Making an Undercover Drug Bust | Locked Up Abroad: Declassified

90 kilos of cocaine were found in the trunk of a vehicle at a border patrol checkpoint. The markings of the cocaine packages were the scorpion. This was the label for Amado and the Juarez cartel. If this guy was connected to the Juarez cartel, I knew this was the break I needed.

“Come with me,” I said. “My name is Sal.” I said. “What's your name?” He says, “I'm Rudy.” I told him, I said, “Listen, you're in a lot of trouble. The only way you're gonna get out of this is by telling me what you know about this organization.” He tells me, “I can't cooperate with you, they're going to kill me.”

And I said, “They're going to kill you anyways if I let you go because right here you lost a lot of their drugs.” He says, “If I give you information about the cartel, can you go and protect me?” So I said, “Listen, you want my help, you need to go and give me information that's going to be worthwhile.”

[Music] He knew that he was in a no-win situation. [Music] He says, “The cartel is sending somebody from Juarez to make sure that everything runs smooth on this load. They call him El Wapo. He's one of the shot callers for the cartel.”

Trying to penetrate any criminal organization, the only way to do it is to actually do undercover work. So I am thinking, “Wow, this is going to be a great opportunity to get somebody higher in the cartel by role playing as an undercover agent.” I asked him, I said, “How can I be a part of this?” He goes, “We need a driver.” [Music]

Now I was going to be a driver for the cartel. “Let's move out,” but I had no idea what I had just signed up for. The next day, I drive to a warehouse in the outskirts of El Paso as an undercover agent with the 90 kilos of cocaine that were seized the day before. El Wapo was going to inspect it. I had backup, numerous D agents all over the place. At the same time, I was very nervous and unsure of what was going to happen.

[Music] We're waiting on El Wapo to show up. I can see that Rudy is definitely nervous. The door opens, and here comes El Wapo. I could just feel the energy with this guy, and it was not a good thing. It's not a good thing. He's a cartel manager in a position of power. I was intimidated. At the same time, I had to go and do what I was supposed to do.

I'll be driving. He just looked at me and he goes, “How do you know Rudy?” I said, “Well, me and Rudy go back a ways.” He had no idea Rudy had betrayed him. He's staring me up and down. He notices the gun under my belt. He says, “A pretty good size gun you got there.” I said, “Yeah.” And he goes, “Let me see it.”

He starts looking at it, inspecting it. I was getting nervous, but all of a sudden, he puts the gun to my head and he asked me, “So tell me again how you know Rudy?” I thought to myself, “Only he's gonna blow my brains out.” So I just said, “Hey listen, stop busting my balls.” He cracked a smile and lowered the gun and handed it back to me.

Inside, I was fierce. I wanted to get that gun and shove it up his ass. But I had to keep my cool and continue with what we were going to do. We unload the cocaine and the whole time El Wapo was just standing there watching us. My heart was racing, and I'm thinking, “Okay, never hit the mother lode here. This was enough to arrest him.”

Eventually, he ended up saying, “Want to get out of here? This thing will be moving tomorrow.” This is the opportunity that I wanted. Okay, I just pull out my gun, “Put your hands up where I can see them!” He was furious. He wanted to kick my ass right there, but I knew I had the upper hand this time. [Music]