- [Interviewer] Do you think your life
would be a good movie?
- That's really up to others.
I've had a lot of fun.
I'm Mike McGowan, I'm a
former FBI Special Agent.
We had an opportunity as law enforcement
to make an investigation against
the world's most powerful
drug organization
in which we targeted the
Sinaloa Cartel and Chapo Guzman.
So taking almost up to
a year to prepare this
we finally set the first meeting
to take place in Florida in early 2010.
If you were to write
a script from that day
this is how it would look.
The Sinaloa Cartel was responsible
for hundreds of murders in Mexico
and billions of dollars of narcotics
being transferred throughout the world.
And I remember clearly to this day
that the hairs on the
back of my neck stood up
because to have an opportunity
in 2009 to take a run at Guzman
and the Sinaloa Cartel was unheard of.
When we first began this investigation
we had a cooperating
witness who came to us
and said, "I can give
you the Sinaloa Cartel."
He choose to cooperate with the FBI
in order to have some of his property,
which had been seized in his earlier cases
returned to him and his family.
Chapo Guzman wanted to set up a pipeline
from Mexico into Europe
to supply all of Europe.
So we put a plan into effect in which
he believed we would be drug traffickers
out of Europe and specifically Italy.
After the informant went into Mexico
he was able to convince the Sinaloa Cartel
that the United States would be
okay to have meetings only.
We wouldn't buy or sell
drugs in the meetings,
we would simply be businessmen
getting together to have
discussions in a neutral country.
We intended to represent that we were
a Sicilian crime organization from Italy
and the intention was to
use a very experienced
undercover agent who spoke Sicilian.
That agent unfortunately retired
shortly before the investigation started,
so at the last minute we
had our Sicilian speaker
not available.
We looked around and decided eventually
that I would represent the head
of the organization from Sicily.
That's a little bit difficult, I obviously
don't speak Sicilian.
I sometimes struggle with English,
but working in concert
with three Spanish speaking
undercover agents we
felt we could overcome
the language barrier needed to target
the Sinaloa Cartel.
The meeting takes place in
an ocean front condominium
overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Florida.
You looked out for miles
and miles, beautiful ocean.
You take out wine, you take out food,
you take out photographs.
You turn on a soccer match.
We spent a lot of time preparing the room.
The room is also equipped
with audio and video recording
and each agent has a responsibility
of knowing where the cameras are,
where you want the subjects to sit.
So it's pretty much scripted
and we went through it carefully.
So myself and the three
other FBI undercover agents
had specific and different
roles in this case.
The first gentleman that I worked with
was a longtime friend of mine
who is an expert in transportation.
His job was to get contraband from point A
to point B and he knew
all shipping routes,
transportation systems, etc.
This gentleman had worked in South Florida
for many, many years and had the
South Florida look, clothing.
He had the Tommy Bahamas
and the right sunglasses, the right car.
When you work around the country
there are certain parts where
every criminal looks the same
and South Florida is one of those.
We had a second gentleman
who was named Antonio,
he was responsible for our
ports in foreign countries.
We knew we were going to receive
large amounts of cocaine so we had decided
that we were going to use ports
or shipping as opposed to airlines.
So we had ports that we used
literally all over the world
outside of the United States
that we have access to
through foreign law
enforcement cooperation.
And then the third undercover
was my underling Patricio,
he spoke both Spanish and Italian.
He was going to replace me.
I was the old man.
I was the head of the organization,
soon to be retired, he
was my right hand man,
my most trusted associate.
If anyone spoke to me privately
it would be Patricio my number two,
so again it's very important
to set up this dynamic
that they see a pecking order.
They see a criminal organization
that has a chain of command in it.
And we have to convince a member
of the Sinaloa Cartel we're criminals
just like they are.
They're very, very cognizant
of who appears to be real
and who does not, so we
had to sell ourselves
as a criminal organization and that's
why we mirrored many of the same roles
that the Sinaloa Cartel had.
And representing the Sinaloa Cartel
was a gentleman named Manuel Jesus Guzman,
who was identified as a blood
relative of Chapo Guzman.
He would be Chapo's spokesmen
during these negotiations.
Manuel Guzman entered the United States,
we sent the informant to pick him up
at the Miami International Airport
and deliver him to our
ocean front condominium
for negotiations.
So as we're waiting for
the meeting to happen
as I said, I was dressed appropriately
as a crime boss and I noticed my friends
and fellow agents were nervous as was I
and it was typical and
natural to be nervous.
We had a lot expected of us and just prior
to Manuel arriving at the condominium
I went in to use the men's room
and double check everything
and I looked behind the door
and I found a gaudy purple velour bathrobe
that for some reason I thought
would fit the scene better.
So without telling the other agents
I got out of my $5000 suit
and I put on this hideous velour bathrobe.
I walked out into the room
and the place cracked up,
everybody went nuts laughing
it really broke the ice,
everybody calmed down and at first
I was gonna go back and change
and then I said, "He would never suspect
"this is the FBI."
So I kept on the purple velour bathrobe
for the remainder of the meeting.
You have to understand when
you're an undercover agent
you have to do things that the bad guys
don't expect FBI agents would do.
Manuel arrives, he was
dressed in a business suit
as if it was a important business meeting.
So Manuel enters the room in the company
of the informant, he's now
meeting the three undercovers.
I'm out on the deck sunning myself
in my purple bathrobe and
after five or 10 minutes
I don't see him coming
out where he was supposed
to be introduced to me.
So I went inside and low and behold
we found out that Manuel
has a fear of heights,
which we didn't know.
So here we are 30 stories up on the ocean
and he's hunkered down in a corner
of the building and he
won't come anywhere near
the camera range.
It took awhile, but we
were able to calm him down
at least enough to come
out and sit on the couch
and begin negotiations with us.
I make a point of introducing myself
and then walking immediately away from him
because I don't want to
talk to him at that point.
You have to understand
we set up relationships,
so if I was the old man or
I was the El Jefe, the boss,
I wouldn't negotiate with Manuel.
I'd only negotiate with Chapo.
And I stayed out on the porch,
I ignored him for the
first couple of hours.
So the other three undercovers
have the responsibility
for making him comfortable.
I also had a very attractive
female FBI agent with me
who was my date for the meeting
and so I'm literally getting a suntan
and putting lotion on, having a drink,
relaxing with my lady
friend and try to make it
as natural as possible.
Patricio my number two would come out,
whisper in my ear and I
would whisper something back
and send the message in.
From where I was outside I could see in
and I could see the transformation
in his uneasiness roll away.
At one point he started slapping the hand
of one of the undercovers
like they were old buddies.
I could tell by the body language
that things were going well.
When you negotiate a massive
drug deal it takes hours,
it's a very long negotiation and I waited
'till it was going well until I came in
and when I did come in
as we had all agreed
I was never gonna speak
directly to Manuel,
so I would just sit there and listen,
get up go get something to eat.
I wasn't being rude to him,
but I wasn't waiting on every word
that's what my underlings are there for.
He offered to send an initial shipment
of 5000 kilos, which if you
know anything about cocaine
that's a lot of cocaine.
And we said, "No."
It's the first deal no
one's doing 5000 kilos.
So here you have cops turning down
the Sinaloa Cartel.
A lot of cops would say,
"Yeah, give me all five.",
that's not how drug negotiations go.
We had to lower the quantities
we were interested in.
We wanted to set up a system
that would last for years
and years, not just one deal.
It's like any business
deal, initial meeting
the groups hit it off,
they're throwing some numbers
back and forth and now they're gonna go
and regroup and have more discussions.
He didn't even want to leave.
He was having such a good time, seriously.
2011, we began to exchange
what's called test loads
with the Sinaloa Cartel.
They would send vessels from Mexico
to Europe, no drugs would
be on those vessels.
There were plantains, pineapples,
everything under the sun except cocaine,
but you have to do that if
you're a real drug trafficker
that's how it works.
So we had to be patient and pay for this.
After almost three years of investigation
in July of 2012 the Sinaloa Cartel
shipped us approximately 700 pounds,
I believe it's 346 kilograms of cocaine,
which in conjunction with
the Spanish National Police
the FBI seized in Al Jazeera, Spain.
As a result of those arrests
and subsequent investigation
we were able to charge
in the United States
Chapo and eight of his
executive board members
with drug trafficking.
Even though Chapo was in Mexico
we couldn't get our hands on him
at that point he was indicted in our case,
which was later one of a number of cases
that lead to Guzman's eventual extradition
into the United States.
