The trial of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is unfolding inside a federal courthouse in Brooklyn, and the testimony so far is reshaping the legend of the notorious Sinaloa cartel leader. Jurors have already heard stunning details about his alleged bribes to Mexican presidents, his smuggling tunnels underneath the border, and his brazen escapes from prison.
But there are some stories that won’t be told in the courtroom. Before the trial got underway, VICE News spent nearly a year reporting on El Chapo for a podcast that’s now available for free in both English and Spanish, exclusively on Spotify.
Over the course of eight episodes, we’re taking listeners on a journey across Mexico and the U.S. to meet people affected by El Chapo’s rise and fall. This is a story about the entire war on drugs, and the countless lives it has impacted on both sides of the border. Here’s a rundown of each episode, plus links to our ongoing web coverage of the trial.
Episode 1: The Fixer
How the heroin business works, what fuels violence in Mexico, and why it’s dangerous for journalists to cover the drug trade.
In the first episode of our show, we stake out the Brooklyn Bridge to get a glimpse of the security convoy that escorts El Chapo to court from his jail cell in Manhattan. Then we travel to the Sinaloa cartel stronghold of Culiacán to meet Miguel Angel Vega, a fixer and local journalist who specializes in covering the drug trade. He introduces us to a heroin trafficker and we visit the scene of a suspected cartel execution.
The trial of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is unfolding inside a federal courthouse in Brooklyn, and the testimony so far is reshaping the legend of the notorious Sinaloa cartel leader. Jurors have already heard stunning details about his alleged bribes to Mexican presidents, his smuggling tunnels underneath the border, and his brazen escapes from prison.
But there are some stories that won’t be told in the courtroom. Before the trial got underway, VICE News spent nearly a year reporting on El Chapo for a podcast that’s now available for free in both English and Spanish, exclusively on Spotify.
Over the course of eight episodes, we’re taking listeners on a journey across Mexico and the U.S. to meet people affected by El Chapo’s rise and fall. This is a story about the entire war on drugs, and the countless lives it has impacted on both sides of the border. Here’s a rundown of each episode, plus links to our ongoing web coverage of the trial.
Episode 1: The Fixer
How the heroin business works, what fuels violence in Mexico, and why it’s dangerous for journalists to cover the drug trade.
In the first episode of our show, we stake out the Brooklyn Bridge to get a glimpse of the security convoy that escorts El Chapo to court from his jail cell in Manhattan. Then we travel to the Sinaloa cartel stronghold of Culiacán to meet Miguel Angel Vega, a fixer and local journalist who specializes in covering the drug trade. He introduces us to a heroin trafficker and we visit the scene of a suspected cartel execution.
The trial: Read about whether El Chapo can get a fair trial, the most damning evidence against him, and what to expect at the trial — including some guys Trump calls “flippers. Episode 2: The Legend
Why the people of Sinaloa treat El Chapo like a modern-day Robin Hood, how El Chapo was beaten-up by Mexican soldiers as a teenager, and what he did to support his family.
To learn about El Chapo’s origin story, we visit his hometown of La Tuna, a tiny village in the heart of a remote and rugged region known as the “Golden Triangle,” where for generations farmers have grown marijuana and the opium poppies that get processed into heroin. We spend the night at the home of one of his family members, and interview El Chapo’s mother and sister. We also witnessed dozens of heavily armed gunmen standing guard during a birthday party for El Chapo’s brother, Aureliano “El Guano” Guzmán, another leader of the cartel.
The trial: Read about El Chapo’s planned defense: his lawyer said some of his alleged victims could actually be alive , and that there’s evidence he was just a cartel middle manager . Episode 3: The Federation
How the U.S. war on drugs led to the rise of the Sinaloa cartel, why El Chapo may have been framed for the killing of a Catholic Church official, and what everyone might be getting wrong about El Chapo’s first escape from prison.
In this episode, we trace El Chapo’s rise to power. It starts with the formation of Mexico’s first drug cartel and takes a gruesome turn when a DEA agent in Mexico is kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. El Chapo then became a leader of “The Federation,” a new arrangement where multiple cartels control different territories across the country. We hear about the 1993 assassination of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, learn about El Chapo’s lavish lifestyle in prison, and get the details on his first prison escape, which supposedly involves him being wheeled out of a maximum-security facility hidden in a laundry cart.
The trial: Read about how prosecutors said our podcast about El Chapo could “derail” jury selection, and what it was like to be one of five reporters in the room where jurors were selected. Episode 4: The Border
Why drug traffickers love NAFTA, how El Chapo contributed to the violence in Juarez, and what Mexico’s former president says about his decision to escalate the drug war.
Starting in 2006, a war between the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels turned Ciudad Juarez into the murder capital of the world. We visit a morgue in the city on the U.S.-Mexico border to meet a doctor who has developed a new way to identify human remains, and meet Señora Luz Davila, a factory worker in Juarez who lost both her sons to a cartel massacre. We also interview Mexico’s controversial former president Felipe Calderon, and discuss whether his decision to deploy the military to fight cartels made violence worse in Mexico.
The trial: Read about explosive testimony by the brother of El Chapo’s partner that rewrote the history of El Chapo and the Sinaloa cartel — and exposed its secrets. El Chapo’s lawyer also claimed Mexico’s president took “millions in bribes” from the cartel. And watch this Vice News Tonight feature on how the Sinaloa cartel is alive and thriving without El Chapo.
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