That's close, and it's low.
-[in Spanish] Get back, I can see you. -[radio beeps]
[Jason Fox] The authorities obviously do patrols on the area.
[Fox] And it's funny, I've spent years chasing bad guys--
whether it's narcos, terrorists--
and now I'm sat down here
with bunch of narcos, hiding behind a bush,
hoping I don't get caught by a bunch of Marines.
[narrator] I'm Jason Fox.
I spent ten years in the Special Forces
where I hunted down druglords in Afghanistan.
Yeah, these are good. These are what we used.
Now, I'm going to Latin America...
Hola.
...the dark heart of the global drugs trade.
We're going into the barrio now.
-[Fox] One of them's got a shooter. -[man in Spanish] Quickly, quickly, go!
This time, I'll be travelling unarmed...
-[in Spanish] A car is coming! -[in Spanish] Get in, get in!
[Fox] Come on, yeah.
...to try to understand them from the inside.
[in Spanish] You've got guns, pretty girls, bikes.
[mimics motorbike revving]
[in Spanish] You have to harvest coca. [hisses]
[in Spanish] There's no other good work here.
Starting in Mexico, I'll make contact with the feared Cartels.
More powerful than the state.
[in Spanish] I'm a hitman by trade.
In Peru, I'll meet the producers at the bottom of the supply chain.
[in Spanish] Thanks to this, we educate our children.
And in Colombia,
I see how the legacy of Pablo Escobar still runs deep.
[in Spanish] For us, he wasn't a boss, he was a god.
This is a world where violence is a way of life.
[in Spanish] I have killed 257 people with my own hands.
Like this and this.
[in Spanish] If you do something stupid, you'll be fucked.
And the criminals are the ones in charge.
If we were here without your permission, what would you do with us?
[in Spanish] A gringo or a whitey...
I'm in Mexico where the drugs industry is bigger,
more organized and more deadly than anywhere else on the planet.
I want to see how the notorious cartels operate from the inside.
I've been warned that my every move will be monitored by the narcos
from the moment I arrive.
And if we get on the wrong side of them, even the police can't save us.
But I found two men with deep contacts in the cartels prepared to help me.
-Hello. -Hello, Uli. How's it going?
-Welcome to Mexico. [chuckles] -Thank you very much.
[Ulises] I'm going to introduce you to my friend.
-Ah. -His name is Miguel.
-Miguel. Hey. Foxy. -Nice to meet you, Foxy.
-Nice meeting you. -I've heard a lot about you.
Yeah, likewise. Thanks. [chuckles]
He's the local journalist that is going to help us here
because he has, like, uh, very good connections
with the Sinaloa organization.
-Thank you. -Welcome to Culiacan.
-The cradle of narcotraffic. -[Jason chuckles]
-So, keys. -Thanks so much.
[Fox narrating] Culiacan is a stronghold of the Sinaloan cartel.
From a small group of marijuana traffickers in the '60s,
this family-run business has grown
to become the single most powerful
and dangerous drugs cartel in the world.
It's made their hometown one of the richest cities in Mexico.
[Fox] What was it like growing up here? What's it like
to have lived and worked around these parts?
You know what's the funny thing when you're a little boy?
You want to be one of them.
'Cause you see, they drive these very nice luxury cars,
they hang out with the most beautiful women.
They have power, they have money,
and you're like, "Hey, you know what? I wanna have that."
[siren wailing]
[Fox] The Sinaloan cartel employ more than 100,000 people,
and they far outnumber the local police.
What can you tell me about, uh, Culiacan
and, uh, the sort of area we're in, how dangerous it is?
[Miguel] It's a very controlled city.
And it's as controlled that sometimes you're gonna see--
you're gonna stop in an intersection,
and you're gonna see kids cleaning up your windshield,
but they are in fact, uh, informers-- like lookouts
like, you know, watching who's driving.
You know, the way you look, you-- I can tell you're a foreigner.
And the first thing in their mind is gonna be,
"Oh, perhaps this is a DEA."
And once if they believe that you are a DEA,
we will have a tail the whole time, on our backs. The whole time.
[Fox] He's probably-- I mean, he looks harmless enough.
But I'm sure that he's probably gonna fucking phone someone up in a minute
and tell them that there's a dude with a camera.
[chuckles]
Or maybe he is just a clown.
[Fox narrating] Driving around, the striking thing
is how normal it all feels.
But this is a state in the grip of the narcos.
[Uli in Spanish] Can you give us a room, please?
[in Spanish] Thanks, brother.
[door creaking]
-[Uli] It's lovely. -Nice.
-Even a little bit of color. -Yeah, yeah, it's cool.
I want to check in, ask for the other one,
and I'm going to be next to you.
Nice one. Cheers, Uli.
Take care.
[Fox narrating] The man who built the Sinaloan cartel is Joaquin Guzman,
known as "El Chapo."
For years, Forbes magazine ranked him
more powerful than the president of Mexico.
So total was their control here
that his family were openly taunting the authorities
with displays of wealth and power.
[gunfire rattling]
El Chapo was finally captured two years ago
in this brutal firefight with Mexican Marines.
[bomb explodes]
But his empire continues without him.
And today, it's said to make about three billion dollars every year.
My fixers have had a call from one of their contacts high up in the cartel.
They are willing to meet me as they fear nothing and no one.
We are given instructions to go to a petrol station on the edge of town.
Vetted by cartel security,
we eventually get the clearance we need to continue on.
I want to see how they keep control of their territory,
which is under constant threat from rival cartels.
Our destination is an area called the "Golden Triangle."
Our lives are now completely in their hands.
[cameraman] Uh, shall I put it down?
Soon. Very soon.
[cameraman] We're here, by the looks of it.
[man speaking Spanish on radio]
Stay in the car, please.
It's all a little bit edgy at the moment while we do the initial meet
because, uh, these guys have never apparently done this before.
Um, they've never taken people like us out on patrol.
So we're in that moment
where we're trying to sort of relationship build.
They've turned up on the other side of the river basically.
We're on one side, they're on the other.
We're gonna start-- start off with a boat journey.
We're here out on the Sinaloan countryside
in, basically, the cartel's back yard.
It's their territory, their land.
And, uh, we're about to meet one of the patrols
who keeps it theirs, basically.
Anyone that tries to get into their business,
get into their territory then they dish out the "good news."
Not dissimilar to some of the stuff I've done in the past.
Always meeting people that are not too sure about who you are.
Everyone's packing guns, everyone's on edge.
So there's always, uh... there's always a bit of sketchiness beforehand
and then we go in, smooth it over, have a laugh,
and, hopefully, not piss them off and get shot,
buried in the middle of nowhere, never to be seen again.
[Fox narrating] Finally, someone arrives to take us across.
[in Spanish] Nice to meet you.
Eh.
[grunts]
[boat motor sputters]
He needs to change his spark plugs.
Muchas gracias.
[Fox sniffs]
[man mutters in Spanish] Incoming.
[in Spanish] Hi.
[speaking Spanish]
-Foxy. [in Spanish] Nice to meet you. -[in Spanish] Nice to meet you.
Hey. Hi.
-[in Spanish] How are you? -[speaking Spanish]
[Fox narrating] I'm greeted by the local commander.
He's in charge of several hundred soldiers in this area.
-[in Spanish] Bring three more. -Gracias.
-Huh. -[man sighs]
[in English] Thank you for letting me, uh, come along today,
see what you get up to.
[man in Spanish] Few people have been allowed here,
but with you, it won't be a problem.
So, um, what happens if, um,
say, the army, or the Marines, or the police come,
what do you do?
What does "protecting the area" mean?
[in Spanish] It would be stupid to confront the army or Marines.
If we took 100 of the bastards down, another 1,000 would come.
If you do have clashes, who's it normally with?
[in Spanish] It's with people from outside,
from other cartels, perhaps.
The very famous one is Los Zetas.
From a distance, we can see if a strange car approaches.
We know it's coming.
We also know as soon as government forces leave the city.
So if we were here without your permission and you saw us wandering around,
what would you do with us? What would you say to us?
[in Spanish] A gringo or a whitey, we think it's DEA or Interpol.
That's the reality.
[Fox] Do you, um... Do you enjoy your job?
[in Spanish] I like being a motherfucker.
[laughing]
How bad a "motherfucker" are you?
[in Spanish] Better to ask me, what haven't I done?
I haven't killed a reporter, nor... [laughing]
nor someone like you. That's all I haven't done.
But the bad thing is, I'd like to. [laughing]
[radio beeps]
-[speaking Spanish] -Yeah.
-Come in, come in. -[radio squeaks]
[in Spanish] You can cut here, because a Marines helicopter is coming.
[indistinct chatter]
[Fox narrating] The commander slips away to take charge of the situation
and leaves us with a few of his men.
Which sounds like they've got, obviously, got informants and guys on the ground
all over the place.
They've just obviously heard there on the radio that
the heli's coming, and I think I could just hear something then, actually.
-There you go. -[helicopter rotors whirring]
They obviously do, like, heli patrols.
When they're up there, they sit up there looking for stuff that's of interest.
-[in Spanish] Get back, I can see you. -[radio beeps]
That's fucking close, and it's low.
It's coming down... It'll come down that river.
If it does land and it's near us, you put that down,
because from a distance,
it looks like you've got a something on your shoulder, like a gun.
-[whirring continues] -[birds chirping]
-There it is. It's there. -[radio beeps]
-Right in that dip. See it? -[radio beeps]
[man speaking Spanish on radio]
[in Spanish] It's going very low. I can hear it round the corner.
It's coming very low.
I mean, that's fucking close.
I mean, I've been-- I've done heli patrols, and then...
When you're up there, you fucking-- you see everything.
You think you can hide, but it's-- you can see everything.
Your eyes are attracted to movement as well.
And they'll be looking for any excuse to have a fucking scrap,
because they do.
You always look for an excuse to have a scrap.
[birds chirping]
[man speaking Spanish on radio]
[radio beeps]
The dudes have turned back up. All is safe. The Marines have fucked off.
-[speaking Spanish] -[radio static]
[man speaking Spanish on radio]
-[man coughs] -[man 2 speaking Spanish]
You seem very organized. Can you explain to us what happened then?
[in Spanish] I think they were blowing something up over there.
Now there are two helicopters over there
a mile and a half away.
They're on the ground. We're waiting to see what happens.
At the moment, things are hot around here
because the government is very close.
We should have done the interview another day, but, um...
but you came at a bad time. [laughing]
The one that came is on course for my area.
-[in Spanish] It's coming. -Yeah, yeah.
[Fox narrating] It's clear how disciplined and tightly organized these killers are.
Run like a military unit
and more in control of this area than the actual military.
Attempting to keep the public on their side,
the cartel try to stop negative press.
They kill journalists who cross them.
-You see the green balloon? That's... -[Fox] Oh, yeah.
[Miguel] That's where the memorial is.
Reporter, Javier Valdez,
was gunned down in broad daylight as a warning to others.
[Fox] Whew.
And actually, he was driving,
another car stopped in front of him.
-Two armed guys got their hands... -Yeah.
...aimed their guns to him.
He just get out the car, and they start shooting.
[Miguel] He was a very well-known journalist,
who was my friend and colleague.
And, you know, this is another sign that no one is safe in this city.
He was shot 12 times. He-- at 12:00 p.m.
He works for Ríodoce newspaper,
which the translation would be "river number 12."
So it was "12" all over.
-[Fox] Fifty years. -[Miguel] Yeah.
-One month and one day. -He was 50 years old.
I still can't-- up to this point, I still can't believe what happened.
-[Fox] Mmm. -Just crazy.
-Sorry, man. -Thank you.
Thank you, Foxy. Appreciate it.
Appreciate that.
[Fox narrating] I want to understand the mindset
of the kind of person who killed Valdez.
After our first encounter passed without incident,
the cartel agree to let me meet one of their most ruthless hitmen.
We're told to drive to the outskirts of town
and wait for further instructions.
-Finally, we get the call. -[call phone beeps]
[Uli] Okay, this is him.
Uh, just send me a message. I need to listen.
[man speaking Spanish over phone]
[Uli] Um, there's lots of cops or army around,
so they are trying to secure the area.
We need to turn.
Okay, follow this way.
[Fox narrating] We're directed to a poor suburb on the edge of the city.
We're told to stop filming before we're guided to a cartel safe house.
The man I'm about to meet is high up on the government's hit list.
He goes by the name, "Guero."
[in Spanish] We are ready.
How much time?
[in English] Four minutes.
[in Spanish] Okay, thanks.
[both chuckle]
[in English] Let's get ready for this.
And everything's cool?
Yeah. Four minutes.
-[Uli] Yeah. -Okay, cool.
Well, there's people cutting around outside, by the sounds of it.
[Uli] They have masks on.
[rustling]
Hey, how's it going?
Uh, Foxy. Foxy.
[narrating] None of us knew at the time
that this would be the last interview Guero would ever give.
[Fox] All good?
First of all, thank you for coming to meet me today.
I, uh-- I really appreciate it.
[in Spanish] It's an honor.
So, do you feel that it was dangerous for you to come and meet us here today?
[in Spanish] Yes, considerably.
[Fox] And, obviously, it's a risk to us as well.
[Guero] If you do everything right, no.
I have people around outside to warn me if the government is coming.
That's why I put them there to make sure you aren't at risk.
But if you do something stupid, you'd be in danger.
You'll be fucked.
If you could describe your job, what would you say it is?
My actual job, you could say, is a hitman and I have my own drugs lab.
I could get to the same level as my boss.
It's a high level,
but it's very dangerous.
I don't want to get that high.
Okay, can you describe to me
what the lifestyle is like for you in the organization?
[in Spanish] Sometimes good, sometimes bad.
Every day is dangerous.
What else can I say?
Sometimes you have a lot, and other times, nothing.
But-- but do you enjoy it?
[in Spanish] The money.
That's what I enjoy.
When you go out with women, buy cars, clothes or a house.
But every day, I'm frightened.
[Fox] What are you afraid of?
I'm frightened when I go to kill someone, and something goes wrong
because I don't know if I'll come back.
That's when I don't enjoy it and it frightens me.
[Fox narrating] A few weeks later, Guero's fears would come true
when he was shot dead by the army.
[man in Spanish] In the early hours,
the military in Culiacan, Sinaloa
slaughtered a man called Luis Alfonso Murillo.
He was known as "El Guero" and was considered
one of the main generators of violence in Sinaloa.
[Fox narrating] Even in death,
the narcos' wealth and power is still very much on display.
This graveyard outside Culiacan
is the last resting place of the druglords of Sinaloa.
We pull in unannounced.
We have tombs-- you're gonna see tombs here
that are worth over 700,000 US dollars.
That's a whole lot of money for just a grave, for just a tomb.
So you got-- why do they have, like, bullet-proof glasses?
Why do they have plated bars?
Why do they have this, uh, marble come from, uh, Italy?
It's just crazy the way it is.
[Miguel] And it's a sign of power. They wanna show power.
A castle.
[Fox] Massive. You've got bars on the windows.
That one's got a balcony.
[Miguel] They have so much money,
they just don't know where to spend that money.
[Miguel] Watch it, watch it. Let's stop it.
-Put it down. Put it down. -[cameraman] It's all right.
[Miguel] Let me just go out. Let me just go and talk to them.
[Fox narrating] You can't go far around here without being noticed.
[Miguel speaking Spanish]
[man speaking Spanish]
[window closes]
He just don't want us to keep filming here 'cause--
they look very aggressive.
[Fox narrating] The reason the Mexican cartels have become
the richest in the world is geography.
Mexico is the last stop for almost all the drugs from Latin America.
And the United States, the world's largest consumer,
is right next door.
The big money in the drugs world isn't from producing but from smuggling.
And the Sinaloan cartel single-handedly smuggle half of all the heroin
and cocaine consumed in the U.S.
They've agreed to reveal one of their simplest methods of trafficking
and one of the hardest to stop.
We've been directed to a garage on the edge of town.
[in Spanish] Good evening.
-Uh, Foxy. -Felipe.
Felipe. Very nice to meet you.
Okay. What sort of stuff are we looking at?
What are you gonna pack tonight?
[in Spanish] It's in here.
[Fox] Okay, so, uh, what's this we've got here?
[Felipe in Spanish] Forty-nine thousand dollars of heroin
and $23,000 of cocaine.
Can I have a look?
[zipper whines]
[Fox] That's quite a bit of a... quite a bit of gear there, to be honest.
It'd be interesting to see where they're gonna pack it.
[in Spanish] This is ready for packing.
We'll put the packets here.
Felipe, whereabouts did you learn these skills?
[in Spanish] I learned by practice.
[thumping]
Yeah, it looks like a pretty good job.
Yeah, it looks... it looks really good.
[chuckles] He's squared it right away.
Wouldn't hurt being touched.
[grunts]
[mutters]
So that's, uh, $49,000 in heroin, $23,000 in cocaine,
all packed in ten minutes.
Muchas gracias.
[Fox narrating] This car will now be driven 600 miles north
to the border with the U.S.
Drugs triple in price as soon as they cross it.
At this checkpoint alone, 10,000 vehicles pass through each day,
an impossible number to search properly.
I bet, right now, someone here is loaded with drugs.
I mean, there's about a good hundred cars here.
Chances are they're probably getting through.
I mean... tsk...
how thoroughly can you check,
what, maybe 150 cars?
-[man] Hello. -[woman] Hello.
-[Fox] You all right? -[woman] Very well.
[Fox] That's it. We're through.
We are in America.
Easy.
[Fox narrating] Control of the trafficking routes
is the foundation of the cartel business.
But to achieve it has required industrializing violence and murder.
I'm on my way to a Texan prison
to learn how the cartels force their members to become ruthless killers.
I'm meeting a former hitman
who's confessed to over 30 murders.
Now serving a 70-year sentence, he's agreed to talk
about the secrets of training camps where he learned to kill.
-Hey, how's it going? -Doing all right, sir.
-You all right? Jason. -Yes, sir.
[narrating] He was just a child when he became involved in the cartel.
So, during the time that you were doing the job you were doing,
did your family know what was going on? Did they know what you were involved with?
I mean, I'm pretty sure they were suspicious of what was going on.
Because, I mean, you...
you got a 13-14-year-old riding around in a $100,000 car.
You see him all the time with money, the latest fashion.
You know something's going on.
The first time I killed someone was, I was 26, 27.
Sounds about right. Yeah, 26, 27.
And that was in a gunfight. That was in the middle of a gunfight,
and I remember it very well, obviously. What about--?
You know, when was the first time for you and how did it happen?
I was going on 13 years old the first time I took a life.
It's just, one day, I mean, got...
got invited to Mexico.
I didn't know what was going on at first, and I see about six people kneeling down.
Then the individual, the person in charge, they start laughing, and um...
I think they saw that scared, panicked look on my face
and asked me if I had ever killed somebody.
And, uh, I said I had.
Knowing that, uh, I had never took nobody's life, so...
he pulled out a handgun.
Told me to kill that person, the one kneeling in front of him.
And, uh, I just shot him.
And, uh, he say he was putting me on his payroll.
He said, "Don't worry about it.
Go back to school, to whatever you're doing,
and, uh, I'ma call you when I need you."
Two weeks later, he called me back to Mexico.
I-- I had been built up, and trained,
and ready to probably see some shit things.
-For you, it was like that. -[finger snaps]
You guys train--
show you how to shoot,
-how to do everything. -Yeah.
Well, the training I received, it's...
it's almost all the same.
But you don't practice
with paper targets. It's...
-It's a constant war zone. -Mm-hmm.
You practice with live targets.
I mean, I know it sounds harsh saying it this way, but it's just the way it is.
The people who we were using as targets
were rival cartel members.
There used to be, um, 50, 60, sometimes over a hundred people.
Just like cattle for the slaughterhouse.
And, um, there were scenarios that they--
there's a house, they throw them in there.
They tell them, "Look, man. If you can make it out of here alive,
we'll give you your freedom."
So these people, they're fighting for their lives.
They throw you in there sometimes, um--
It's-- to them, it's more--
[sighs] You give a knife to a person
on a situation like that, and you'll be surprised of what a person can do with it.
Mm-hmm.
And, uh, you go in there and try to take him out,
and he's gonna try to take you out.
Only one person's coming out of there alive.
Did you have to torture people in those training camps
or actually out on the ground?
[stammers] I-- honestly, I... I didn't like that job.
Especially when it gets so... so bloody.
[Fox] Mm-hmm.
But I-- I've done it before. Yes, I have.
I mean, I've done the...
simple stuff that everybody starts doing--
Um, pulling teeth out,
cutting fingers up slowly, or...
[sighs]
...start cooking them alive.
You know, it's just little stuff that...
that'll get them to talk in a certain way. I mean, um...
Do you think you embraced it? Do you think you enjoyed what you did?
I didn't enjoy it.
But, um...
I tried to be the best
-at what I was doing. -Mm-hmm.
If I knew that I was gonna survive this life, this lifestyle, this world,
I had to be the best.
[Fox narrating] The cartel still continue to produce a steady stream of killers
from their horrific training camps,
which is why drugs violence in Mexico has claimed more than 200,000 lives,
more even than the war in Afghanistan.
I'm heading back across the border
to a city overrun by killers like "Wolf Boy."
Right now, it has the second highest murder rate on Earth.
Acapulco, in its '60s heyday,
it was a go-to place for Hollywood stars.
And until recently, hundreds of thousands of tourists
flocked here from around the world.
But today, its hotels are largely empty.
Unlike Culiacan where a single cartel is in charge,
here, more than 20 cartels are battling for control.
The police have been forced to travel in huge numbers on operations.
Right now, we're following a tip-off about a cartel safe house.
We've got quite a big force here.
I mean, there's three, four pickups. We're one of them.
As in... uh, 20 outriders, and then you've got an army back-up
a bit further back there, sort of, a little bit more--
They're like the heavy protection if it just massively kick-off apparently.
The toll booths for the, um, the tunnel and...
each copper's gotta individually pay to get through. [laughs]
I thought they might have a bit of, uh... bit of autonomy.
[motorcycle honks]
You've got some guys that have just jumped off. They've debussed.
I mean, you'll be foolish to take on this many guys, to be fair.
[clamoring]
They've just done a room entry, so there's like--
I can't even see how many people there were.
There was like six... six to eight guys.
So they've gone in now. They went in stacked up
with their hands on each others' shoulders
so they can basically communicate to each other without talking,
just by touching each other.
[narrating] It turns out, the occupants have already fled.
With cartel lookouts across the city, it's hard to take the narcos by surprise.
[Fox] What's this mean?
[police officer] It's the Holy Death.
It's a saint that many, many criminals use to pray.
[Fox narrating] For all their show of force,
the police are outnumbered and outgunned by the narcos.
And one man who knows this only too well is Hector Ramirez,
a crime scene investigator.
-Hello, Foxy. -Hola.
-[in Spanish] Welcome. -Hi. How's it going? You all right?
[in Spanish] These are the offices of the Public Prosecutor.
The other offices are forensics.
-Come in. -[Fox] Yeah, let's go.
[in Spanish] In 2006, when there was a death in Acapulco by a firearm?
Wow, it was a novelty.
Since then, it's evolved to chopping them to bits.
They open the sternum, this bone,
and take out all the organs, guts, and form letters.
How often are the killers caught?
[in Spanish] Not too often because they're killing each other.
Let's suppose I killed five last year, or 20.
If they kill me this year, then all those homicides go unpunished
because we don't know who committed them.
-Busy? -[in Spanish] Yes.
-You could almost never go home. -No.
[chuckles]
It's six months since I've seen my mum.
[scoffs] Bloody hell. Do you enjoy your job?
Yes, I love my job.
[sighs, in English] Let's go.
[Fox narrating] Hector has just got a call about another cartel murder.
The body's been left in a public place as a gruesome warning.
[Fox] What information have you got about this body?
[in Spanish] The report is of a dismembered body,
and it's been thrown on the street.
[police sirens wailing]
-The place is in front. -[Fox] Ahem.
[Fox] It's here.
Yeah.
[indistinct chattering]
[Hector speaking Spanish]
[man speaking Spanish]
[Fox] He's had his head and his arm-- both arms, cut off.
There's a bag of something,
and then there's a fucking torso with a bag wrapped around its waist,
so you can just see where his arms and his head have been chopped off.
This has actually been done by people that mean some fucking serious business.
-It's pretty gruesome. -[car horn honks]
[narrating] Suddenly, a policeman shouts we're coming under attack.
-[indistinct chattering] -[whistle whistles]
[in Spanish] Attention, please!
[car horns honking]
[in Spanish] Over there, that side!
-[man speaking Spanish] -[Fox] Hang on.
I wouldn't get beyond that. Get down round there.
If you're gonna get down anywhere, get down behind here.
[man] Go. Go.
Oi! If anything comes from up there,
this curb here, 'cause there's a wall there, all right?
-Is it a car accident? Yeah. -[man in English] It's a car accident.
[man] It's all right. But see how everything gets fucking hyped?
I know. Yeah.
That's-- that's something in itself. [chuckles]
A car accident, and all the cops go mad
'cause there's already been a fucking murder,
which means it obviously goes off a lot around these sort of things.
It could also be a come-on. These can be come-ons.
We have things called "come-ons" where there is a car accident,
or there's something that arouses suspicion, it draws people in,
and then just on the peripheries, where no one's actually looking,
something else fucking happens.
Someone ambushes you, someone kills someone else, so they get what they want.
But basically, the best bit of cover was--
[chuckles] the best bit of cover was probably right near the body
if rounds were coming from over there.
[narrating] The police return to the corpse
to look for missing body parts.
[Fox] Here we go.
The first thing to come out of the other bag was his head.
They've rolled that into position so they can take photographs.
They've got two arms.
So that's a pretty big message, I'd say.
'Cause that takes a lot-- there's a lot of time and effort gone into that.
[Fox narrating] Horrors like this are now a daily event here,
and life quickly gets back to normal.
Hector had just 30 minutes to investigate the crime scene
before the area was reopened to the public.
[grunts]
Can you tell me a bit about what actually happened there, what--
how it all came about, and the cause of death?
[in Spanish] At the moment, the only thing I can say
is that there is a complete body that's cut and dismembered
with the penis and the upper and lower limbs removed, that's it.
Now I'm going to the morgue to examine the cuts
to see what type of object would have made them.
Did you see any gunshot wounds?
[in Spanish] No. I only saw the cuts.
I can't say at the moment if they are cuts or blunt force injuries.
That's why I will wash the body in water and examine the details of each cut.
I mean, that was, uh... that was quite a gruesome scene
to have dumped in the middle of the city, actually.
It's not-- you know, it's not every day, back where I come from, that happens.
[Fox narrating] I thought I'd seen it all in my time in the Special Forces.
But this rivals anything I've encountered on the battlefield.
[Fox] It's violent. It's like uber, extreme violence.
The thought behind it is more gruesome than war
because obviously, you know, there's body parts,
people getting blown apart at war.
Here, it doesn't need to happen, but it happens
because people have set out with that mindset
to do that to an individual to make a statement.
So it's almost a lot darker. It's way darker.
People talk about hope and how we can stop the violence
but they've got hundreds of Marines, hundreds of army,
hundreds of federal police, hundreds of municipal police,
and they're a long way off from squaring this shit away.
[narrating] And from what I've seen,
Mexico won't be winning the war on drugs anytime soon.