Historical Inaccuracies

Some of the historical inaccuracies in the series:

* The characters of Cockroach and Lion are completely made-up. Lion was possibly based on George Jung.
* Horacio Carrillo was not a real person. He was based off on Hugo Martinez, who takes the role of Carrillo in the series following the former's death.
* La Quica's real name is Dadeny Muñoz Mosquera, and not Juan Diego Diaz. He was arrested on September 25, 1991 in New York City for travelling with a fake passport.
* Navegante's real name is Cesar Yusti, and not Jorge Velazquez.

### Season 2

* Ricardo Prisco died in 1991, and was not alive when Pablo escaped the prison. It was Ricardo's brother Conrado Prisco who was the personal physician of Pablo Escobar. Escobar had Conrado killed.
* El Limón's real name is Alvaro de Jesús Agudelo, not Jhon Burges.
* Pablo did not spend his last days with his father.
* Juan Pablo Escobar was 16 years old at the time of his father's death. His mother didn't meet Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela after Pablo's death, and instead fled to Mozambique, before relocating to Argentina.

### Season 3

* Javier Peña did not oversee the investigation of the Cali Cartel.
* Daniel Van Ness' real name is David Mitchell.
* The *Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia* was only established in 1997.
* Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela's son was named William, and William only entered the trafficking business a few years after his father's arrest.
* Manuel de Dios was killed on 11 March, 1992 and not in 1994 as depicted in the show.
* José Santacruz Londoño wasn't killed by Carlos Castaño Gil, but by the Colombian police.
* Franklin Jurado was arrested in Luxembourg in 1990, and not in Curacao in 1994 as depicted by the show. Additionally, Jurado wasn't killed in prison, and served two years of his sentence before being released for good behaviour.
* Navegante wasn't killed by Jorge Salcedo, according to both Salcedo himself and Chris Feistl, but it is confirmed that Navegante died on the same day Pallomari was found by the DEA.
* It is unlikely that Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela wanted his son to stay away from the cartel business, as in real-life, his son Jorge Alberto Rodriguez Herrera headed a secret cell affiliated to the cartel named **The 400** in New York City. The 400, as the name suggests, was a group of 400 highly skilled hitmen of different nationalities, supervising cocaine production in New York City.
* It wasn't Peña, but another DEA agent named Joe Toft who revealed the corruption in Colombia, and called the country a 'narco-democracy'.

## Narcos: Mexico

### Season 1

* Leopoldo Sánchez Celis only served as the Governor of Sinaloa from 1963 to 1968, and was not in power in the 1980s, as depicted in the show.
* Enrique Camarena Salazar only arrived in Mexico in 1981.
* Pedro Avilés was killed in a shoot-out with the *federales* in 1978, and was not killed by Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo in 1980 as depicted in the show.
	+ In addition, it was Pedro Avilés who first pioneered the use of aircraft to smuggle drugs into the United States, and not Amado Carrillo Fuentes.
* Gilberto Fonseca Caro was shot outside the Arena Coliseo on February 13, 1983.
* Félix Gallardo wasn't nearly captured in 1985. In fact, he went into hiding right after Kiki's kidnapping and was never found until 1989.
* The Rancho Búfalo was located in Chihuahua, and not in Zavatecas.
* Juan Matta-Ballesteros played a bigger role within the Guadalajara cartel. He was working with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo as early as 1975, and was alleged by the DEA to be one of the masterminds of the abduction of Kiki Camarena. Matta was present in Mexico City during the abduction of Camarena but managed to escape the police. He was arrested in Colombia a few months later but escaped before extradition procedures could be set into motion. He was eventually arrested in his native Honduras and was sent to the Dominican Republic, from where he was picked up by the US Marshals. His arrest led to an attack on the American embassy in Tegucigalpa.
* Héctor Palma Salazar was incarcerated from 1978 to 1986. He didn't work with Acosta or meet with Gallardo before Kiki's murder, as depicted in the series.
* The Cali Cartel already had their cocaine trafficked through Mexico, with the help of Alberto Sicilia Falcon and the Gulf Cartel, and were certainly not introduced to that idea by Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo.
* The Dirección Federal de Seguridad did not have a post of 'Director-General'. The character Salvador Osuna Nava is based on Miguel Nazar Haro (26 September 1924 – 26 January 2012) was the head of Mexico's Dirección Federal de Seguridad (Federal Security Directorate) from 1978 to 1982.[43]
* Juan José Esparragoza Moreno, while having served in the DFS, was never its leader.
	+ Tomas Morlet was arrested soon after Kiki's disappearance came to light, and was freed soon after. He was shot and killed by the Gulf cartel outside a restaurant on 27 January 1987.
* Alberto Sicilia Falcon wasn't killed by the DFS on Miguel's orders but was arrested and still continued to lead his smuggling organization from prison. He was released in 1999 at the age of 75.
* Alberto Radelat and John Clay Walker were interrogated by cartel members on the orders of Caro Quintero. Walker took out several cartel members before being subdued and died in midst of the torture session when he was repeatedly stabbed with ice picks. Radelat survived but was eventually buried alive. Their bodies were only recovered six months later.
* Amado Carrillo Fuentes was never a certified pilot.
	+ The Rolex which Amado gave Pablo Acosta was real.
* Félix Gallardo didn't order Rodolfo Sánchez's beheading. Rodolfo in real-life was involved in the cartel affairs, and maintained correspondence with his godfather after the latter's arrest in 1989. Rodolfo was shot in the head in November 1990, allegedly on the orders of Héctor Palma Salazar.
* Antonio Vargas was not shot dead by Morlet, was by was shot eight times by several gunmen while dining in a restaurant. Damages to his spinal cord left him permanently paralyzed.

### Season 2

* Sergio Espino Verdin was arrested on June 3, 1986, and not on January 8 of the same year as depicted in the show.  He was arrested by the Mexican authorities, and not by the DEA. As of 2020, he is still a most wanted fugitive for the DEA.
* Juan Matta-Ballesteros was imprisoned during Félix Gallardo's fortieth birthday.
* Benjamín Arellano Félix's daughter Ruth was born on 6 August, 1987; and not before January 1986 as mentioned in the show. Additionally, he married his second wife Ruth Serrano Corona in May 1986.
* Amado worked in the DFS for five years, not two.
* Felix Gallardo successfully made Colombians pay them 50% cut of the cocaine they transported from Colombia.
* Rubén Zuno Arce was arrested by the American INS on August 9, 1989. He was caught by the agents while attempting to pass through customs in San Antonio after arriving in a commercial flight from Mexico.
* It was Juan García Abrego who first forced the Colombians to give up half of their total product as payment. Before that, the Colombians paid him $1,500 for every kilogram of cocaine transported through Mexico.
* El Azul was arrested in March 1986, and therefore would've been in jail for most of the season.  After his release in 1993, he joined the Juárez cartel. He moved to the Sinaloa cartel only in 1997, after the death of Amado. The show incorrectly depicts him joining the Sinaloans in 1989.
* As said above, Héctor Palma Salazar was arrested by American law enforcement in Arizona in 1978. Upon his release in 1986, he found out that his wife Guadalupe Leija Serrano had run off with Palma's brother-in-law Rafael Enrique Clavel to California. Clavel forced Guadalupe withdraw $7 million, beheaded her and sent her head, preserved in an ice cooler to Palma. He took both of Palma's children, Jesus and Nataly to Venezuela, where he dropped them off the Concordia Bridge. It is alleged that this was done in the orders of Félix Gallardo, who wanted revenge after Palma stole a shipment.. After the murders, Clavel worked for the Arellano-Félix brothers in Tijuana. In retaliation for the murders, Palma killed three of Clavel's children and one of Félix Gallardo's lawyers.
* Pablo Acosta died in April 1987, and not in 1988 as depicted by the show.
* Amado Carillo Fuentes reportedly paid Gonzalez-Calderoni $1 million to assassinate Pablo Acosta-Villarreal. Pablo Acosta at the time controlled the Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico, "Plaza." As soon as Pablo Acosta was removed, Amado Carillo Fuentes assumed uncontested control of the Ojinaga Plaza.[44]
* Additionally, the conflict between Acosta and Fermín Arévalo happened in 1982, and not in the late 1980s as shown in the show. Amado had no involvement in the conflict.
* The control of the Tijuana plaza fell upon Javier Caro Payán, one of Rafael Caro Quintero's cousins after the fall of the Guadalajara cartel. Fearing a coup by the Arellano Félix brothers, Javier fled to Canada where he was temporarily detained. The brothers used this oppurtunity to take control of the Tijuana plaza with the help of their uncle, Jesús Labra Avilés. When Javier reasserted his authority, he was assassinated in Guadalajara on the orders of the brothers.
* Cochiloco died on 9 October, 1991; when he was shot and killed by Colombian (alleged) gunmen while waiting at an intersection in Guadalajara.  Cochiloco's depiction in the show is vastly different from the real-life, where he lived his last days in the guise of a generous rancher and former engineer who hosted various governors and officials in his ranch in Coquimatlan.
* The maid shot dead by the Salinas brothers was 12 years old at the time of her death. Her first name is Manuela, but none of the members of family knew her last name. Additionally, the brothers had an 8 year old friend alongside when the incident happened.
* Orlando Henao Montoya would still be working for the Cali cartel in the 1980s. It was only after surrender deal that several individuals broke away from the cartel and formed the Norte del Valle cartel in the mid 1990s.
* Jorge Salcedo began working for the Cali cartel in 1989, and therefore his appearance in the 1986 is anachronistic.
* The cocaine bust at a warehouse in Sylmar, California happened on 28 September, 1989; nearly five months after Félix Gallardo's arrest, and hence it could be assumed that Félix Gallardo had nothing to do with the raid in real life.
* The CISEN was only founded in 1989.
* Negotiations for the NAFTA began in 1990 and not 1989, and it was ratified in 1994.
* The break-up of the Guadalajara cartel depicted on the show is incorrect. In real-life, after his arrest, Félix Gallardo split his organization into several smaller organizations in order to maintain control while imprisoned. Félix Gallardo had an entire jail section under his control, where armed guards working for him patrolled the peripheries of the prison. Using cellphones, fax machines and men on the outside, he maintained control over all the new cartels till he was transferred to a maximum-security prison in 1991.

### **Season 3**

* The arrest of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, Lord of the Skies.

While watching Narcos: Mexico 3, you might have gotten the impression that everything narrated in the series is true. Some might even believe that it’s almost as if you are watching a documentary based on historical events, without any kind of fiction in its content.

At the beginning of this season, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who at the time was the leader of the Juarez Cartel and is otherwise known as The Lord of the Skies, can be seen flying a small plane filled to the brim with cocaine. Suddenly, as the plane is about to crash, Amado Carrillo makes an emergency landing in the middle of the desert and several cartel members arrive almost immediately to help him move all the cocaine packages into three vans.

At the distance, a fleet of Army jeeps and pickup trucks can be seen, led by General José Gutiérrez Rebollo. The fleet supposedly pursues and finally arrests the leader of the Juárez Cartel.

But, how true is what is shown in one of the most successful series of our time?

When we review what really happened during the arrest, we find that it was actually the Army who captured Carrillo at a military checkpoint, holding him in Military Camp 1 in Naucalpan, State of Mexico, after he tried to bribe the soldiers. Amado Carrillo Fuentes was really arrested when he was a lieutenant of Rafael Aguilar Guajardo, one of the founders of the Juárez Cartel, an interesting fact, since in the series it seems that The Lord of the Skies was already the leader of the cartel.

In fact, it was General Antonio Riviello Bazan, former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's Secretary of National Defense, who had Carrillo Fuentes in custody. Apparently after torturing him for several hours, Riviello called Javier Coello Trejo, then Deputy Attorney General in charge of combating drug trafficking, to tell him that the Army had arrested the drug lord and ask him to pick up Amado at Military Camp 1, so that he could be taken in and brought to justice.

Information found in the media indicates that soldiers tortured Amado Carrillo Fuentes so much that he could not breathe well, which lead to Deputy Attorney General Coello Trejo opting to transfer him to the Federal Attorney General's Office, where he ordered that a cell be adapted as an intensive care unit to save Carrilos life.

Once Amado Carrillo recovered, he was brought to justice and, although he was sentenced to several years in prison, he only spent one year in jail for illegal possession of weapons, not for drug trafficking.

According to Coello Trejo's own statements: "obviously the damned corruption, a magistrate, one Holy Wednesday, at six o'clock in the afternoon, let him out; when we arrived at the prison, he was already gone". Either because of money or threats, a magistrate decided to release the capo, arguing that the crime of arms stockpiling was invalid because Amado Carrillo Fuentes managed to obtain that number of weapons "over the years" and not for reasons related to drug trafficking.

Coello Trejo's statements prove that the spectacular start of the third season of Narcos: Mexico is false. A series that has gained the interest of audiences especially since it seemed to tell the true story behind drug trafficking in Mexico, does not present a version that even resembles the truth.

How true is the arrest of Amado Carrillo Fuentes presented in Narcos: Mexico 3? Apparently, not true at all... and for better or worse, this seems to be a consistent theme throughout the season.

* The death of Rafael Aguilar Guajardo

In its first chapter, Narcos: Mexico 3 shows Professor Carlos Hank Gonzalez, a well-known PRI politician of that time, in a meeting with members of the Juárez Cartel, Rafael Aguilar Guajardo and Amado Carrillo Fuentes. According to the series, Professor Hank wishes to purchase from the Cartel some land on the border of Chihuahua to expand Grupo Hank business since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was about to begin, however Aguilar Guajardo refused to sale the land to Hank Gonzalez.

The decision makes Amado Carrillo Fuentes so angry that he decides to killed Aguilar Guajardo at point-blank range. Later, Amado Carrillo goes to the Ciudad Juarez airport to stop Professor Hank's plane. He offers him the land he had requested and, in return, proposes to use Professor Hank’s racetrack in Tijuana to launder money from the Juarez Cartel.

How true is this story presented by the series?

First of all, Rafael Aguilar Guajardo was not associated with Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Aguilar Guajardo was an agent of the Mexican Federal Security Agency and one of the founders of the Juarez Cartel, along with Gilberto Ontiveros, El Greñas, and Rafael Muñoz Talavera. By 1988, the organization had 30 chiefs and commanders of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police on its payroll, who were in charge of guarding drug shipments.

Amado Carrillo Fuentes joined the Juarez Cartel thanks to the request of his uncle, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, Don Neto, who was one of the leaders of the Juarez Cartel, as well as being one of the co-founders of the Guadalajara Cartel with Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo.

Aguilar Guajardo was in charge of establishing contacts with Colombian Cartels, specifically with the Cali and Medellin cartels, controlling 60% of the Colombian cocaine that reached the United States. Fun fact, Aguilar Guajardo was the owner of a nightclub named Premier in Mexico City and of the world-famous Lido cabaret in Paris.

Over time, Amado Carrillo Fuentes earned Aguilar Guajardo's trust, gaining access to the Cali and Medellin Cartel's contacts. In order to keep control of the Juarez Cartel, Amado Carrillo ordered Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni, then Chief of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police, to shoot Aguilar Guajardo to death on April 12, 1993, when he boarded a boat at a dock in Cancun.

What is known about the alleged involvement of Professor Hank in this story? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. What's more, his alleged ties to the Juarez Cartel seem to be groundless.

The story Narcos: Mexico 3 tells us about Aguilar Guajardo's death seems to be rather false, just as the business dealings between the Juarez Cartel and the PRI politician Carlos Hank.

* The murder of Héctor Félix Miranda, El Gato, founder of the Zeta Weekly

In the series Narcos: Mexico 3, the main voice narrating the history of drug trafficking in Mexico, particularly the rise of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, belongs to Andrea Nuñez, one of the youngest journalists of the newspaper La Voz (The Voice). As the series progresses, Andrea Nuñez's character becomes more relevant until she turns into the spokesperson for "the historical truth of drug trafficking in Mexico". Almost from the beginning of the third season, Andrea Nuñez accuses politician Carlos Hank González of being the main business partner of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, leader of the Juárez Cartel.

Andrea Nuñez claims that Carlos Hank González is "the personification of institutionalized corruption" of the Mexican political system, and accuses him of having murdered one of the founders of the newspaper La Voz, and laundering money from the Juarez Cartel in the casino he owns in Tijuana.

With such claims, we would think that the Narcos: Mexico series has all the elements to support these versions and accusations. As viewers, it would be difficult to doubt what we watched in the series.

But... How true is this story?

First, the newspaper La Voz does not exist. It was actually inspired by the Zeta Weekly, a media outlet known for touching on sensitive issues such as organized crime, drug trafficking and corruption, whose print distribution is done in several cities in Baja California state, mostly in Tijuana. This weekly was founded by Jesús Blancornelas, presented in the series as Ramón Salgado, and by Héctor Félix, known by his nickname El Gato. Also, reporter Andrea Nuñez was inspired by journalist Adela Navarro Bello, who currently serves as general director of the Zeta Weekly.

On April 22, 1988, Héctor Félix, El Gato, was murdered, allegedly for the information he published in his column Un poco de algo (A little bit of something), in which he criticized Mexican political figures, various members of the PRI, and of different cartels, including the Tijuana Cartel.

Almost ten years later, in 1997, Jesús Blancornelas, the other founder of the Zeta Weekly, also suffered an attack when he was ambushed by members of the Tijuana Cartel after he published an article about the leader of this criminal organization, Ramón Arellano Félix. During the attack, Blancornelas was injured and his bodyguard died.

In June 2004, the editor of the Zeta Weekly, Francisco Javier Ortiz Franco, was appointed Attorney for the murder of Héctor Félix by the Inter-American Press Association and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and shortly after his appointment he was also murdered. In 2011, several media outlets revealed that it was Javier Arellano Felix, the leader of the Tijuana Cartel, who had ordered the journalist's murder.

So, who really murdered Héctor Félix, El Gato, the founder of the Zeta Weekly? The reality is uncertain, although the development of the facts points to Javier Arellano Felix, the leader of the Tijuana Cartel.

The truth is that the politician Carlos Hank has never been mentioned by authorities as one of those involved in this case, as the series points out, and the versions used by the production of Narcos: Mexico are openly modified to hook the audience into a classic cops and robbers story.

Why should we care about the content of a series like Narcos: Mexico? Because, in the minds of viewers, the story we watch on our screens appear to be true and real. In the post-truth era, how can we distinguish lies from truths? That's what this platform is for.

* The death of Cardinal Posadas: accident or assassination? Part 1

Chapter 5 of the third season of Narcos: Mexico revolves around the death of Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo. While the series implies that Cardinal Posadas died when he was caught in the middle of a shooting between the Tijuana Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel, facts tell another story.

On May 24, 1993, shortly before 4 pm, Cardinal Posadas arrived at Guadalajara International Airport to meet the Vatican's representative in Mexico, Girolamo Prigione. However, they never managed to meet because the Cardinal was assassinated before getting out of his car, where he was shot 14 times between his legs and chest. His driver, Pedro Pérez Hernández, and 5 other people were killed along with him.

Hours after the death of Cardinal Posadas was made public, the Mexican Attorney General's Office (PGR) published their official statement where it was established that the Cardinal had been killed when he was caught in a crossfire between the Arellano Felix and Joaquin El Chapo Guzman Cartels.

Immediately, doubts arose about the initial hypothesis of the PGR. The car received 57 bullet impacts. The forensic investigation, in charge of Mario Rivas Souza, concluded that the shots received by the Cardinal and his driver had been "very direct" and at a distance of one meter. This led to think that the Cardinal had indeed been the main target.

Giving all the questioning, the PGR introduced a second version. At that time, Attorney General Jorge Carpizo stated that Cardinal Posadas and Perez Hernandez had actually been mistaken for El Chapo himself and one of his men. According to the authorities, Cardinal Posadas –a 67-year-old man dressed as a priest, with almost white hair and a tall, stocky build– was killed due to "physical similarities" with El Chapo, who at the time was a young, slim and short man.

Due to the incredible version, the PGR's new hypothesis caused even more doubts in the public. While the authorities claimed that the Cardinal arrived at the airport in a car that was the same model and color as the one El Chapo was driving, the catholic community and Mexican citizens pointed out that if the gunshots were as close as previously reported, then it was practically impossible to have confused the two men.

This idea of confusion was completely discarded when Jose Antonio Ortega Sanchez, lawyer for the Archbishop of Guadalajara, assured that during the attack one of the witnesses heard one of the assassins say they were going to kill the priest.

* The death of Cardinal Posadas: accident or assassination? Part 2

While the PGR insisted that Cardinal Posadas had been killed in a crossfire between the Sinaloa and the Tijuana Cartel, there is a third version.

Indeed, the Arellano Felix and El Chapo Guzman were at the Guadalajara Airport at the same time as Cardinal Posadas, but it is rumored that they attended a meeting to "smooth things over", an appointment that was organized by Rodolfo Leon Aragon, El Chino, then head of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police. Rumors indicate that there was never a confrontation between the two Cartels. In fact, when the attack began, the Arellano Felix brothers fled by plane and El Chapo left the premises in a car.

Narcos: Mexico claims that the Arellano Felix brothers fled the scene in a TAESA plane, an airline that, according to the series', supposedly belonged to Professor Carlos Hank Gonzalez. However, there is not a single version that proves that the leaders of the Tijuana Cartel escaped on a TAESA plane.

It is said that prior to the incident, the Arellano Felix family had been living in Guadalajara for a month while they were looking for El Chapo. One of the Tijuana Cartel's men, Jesus Alberto Bayardo Robles, El Gory, declared that after the search was over, his bosses sent him to buy plane tickets to Tijuana on May 24, 1993, the day of the Cardinal's murder. Everything seems to indicate that the Tijuana Cartel leaders were on their way out, and that they had no intention of killing the Cardinal. And as an additional fact: it turns out that Professor Hank Gonzalez was never a shareholder or owner of TAESA.

El Gory initially helped support the PGR's version that claimed there was a confusion between the Cardinal and El Chapo. Years later, in 1997, while El Gory was in prison in the United States, he stated that he had been forced to sign a confession in Mexico, and that the real motive for the murder was linked to incriminating information in possession of the Cardinal.

Thus, a third hypothesis was born. The existence of a third group formed by members of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police that directly attacked Cardinal Posadas.

Jose Antonio Ortega Sanchez, the lawyer for the Archbishop of Guadalajara, assured that this group was made up of members of the Federal Judicial Police and that El Chino had confessed to him that there were actually three armed groups at the airport: the two Cartels and a group made up of alleged state agents. In 2011, Benjamin Arellano Felix, former leader of the Tijuana Cartel, confirmed that Posadas' death had been planned by El Chino and that he had indeed summoned the Arellano Félix and El Chapo to the Guadalajara Airport that day, although he did not reveal the reason for the meeting.

In her book “The Lords of the Narco”, journalist Anabel Hernández mentions that the Cardinal's death "powerfully called" the attention of Amado Carrillo, who could not believe that his people were involved in the murder. Furious, The Lord of the Skies began to investigate the facts. He called military and police authorities and demanded the presence of Héctor Palma, El Güero, a friend and associate of El Chapo.

According to Hernandez's book, Amado Carrillo felt reassured after El Güero told him that El Chapo did not murder Cardinal Posadas. The Lord of the Skies also knew that the Arellano Felix brothers would not have killed the Cardinal because they were a highly religious family (as shown in the series) and had a close relationship with Cardinal Posadas, who had even baptized a daughter of Ramon Arellano Felix, when he was bishop of Tijuana. Their mother was a fervent devotee of the Cardinal and would never forgive her children for committing the crime. She even stopped speaking to them for a while when she suspected that they had indeed killed the priest.

According to the journalist's version, Amado Carrillo concluded that neither the Arellano Felix nor El Chapo were involved in the shooting, and that it was in fact a third group, confirming the version that it could be the Federal Judicial Police.

Almost 30 years have passed since the Cardinal's murder and the case is still open with no one sentenced for this crime. Although the PGR insists that the Cardinal died at the hands of hitmen of the Tijuana Cartel, mistaking him for El Chapo, the Mexican Catholic Church assures that he was the victim of a State crime and, together with the Vatican, has expressed its disagreement with the investigation and continues to press for justice in the case.

* The truth behind the assassination of Cardinal Posadas. Part 1

The death of Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo is considered a key moment in the history of the Narco in Mexico. This event has been personified in different series and movies, such as Narcos: Mexico, over the years. Almost 30 years after his death, many questions remain unanswered: Who killed the Cardinal? What happened on May 24, 1993 in the parking lot of the Guadalajara Airport? And the question we have all ask ourselves: Why was Cardinal Posadas killed?

There has been much speculation about this last question. There are those who claim that Cardinal Posadas was in the wrong place at the wrong time and that his death was nothing more than a sad accident. Others are convinced that the Cardinal was involved with drug trafficking and, as a reckoning, the Arellano Felix or El Chapo decided to end his life.

Jose Antonio Ortega Sanchez, lawyer for the Archbishopric of Guadalajara, is convinced that Cardinal Posadas had important information about the links of Mexican politicians with organized crime, among them Raul Salinas de Gortari, the brother of the president of Mexico at the time. Ortega Sanchez has also mentioned that the Cardinal was preparing himself to make a trip to Puerto Vallarta where he was set to meet with a high-ranking official of the PGR in order to present him with all the information he had, for example, evidence of the relationship of Mexican politicians with Bolivian, Peruvian and Colombian drug traffickers.

Ignacio Flores Ruiz, a friend of the Cardinal since they were children, testified before the Public Prosecutor's Office that on May 5, 1993, a few days before his assassination, he met with the Cardinal. According to Flores, during this meeting, Posadas confessed to him that he had attended a lunch at Los Pinos, the Mexican presidential house, where he received "indecent proposals", telling him not to get involved in the Tijuana-Guadalajara corridor, in prostitution or in "other things" that happened there, promising him in exchange "whatever he wanted" for his ministry. According to Ortega Sanchez, the Cardinal had gone to Los Pinos with the intention of complaining to President Carlos Salinas about the links between politicians and organized crime.

After his initial statement on February 25, 1995, Flores Ruiz made a second statement in December 2001 in which he claimed that Cardinal Posadas had received threats from the Mexican Presidency and, in particular, from former official Jose Cordoba Montoya, who at the time was head of the Office of the Presidency of Mexico. Flores Ruiz even mentioned that Cordoba Montoya threatened to slap Cardinal Posadas.

However, on May 23, 2003, in a third statement, Flores Ruiz declared that the Cardinal never clarified to him what the alleged propositions consisted of or who had made them to him, even mentioning that he did not know Cordoba Montoya. That same day, Flores Ruiz retracted his previous statements, accusing Ortega Sanchez and Congressman Fernando Guzman of pressuring and inducing him to appear before the PGR. Both Ortega Sanchez and Guzman, and other witnesses, have denied these accusations.

Is there any truth behind this theory? These are statements that have never been confirmed and, so far, there is no additional evidence that points to this or the theory presented in Narcos: Mexico being true.

* The truth behind the assassination of Cardinal Posadas. Part 2

One theory states that, despite the alleged threats Posadas received from Los Pinos, the religious leader was willing to make public the information he had on the links between politicians and organized crime leaders. Later, Jose Antonio Ortega Sanchez, lawyer for the Archbishop of Guadalajara, accused General Jorge Carrillo Olea, future Governor of Morelos, of leading the state operation that killed Cardinal Posadas, which would imply that neither the Tijuana Cartel, nor El Chapo Guzman, nor Professor Carlos Hank Gonzalez, had anything to do with the assassination, as the series suggests.

A second theory regarding the motive behind the Cardinal's murder accuses Posadas himself of being involved in illicit activities. In the book "The Damned" by Jesus Lemus, a former commander of the Judicial Police in Sinaloa and top hitman for the Arellano Felix, Jose Humberto Rodriguez Banuelos, known as La Rana, recounts that years before his murder in 1993, he was on the verge of assassinating the Cadina because he "was taking profits from an arms sales group." According to La Rana, the Cardinal used the church where he offered mass to hide the arms sales.

During his ministerial statement, La Rana assured that in the "place there were several armed people with shells (metal credentials), dressed in civilian clothes, apparently judicials (police), as well as two official Army vehicles, three from the Federal Highway Police”. He also mentioned that among the police elements he identified Rodolfo Leon Aragon, El Chino, then director of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police, who was accompanying El Chapo. It is worth mentioning that La Rana has been one of the only people arrested in connection with the assassination of Cardinal Posadas. According to the author of the book, "La Rana" was hired by a military officer to orchestrate the Cardinal's assassination.

Jesus Alberto Bayardo Robles, El Gory, a man of the Arellano Felix family, declared in 1997 that the real motive for the assassination was linked to documents the Cardinal had in which organized crime bosses were involved with high-ranking Mexican government officials. Witnesses to the murder also testified that a man opened the trunk of the car in which the Cardinal was traveling and took out documents whose contents and whereabouts are unknown.

While he was in prison, in 2011, Benjamin Arellano Felix, former leader of the Tijuana Cartel, said that the Cardinal helped get weapons to guerrilla groups, however, he did not specify more. On the other hand, Marcos, the historic leader of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), said he had the "intuition" that Posadas was killed because he knew of some high-ranking officials involved in the drug business, information he was about to tell Girolamo Prigione, the Vatican's representative in Mexico he was set to meet at the airport the day of his murder.

* Mario Aburto, Murderer or Innocent?

Chapter 6 of Narcos: Mexico begins by recounting how 1994 became a historic year for Mexico. The beginning of the NAFTA, the uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), and the assassination of the presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, are key events in the country's modern history.

Much has been said about the assassination of what would surely be the future president of Mexico. Even so, the series manages to present a different twist to the event. According to the character of Andrea Nuñez, the journalist of La Voz media outlet and main narrator of the series, Luis Donaldo Colosio's progressive discourse had turned him into a threat to those who had elected him as a candidate. Throughout the series it is mentioned that Professor Carlos Hank González was the one who appointed Colosio as the future president, and who was allegedly behind his assassination.

Narcos: Mexico attributes so much power to Professor Hank that it is inevitable to wonder if it is really true. Doubts arise since, after a fairly exhaustive search for information, no reliable sources have been found that today, or even at the time, point to Carlos Hank Gonzalez as the intellectual author of Colosio's assassination.

The official version that Mexican authorities continue to defend to this day is that one of "the lone assassin" thesis, according to which Mario Aburto fired two shots at Colosio, one of them in the head that caused his death, during the Lomas Taurinas rally in Tijuana on March 23, 1994.

The Mexican government quickly concluded that Aburto had been the material and intellectual author of the assassination and, until 2019, it was impossible to corroborate this version, due to the fact that the file was kept as classified information until independent journalist Laura Sanchez Ley together with NGO Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity won the judicial battle to declassify the Colosio Case file.

In an interview, journalist Sanchez Ley pointed out some of the most relevant data that came to light from the declassification of the Colosio Case, stating that this new information revealed documentation which proves things that were previously only speculated. Sanchez Ley says that, among the documents, it is written that Aburto's cousins retracted their original statements, mentioning that the Judicial Police told them that "if they did not declare that their cousin had shown them the gun a month before, they were going to put them in a hole."

Among the declassified material, there are also videos and photographs of the trial and other evidence, including the video reconstruction of the murder made by the PGR and a video in which Aburto assures that the reconstruction is altered, since it shows a version that is not real, given that he never fired two shots.

The truth is that Colosio's assassination is surrounded by doubts and inconsistencies, perhaps now more than ever. Journalist Sanchez Ley declared that while analyzing the file she realized that there were "many contradictions" and that, in any case, it would be better to ask "what was the real story?”

Aburto still has not officially spoken to the press and it is rumored that he is waiting to publish his own book in which he will tell his version of events. For his part, Jesús Lemus, author of "The Damn", who was in prison with him, assures that when he asked the question "Did you kill Colosio?" Aburto simply replied: "It's just publicity. I didn't kill him, but when do you beat the government? If they say it was you, then it was you and there is no way to say it wasn't you. And meanwhile, here I am ending my life for something I'm not even sure I did."

What is clear is that, almost 28 years later, there are still many doubts about the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio and many rumors that point to several politicians of the time as those responsible. However, the idea that it was PRI politician Carlos Hank Gonzalez seems to be one of the least credible, since there is neither data nor evidence that would make him responsible for the candidate's death. Everything points to the fact that the scriptwriters decided to use Hank as a sort of character to be blamed for all the legends and rumors of the PRI political system in Mexico at that time, with the certainty that there would be no legal consequences because he is no longer alive, which is why Hank could not accuse them of defamation.

* The Story of General Gutiérrez Rebollo and Amado Carrillo, The Lord of the Skies.

A key event in the third season of Narcos: Mexico is the arrest of General Gutierrez Rebollo, who served as the Mexican Anti-Drug Czar. According to the series, the General was arrested because he received bribes from Amado Carrillo Fuentes, The Lord of the Skies.

In the chapter, Andrea Nuñez, the journalist of La Voz (The Voice) media outlet and main narrator of the series, says that General Rebollo was seen as a savior for being entirely in charge of Mexico's counter-narcotics program. The United States government respected him so much that they shared their best intelligence documents with him, at the same time the General was on the payroll of the Juarez Cartel.

But how true is the story narrated by Nuñez?

Jose de Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo was a Mexican military officer who reached the rank of Major General and commanded for 7 years the Fifth Military Region (Aguascalientes, Colima, Jalisco, Nayarit and Zacatecas) based in Jalisco. He was known for being "tough and incorruptible," with great leadership skills and a seemingly impeccable military career.

In fact, while an unwritten rule established that commanders of a Military Region should last only two years in their post, Gutierrez Rebollo remained as Commander of the Fifth Military Region from 1989 to December 1996. One of his greatest achievements against drug trafficking was the capture of Héctor Luis Palma Salazar, better known as El Güero Palma, in 1995.

In December 1996, Gutiérrez Rebollo was named head of the National Institute for the Fight against Drugs, earning him the nickname "Anti-Drug Czar". In that position, he gained access to investigations, wiretaps, interdiction programs, anti-drug operations, informants and to all the Mexican intelligence on drug trafficking, in addition to having the privilege of knowing the information provided by the U.S. government and its specialized agencies.

Recently appointed as Anti-Drug Czar, Gutierrez Rebollo participated in the elaboration of the counter-narcotics strategy that would be launched jointly from the White House and Mexican presidential house, Los Pinos, in February 1997. A month earlier, Gutierrez Rebollo was part of the Mexican delegation that attended a meeting with high-level U.S. officials at the White House. General Barry McCaffrey, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, recognized him as "a man with an impeccable reputation".

Months after he took up his new position, an investigation was launched against him after an informant reported that he had moved into a "luxury apartment, the rent of which would be impossible to pay with the public servant salary he received". It was rumored that the apartment actually belonged to the leader of the Juarez Cartel, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, The Lord of the Skies.

During the investigation, federal authorities obtained a tape in which Gutierrez Rebollo agreed with Amado Carrillo the payments he would receive in exchange for ignoring the Juarez Cartel's activities. Some informants claimed that the Anti-Drug Czar asked for US$60 million from the Juarez Cartel in exchange for Army deserters to help in drug trafficking operations.

At first glance, it seems that the image portrayed of General Rebollo by the series is not so far from reality.

* The Capture of General Gutierrez Rebollo

In Narcos: Mexico Chapter 9, DEA agent Walt Breslin learns that General Rebollo is about to be arrested. When Walt Breslin arrives to confront the General, he sees the military burning documents, destroying evidence and virtually dismantling the Mexican government's anti-drug offices in Tijuana. The General is at his desk watching over the whole operation as he says to Breslin that the CNI (National Intelligence Center) is removing "anything that might embarrass his bosses."

When Agent Breslin asks the General if the accusations against him are true, Rebollo simply replies that their countries - Mexico and the United States - don't really want to fight the war on drugs, but only to pretend they do. Gutierrez Rebollo even comments that he did what he had to do “to get things done”.

Although the story presented by Narcos: Mexico seems appealing and worthy of a series, the reality of General Gutierrez Rebollo's capture is very different when contrasted with verified sources of information.

On the night of February 6, 1997, General Gutierrez Rebollo received a call from the Mexican Secretary of Defense, General Enrique Cervantes, who ordered Rebollo to immediately come to his office. Almost at midnight, a select group of members of the Army’s elite corps arrested Gutierrez Rebollo.

The news of his arrest was kept in secret for 13 days, giving way to all kinds of speculations about the whereabouts of General Rebollo. Some said that the General had suffered an attack, others that he had tried to commit suicide and some claimed that he had suffered a nervous breakdown and was in the Military Hospital. Years later, General Rebollo himself would reveal that he was hospitalized against his will for surgical intervention to induce a heart attack and cause his death.

On February 18, 1997, Secretary Cervantes called a press conference in which he declared that Gutierrez Rebollo was linked to organized crime by protecting Amado Carrillo. Cervantes declared that "Gutierrez Rebollo had betrayed the military institution and had undermined national security by providing protection, for several years, to one of the main drug lords. He would be severely prosecuted, regardless of hierarchy".

72 days after being named Anti-Drug Czar, Gutierrez Rebollo became the first Mexican Army General to be sentenced for having a direct relationship with drug trafficking. He was accused of receiving bribes, obstructing justice, facilitating the transportation of cocaine, complicity in arms trafficking and guilty of aiding Amado Carrillo as well as the Juarez Cartel.

Both Gutierrez Rebollo and his family argued that he had been framed, seeking to damage his reputation, and insisted that if he had ever had contact with any drug trafficker, it had always been with the intention of arresting them.

After his conviction, Gutierrez Rebollo was sentenced to almost 32 years in prison and transferred to the supermax prison in Almoloya de Juárez, State of Mexico. He remained there until he was transferred to a federal prison in Tepic.

In 2007, he was sentenced to a new 40-year prison term, and a fine of US$2,263,446. That same year, Gutierrez Rebollo filed an injunction against the sentence imposed on him in 1997 and requested the reinstatement of his military ranks. The original sentence was not absolved, but his ranks were reinstated in 2008, as a sign of forgiveness from the military.

In 2011, he was transferred to the Central Military Hospital in Mexico City, due to cancer and diabetes. He died of a stroke under house arrest at the age of 79.

* General Gutiérrez Rebollo's Version of His Arrest

One of the most important events of the Narcos: Mexico series is when Andrea Nuñez, the journalist of La Voz (The Voice) newspaper, finds out that General Rebollo, the Anti-Drug Czar, had been working for the Juarez Cartel run by Amado Carrillo, The Lord of the Skies. Nuñez's discovery unleashes a series of events that lead to the General's dismissal and arrest as well as Carrillo's death.

As a military man who allegedly had an impeccable reputation, the General's arrest caused a shock among the Mexican population. Many questions and speculations arose around his arrest. From that moment on, both Gutierrez Rebollo and his family insisted that he had been framed and that he had never had any contact with drug traffickers.

In the series, the General is accused of being on the Juarez Cartel's payroll. In real life, he was accused of receiving bribes, obstructing justice, facilitating the transport of cocaine and being an accomplice to arms trafficking.

Until the last day of his life, General Gutierrez Rebollo maintained that he was innocent and that his arrest was purely politically motivated. In February 2011, Gutierrez Rebollo had an interview with journalist Isabel Arvide, in which he stated:

“I was in Cervantes Aguirre's way... that’s the reason of everything, that's why he wanted to kill me. Don't be fooled... everything is in my file... if you want to see it, I caught everyone, of ‘all colors and flavors’, of every cartel, I got tired of giving good results, there they are, everyone I fought against. General Riviello used to tell me: you go too deep, you know [and you will face the consequences]. I was equally against one or the other. Or have you already forgotten that I grabbed El Güero Palma? And who was that bastard's second?... Well, Amado's. And then they shouldn't wonder if the only time we grabbed Amado was me.”

In the same interview, Gutierrez Rebollo accused President Ernesto Zedillo's father-in-law of having links with the Colima cartel of the Amezcua brothers, known as the Methamphetamine Kings:

There is concrete information of a relationship that has not been thoroughly investigated between the Amezcua brothers and the Velasco family, the father-in-law of President Ernesto Zedillo. There is no concrete evidence, I was only there for two months, before I had nothing to do with it... It was an investigation that the DEA asked me to do directly, they wanted me to do it from my office because people working for the Mexican General Attorney Madrazo Cuéllar had stolen the American money to do that job.

Gutierrez Rebollo even pointed out that it was General Enrique Cervantes, Secretary of Mexican National Defense, the one who received the 60-million-dollar bribe from Amado Carrillo Fuentes in 1997. The 60 million were delivered in a meeting with the Arellano Felix and Amado Carrillo and part of the money "was transported in a Highway Police patrol vehicle assigned to Los Pinos (the Mexican presidential house)."

As in several other chapters of the third season of Narcos: Mexico, the question remains: who is telling the truth about the arrest of General Gutierrez Rebollo? The government? The series? The General himself? Or is there another version that none of us know about?

* The Story of El Paso Savings and Loans Bank

In chapter 10 of Narcos: Mexico, La Voz (The Voice) journalist Andrea Nuñez explains how, after Anti-Drug Czar General Gutierrez Rebollo is arrested, Amado Carrillo disappears and becomes the most wanted fugitives in Mexico and the United States. Nuñez also questions whether anyone else would be prosecuted and implicitly suggests that politician Carlos Hank Gonzalez should be investigated.

In the same chapter, La Voz newspaper reporters find that Professor Carlos Hank Gonzalez erased his tracks by disappearing El Paso Savings and Loans Bank in Texas, which was allegedly used to launder drug money.

However, a simple internet search confirms that the bank mentioned in the series is actually a financial group called Laredo National Bancshares Holding Company that never disappeared.

In fact, Laredo National Bancshares was founded in 1892 by two banks, Laredo National Bank and South Texas National Bank, as well as by the mortgage company, Homeowners Loan Corporation.

One hundred years later, in 1989, Carlos Hank Rohn, Professor Carlos Hank Gonzalez’s son, bought shares of the group and, in 1991, purchased 74,000 shares of Laredo National Bancshares for $7.4 million. With this purchase, Carlos Hank Rohn became the majority shareholder of the group. The bank remained in Hank Rohn's hands long after Gutierrez Rebollo's arrest and the bank was bought by the well-known Spanish group BBVA.

Although in the series claims that the bank in Texas is a "shitty little bank", that it is a "drug dealer's bank” that runs millions of dollars, Laredo National Bank is a bank with a long history in Texas. In 2005, the group had more than 40 branches in that state, 110,000 customers, 3.52 billion dollars total assets and deposits for 3 billion dollars. According to BBVA data, the group was the leading financial institution in the Texas-Mexico border region, with a market share of almost 23%. The bank is still operating today just under a different name, BBVA Compass.

So, once again, several of the stories told by Andrea Nuñez's character throughout the third season of Narcos: Mexico seem more like a fictional tale than a portrait of the reality of drug trafficking in Mexico.

## References

1. ↑ [1]
2. ↑ [2]
3. ↑ [3]
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 [4]
5. ↑ [5]
6. ↑ [6]
7. ↑ [7]
8. ↑ [8]
9. ↑ [9]
10. ↑ [10]
11. ↑ [11]
12. ↑ [12]
13. ↑ [13]
14. ↑ [14]
15. ↑ https://www.gorillaconvict.com/2015/04/the-beginning-of-the-mexican-cartels/
16. ↑ [15]
17. ↑ [16]
18. ↑ [17]
19. ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/doliaestevez/2013/10/01/was-mexican-fugitive-caro-quintero-the-first-billionaire-drug-lord/
20. ↑ [18]
21. ↑ [19]
22. ↑ [20]
23. ↑ [21]
24. ↑ [22]
25. ↑ http://reportecatolicolaico.com/2018/08/alberto-sicilia-falcon-el-baron-de-las-drogas/
26. ↑ http://articles.latimes.com/1985-06-18/news/mn-3197\_1\_caro-quintero
27. ↑ [23]
28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 [24]
29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 [25]
30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Desperados: Latin Drug Lords, U.S. Lawmen, and the War America Can't Win, Elaine Shannon
31. ↑ United States-Mexican Cooperation in Narcotics Control Efforts ..., Volume 4
32. ↑ https://www.dea.gov/fugitives/sergio-espino-verdin
33. ↑ [26]
34. ↑ [27]
35. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/08/13/drug-suspect-held-in-dea-agents-slaying/72f76949-69b4-46c1-a84d-aa68764cfc7a/
36. ↑ https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/anatomy-of-a-drug-cartel/
37. ↑ [28]
38. ↑ [29]
39. ↑ [30]
40. ↑ [31]
41. ↑ [32]
42. ↑ [33]
43. ↑ [34]
44. ↑ [35]
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