:31 they're gonna transfer him into José Trevi?o's name for the race."
596 00:38:36 I knew that that's the race I needed to be at.
597 00:38:42 So I go talk to Raul, I'm like, hey man, I need somebody to go with me.
598 00:38:45 We're gonna go to the horse auction, and horse races,
599 00:38:47 and I need you to be able to blend in.
600 00:38:49 The whole horse industry to me was completely new, and out of my element.
601 00:38:54 I don't think I even rode a pony when I was a kid.
602 00:38:57 But... I rarely miss a trip.
603 00:38:59 So I said, "Yeah, I'd go with him."
604 00:39:10 So, me and Raul, you know, we get to our hotel at Ruidoso.
605 00:39:14 We're getting ready to go to the Friday night auction,
606 00:39:16 and for the first time, be in the same room
607 00:39:20 as these guys that we're targeting.
608 00:39:23 Raul and I had several conversations about...
609 00:39:25 What do we need to be doing? How do we blend in?
610 00:39:30 The worst-case scenario in a surveillance operation like that is getting burnt.
611 00:39:35 I think Scott wanted us to, you know, fit in.
612 00:39:42 Raul starts getting dressed,
613 00:39:44 and he puts on these white, Cuban-style, pointy shoes.
614 00:39:49 And then he starts putting on this white, button-down shirt
615 00:39:51 that's got a dragon on the shoulder.
616 00:39:54 I'm like, "Hey man, what the hell are you doing?
617 00:39:55 You're supposed to have cowboy boots, and, you know, a nice Western shirt."
618 00:39:59 I looked like Pitbull and... some country singer had a baby.
619 00:40:09 When we got to the event,
620 00:40:10 there was folks that were dressed just like me.
621 00:40:13 Very similar, actually.
622 00:40:22 350 75...Three hundred and fifty, 75...
623 00:40:27 An auction is kinda like a Miss America pageant.
624 00:40:30 You have these horses that have been conditioned
625 00:40:33 to have all their muscles toned and glistening.
626 00:40:36 Their hair's been brushed.
627 00:40:38 They just go round the ring with a number painted on their hip.
628 00:40:42 Then there's the scoreboard at the top, just like at a basketball game.
629 00:40:45 It'll have the hip number on one side, and the bid amount on the other side.
630 00:40:53 There was a lot of people bidding,
631 00:40:55 but we were only focused on José Trevi?o, Carlos Nayen, and Fernando Garcia.
632 00:41:00 Nine hundred and eighty one.
633 00:41:02 Eight hundred and seventy five.
634 00:41:04 Nine hundred thousand, do you want her?
635 00:41:06 Here we go! Six and a half, we got six 50.
636 00:41:08 So as these horses come across, I get the source and say, "Hey,
637 00:41:11 you know, which horses do you think they're going to buy?"
638 00:41:16 So he sends me 20 or so hip numbers that he thinks they'll probably purchase.
639 00:41:23 I remember one of the first ones, it was hip number, I think it was 330.
640 00:41:27 Carlos gets his phone out.
641 00:41:31 They're sending pictures, they're typing real quick.
642 00:41:33 And then they start bidding.
643 00:41:35 Fifty, three hundred, three hundred fifty.
644 00:41:38 The horse goes for 300,000 dollars.
645 00:41:41 They then look up at the scoreboard, take a picture, and they send it.
646 00:41:46 And in my mind, they're sending it to Mexico.
647 00:41:51 That, to us as investigators, was important.
648 00:41:54 It tells us that someone else was calling the shots.
649 00:41:58 Otherwise there was no need to take pictures of the horses
650 00:42:00 immediately after you bid on them.
651 00:42:05 I mean, we don't know what's happening in those conversations,
652 00:42:07 but it almost looked like they were getting the okay
653 00:42:10 or the thumbs up to continue.
654 00:42:14 I had this 35-millimeter camera with this long lens.
655 00:42:17 We had a very big lens.
656 00:42:19 That was one of the big concerns that Scott had.
657 00:42:22 We're there to document what's happening.
658 00:42:24 Who's there, what are they doing, who knows who.
659 00:42:28 That helps you develop your story and your puzzle.
660 00:42:31 So I'm like, zooming in, getting the focus,
661 00:42:34 and at that moment...
662 00:42:37 José's eyes are looking right at mine through the camera lens.
663 00:42:42 And I'm like, holy crap. I just got made, right here, right now.
664 00:42:47 So I slowly try to pan away, and just pray.
665 00:42:54 Put the camera down, look at Raul, say, "Are we made?"
666 00:42:58 And, and we had this moment of thinking, "We just blew this whole case."
667 00:43:07 I shoot my source a text.
668 00:43:08 Is everything good over there? Anything out of the ordinary?
669 00:43:13 I wait, and I wait.
670 00:43:18 What seemed like forever.
671 00:43:21 Take a deep breath, look back to the right.
672 00:43:27 José and the guys are bidding again.
673 00:43:30 I get the text back, "Hey, no, everything's cool."
674 00:43:33 I don't think anything's out of order.
675 00:43:40 So after that close call,
676 00:43:42 we decided we had pushed our luck enough for the evening.
677 00:43:45 We packed up our gear and decided it was best to get some rest,
678 00:43:49 and start fresh the next morning.
679 00:44:00 There's no drawn quarter horse racing quite like the All American.
680 00:44:05 You're looking live at Ruidoso Downs.
681 00:44:08 And those are the silks. One of those silks will go down in history
682 00:44:11 as the winner of the 2010 All American Futurity.
683 00:44:17 So, at this race, we wanted to verify
684 00:44:19 that Fernando's gonna sell the Mr. Piloto.
685 00:44:22 See if he was gonna change ownership,
686 00:44:23 see if he was gonna do what Tempting Dash did.
687 00:44:27 Sure enough, we got a copy of the program,
688 00:44:30 and Mr Piloto was now in Tremor Enterprises,
689 00:44:33 which was José Trevi?o's LLC.
690 00:44:40 Ken, there's a look at Mr Piloto on the racetrack,
691 00:44:42 trained by Felipe Quintero.
692 00:44:44 What's the experience been to come here and qualify one
693 00:44:46 for the All American Futurity?
694 00:44:47 I mean, the experience is marvelous.
695 00:44:49 I mean... just being in the All American,
696 00:44:51 I mean, it's, as I said it before and I'll say it one more time,
697 00:44:54 it's a dream come true.
698 00:44:55 I think we have a good chance.
699 00:44:56 You got to be in it to win it.
700 00:44:57 Let's start talking about some of the more serious contenders in here.
701 00:45:03 Mr Piloto had the worst odds, he was the slowest qualifier.
702 00:45:07 We had been there... It felt like forever.
703 00:45:10 Taking photographs, collecting information.
704 00:45:15 They load Mr Piloto into the last spot.
705 00:45:20 The gun goes off.
706 00:45:22 They're running.
707 00:45:24 Headed out for the lead, Prospect To The Top with Miss Racy Jess,
708 00:45:27 Dominyun got away fastest...
709 00:45:29 Mr. Piloto's in the tenth spot, closest to the inside rail.
710 00:45:33 All the other horses are kind of jumbled together, rushing out.
711 00:45:36 And halfway through it, we're like, oh my gosh.
712 00:45:38 Mr. Piloto's coming on!
713 00:45:40 Dominyun! Mr. Piloto!
714 00:45:41 Mr. Piloto, Dominyun, and JLS Mr. Bigtime!
715 00:45:49 When they finally cross the line, nobody can really tell who won.
716 00:45:53 The fact that the first thing I heard the announcer say is...
717 00:45:55 Three-way photo for the win!
718 00:45:59 This is unbelievable. The drama has not stopped.
719 00:46:02 The drama has gotten bigger, if anything.
720 00:46:05 We were waiting to hear the finish from up top.
721 00:46:08 Who really won this race?
722 00:46:10 In a photo for the All American Futurity,
723 00:46:12 we're going right to shutter cam, Dave.
724 00:46:13 - And Dominyun there as well. - Dominyun right there!
725 00:46:16 Three horses on the line together, a three-way photo.
726 00:46:20 Waiting for the numbers to still be posted on the board.
727 00:46:24 - Nine one seven. - Mr. Piloto!
728 00:46:26 Mr. Piloto becomes the first horse ever
729 00:46:29 to qualify tenth to the All American Futurity,
730 00:46:32 and come back and win the biggest race two weeks later.
731 00:46:35 We were like, holy crap.
732 00:46:36 We just watched José Trevi?o
733 00:46:38 win the biggest horse race of the year, earning two million dollars.
734 00:46:44 It was a long shot in the race, and... it was a complete stunner.
735 00:46:49 Tremor Enterprises LLC, your winning owners here.
736 00:46:54 The first thing I saw was José jump the rail.
737 00:46:57 Carlos Nayen jumps the rail.
738 00:46:59 They both immediately get their phones out.
739 00:47:02 In my mind, they're calling Mexico,
740 00:47:04 saying, "Look, we just won a big one."
741 00:47:08 They go to the winner's circle, and there's Carlos, José,
742 00:47:13 and then Fernando walks in.
743 00:47:15 Now why in the world would Fernando be in the winner's circle?
744 00:47:19 He is the one who just sold this horse.
745 00:47:22 Fernando owned a horse that was running for two million dollars,
746 00:47:25 sold it, and transferred it to José Trevi?o.
747 00:47:29 Fernando has an opportunity to not only win the money,
748 00:47:32 but to be known as, you know, the best horseman of the year,
749 00:47:36 and you're gonna transfer that horse? Nobody's gonna do that.
750 00:47:39 That was just...
751 00:47:41 a race that we're gonna remember forever
752 00:47:42 and the connections of Mr. Piloto will remember forever.
753 00:47:46 We now had evidence that any horse that looked like
754 00:47:49 it could win big money for the cartel
755 00:47:51 was gonna be transferred to José,
756 00:47:53 so he could act like he bought the horse for a small amount.
757 00:47:57 And then here he is, the luckiest investor in the world
758 00:48:00 to win two million dollars.
759 00:48:01 RUIDOSO
760 00:48:15 So we returned from Ruidoso to Laredo.
761 00:48:19 We got all the records and all the evidence
762 00:48:20 that we've gathered at Ruidoso over this weekend.
763 00:48:25 So at the auction, they ended up buying 22 horses.
764 00:48:32 Bidding up to what ended up being 2.2 million dollars in a horse auction.
765 00:48:38 José Trevi?o bought the three top sellers
766 00:48:41 and probably of the top 25,
767 00:48:45 he probably bought maybe ten of 'em.
768 00:48:50 You know, in the 40 years that I was in the business,
769 00:48:54 I've never seen an individual...
770 00:48:58 ...come into a horse sale and do something like that.
771 00:49:04 This industry, which had fallen on hard times before that,
772 00:49:07 everybody is celebrating these millions of dollars
773 00:49:10 having been spent on quarter horses.
774 00:49:14 And nobody's really asking the question
775 00:49:16 of where this money came from, except for...
776 00:49:19 How did they pay for that 2.2-million-dollar horse auction?
777 00:49:28 Over the next three years...
778 00:49:31 ...we looked closer and closer,
779 00:49:34 and a story unfolded.
780 00:49:36 Good afternoon, 911. What's your emergency?
781 00:49:38 A story that's almost unbelievable.
782 00:49:41 This lady just drove up on her Jet Ski.
783 00:49:43 Shot to death on a lake
784 00:49:45 that runs between the US-Mexican border.
785 00:49:47 A story that I never thought that I would be a part of.
786 00:49:53 One of the homicide investigators in Mexico
787 00:49:55 never came home last night.
788 00:49:56 Scott, as a rookie, he's entering this grotesquely violent world...
789 00:50:02 His head was found along the road that leads to Falcon Lake.
790 00:50:06 ...where, if you're involved in it, you become a target.
791 00:50:10 Scott was in way over his head.
792 00:50:13 He just didn't know it yet.
