by Jay Begler
As a precaution, however, Chula sought to increase the odds against detection in his favor by integrating the herds transported with steers from legitimate ranches. Each of his steers, however, had a chip implanted so that his men at the meat processing plant would know which steers had the drugs embedded in them. Increasingly, the directors of Sinaloa were taking notice of Chula’s capability and business acumen.
Before long, he became a frequent visitor to the meetings of the men who called themselves the “directors” of Sinaloa, even though there was no formal corporate structure. The five men who comprised the “Board of Directors” had such power that few questioned their leadership role. They usually killed those foolish enough to do so, along with their families, or sent them to some distant outpost in Mexico. In the third year of his tenure with the Cartel, Chula accepted an invitation to join the Cartel’s board of directors. This time there was not the same reticence he displayed with Guzman. Accepting the invitation, Chula replied, “I’m honored.” The misgivings about working for the Cartel had disappeared. Chula loved the work and the vast sums of money coming his way.
The modest ranch house where he first encountered Guzman remained as a reminder of his former life. Now, however, he occupied a ١٢,٠٠٠ square foot hacienda. He had already amassed a small fortune, which Morales’ father managed. He and Adriana invested in movies, and she frequently received on-screen credits as a producer. Her investments brought rewards of modest roles in the motion picture she had underwritten. There were occasional trips to Hollywood and some dinners with American and Mexican movie stars and even an invitation to Cannes. These benefits appeared to quell Adriana’s protests about the Cartel. Like most spouses of Cartel members, she looked the other way. The only thing that filled each of them with dread was the knowledge that someday they would have to reveal their involvement in the Cartel to their daughter.
In the sixth year of his tenure, the Cartel’s directors invited him to become the head of the Cartel, after a rival cartel assassinated its current leader in London while being fitted for a bespoke suit in Anderson & Sheppard on Savile Row. As a condition of his agreeing to become the head of the Cartel, Chula insisted that the Cartel transfer back the ranch, cattle business, and the meatpacking plant back to him. The directors agreed.
Chula knew a rival cartel was responsible for the Director’s murder. Within weeks, ten masked Sinaloa assassins killed the head of the cartel, his entire family, children included, and the twenty bodyguards assigned to protect them. The retaliation precipitated a war between the two cartels, which Chula correctly called a “lose-lose” situation. This was not the only inter-cartel war occurring in Mexico. Cartels all over the country were warring with each other with the resultant loss of revenue and personnel. Of significant consequence to the cartels, the disarray within them enabled law enforcement to place undercover agents within some of them, ultimately leading to the collapse of two smaller cartels. Chula realized that it was crucial to put an end to the violence and to unite the cartels into a single, cohesive, nationwide unit.
The first thing he did was call a temporary truce with the cartel that murdered the previous director of Sinaloa. Given the bloodbath and enormous expense precipitated by the war, the cartel accepted the ceasefire. He then set up a meeting with many of the rival cartel leaders. Because no one trusted any suggested location, the cartel leaders had a conference via Zoom. Using a PowerPoint presentation, Chula demonstrated how by having a formal working relationship, one where the cartels cooperated and pooled their resources and knowhow, their profits would double. He also proposed that the Cartels merge into a single cartel called the “Aztec Cartel,” a working name the merged group later adopted. It would be run much like a large corporation, with the heads of each of the Cartels becoming a member of Aztec’s Board of Directors. Chula would remain as the head of the merged Cartel, but elections for that position would occur in two years.
Within six months of the Zoom meeting, four out of eight of the cartels agreed in principle to merge into Sinaloa. Once the parties worked out the details of the merger plan, they signed a formal merger agreement. The agreement was not so much a binding contract, but the rules of the game. Under Chula’s supervision, and with a team of thirty accountants and management types working on the project, the four new cartels integrated seamlessly into Sinaloa. Going forward, the merged Cartel would be called the “Aztec Cartel.”
The integration was an outstanding achievement for Chula, but he was not satisfied. He wanted the inclusion of all the Cartels in Mexico. Chula would make war on the remaining cartels if they refused to join, but not until he was ready. He hired mercenaries, many former Navy Seals or Special Ops personnel, in favor of local Mexican toughs. This change was not an innovation on his part. For decades cartels had used mercenaries. The difference, however, was that Chula staffed up at the top with former high-level personnel types from Blackwater, a well-known military contractor company. The Blackwater team built the best staffed, best equipped, private army in the world. Money was no object.
Simultaneously, he formed various departments at the ranch, including an Intelligence and Security Department. When someone hacked the Cartel’s legitimate businesses with an entirely new form of a virus that made its way through layers of security and the most sophisticated anti-virus software, the hacker, an Iranian fugitive named Eshan, was hunted down and eventually caught. Rather than punish him, Chula offered Eshan a job. Within six months, Eshan became the head of a small army of hackers, used for identity theft, extortion through ransomware, and spying on key governmental officials, both in the United States and Mexico.
Within a year, the intelligence and security group had grown to 150 men and women. A year later, the group had grown so large that it split into two departments, one for intelligence gathering and one to providing security. Security had only one function, namely to assure that the identity of Chula, a/k/a “El Fantasma” and his fellow directors remained a deep secret. Eshan’s group, now fifty, reported to both departments.
Using all the Cartel’s impressive resources, Chula put the four cartels that did not wish to join Aztec under surveillance by tapping their phones and hacking their emails. The Cartel secretly placed listening devices within the homes of the rival cartels’ leaders and chief operatives. With information gleaned from these operations, Aztec took steps to undermine the reluctant cartels’ activities, including informing Mexican and American law enforcement agencies of drug shipments by the cartels and the identities of their chief operatives in the United States. Aztec’s actions, coupled with sanctioned murders, soon destroyed the leadership of all but one of these cartels. Leaders of three of the cartels realized that they had little choice and agreed to become part of the Aztec Cartel.
The only holdout was the head of the largest remaining independent cartel. A war with this Cartel would be extremely costly to both sides in lives and assets. The head of the hold-out cartel knew this, but his crushing ego prevented any rational dialogue. From the listening devices placed in the cartel’s second in command’s home, Chula learned that he was deeply dissatisfied with the head’s decision to turn down Chula’s proposal. With increasing frequency, he called his boss “an old fool” and began planting the seeds of a revolt within his organization. Chula reached out to the number two and soon after that sought an audience with the cartel’s leader. He said that he would come alone and unarmed to the leader’s hacienda to discuss a potential deal. When they met at the leader’s camp, and the man refused to agree to Chula’s proposal, his number two shot him between the eyes. While Chula brought no weapons, he had given the leader’s second in command $12,000,000 and an offer to make him a director of Aztec. Guile was Chula’s weapon.
The other significant change made by Chula was a prohibition against crimes committed against the general population. Cartel soldiers could no longer extort money from what he called “civilians,” Anyone who violated the edict faced severe punishment. Sexual assaul
ts were punishable by death. Cartel members in towns and villages established civilian review boards to review and adjudicate transgressions against civilians. Their “jurisdiction” also included misdeeds by local police, who would sometimes commit crimes against civilians.
The Cartel periodically gave back to local communities by making donations to churches and some local charities. The contributions, always cash, would be delivered to the church or charity in a cardboard box bearing the notation, “From El Fantasma.” These steps did not arise out of a sense of benevolence. Building loyalty among civilians was a priority. It expanded the eyes and ears of the Cartel and its influence. When word spread that the Cartel favored a particular candidate, for example, he or she was invariably elected. In a way, the Cartel under Chula’s leadership acted as a second government, often more effective than elected officials.
Given his mystique, Chula, El Fantasma, became a folk hero to many, and his name soon became synonymous with major criminal events even though there was no actual proof of his connection to them. Through a collection of grainy photographs from street cameras and elsewhere, an image of El Fantasma evolved. He was average height, broad-shouldered, dark-skinned with a long dark handlebar mustache and dark, slightly wavy hair. The image bore no resemblance to Chula but bore a striking resemblance to Emiliano Zapata Salazar, the hero of the Mexican revolution. Since every woman and child knew of Zapata’s appearance, El Fantasma’s status increased further. In virtually every outdoor marketplace, there was a stall that sold El Fantasma tee shirts and caps bearing his grainy image. There was even a video game in which El Fantasma battled the Federales.
Equally as elusive as El Fantasma himself was his money. As good as the governments of Mexico and the United States were at tracing funds, no one could find accounts or investments that might be attributable to him or the Cartel. Nevertheless, by all estimates, if El Fantasma were legitimate, he would have been close to the top of Forbes’ list of the wealthiest people in the world. The Aztec Cartel as a business entity would have ranked fourth on the Fortune 100 List.
Despite his mystique, American and Mexican authorities knew him for what he was, a ruthless but brilliant criminal that would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Under his leadership, the Cartel murdered thousands of people. He personally executed at least one hundred people. That Chula committed murder and ordered the killing of others reflected a drastic change in him. In his pre-cartel days, such acts would be unthinkable. Now, it was just business, and to Chula, business was everything. The Cartel life trumped any sense of morality. Adrianna continued to look the other way and forbid any talk of the Cartel in their daughter’s presence. Isabella, for the time being, was insulated from any knowledge of her father’s involvement with the Cartel. Like everyone else, she viewed El Fantasma as a mysterious folk hero.
Four
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The Perfect Moment
Chula, Rebecca, and Morales arrived at a small airstrip housing at its far end three helicopters, a private jet, and planes adapted to spraying crops. Two of the helicopters were of moderate size, each accommodating four passengers. The third helicopter, set under camouflaged netting, was massive.
Chula said, “This helicopter is an M١٧ used by the American troops in combat. It’s fully armored and holds twenty men. I have it on hand just in case there is a full assault someday against the Aztec Cartel. Today, we will be taking the small one.”
The same pilot that flew Morales the day before was at the controls. “Good morning, Mr. Chula, and good morning Rebecca and Hector.” Morales thought he winked at Rebecca and felt a small tinge of jealousy. She had considered the pilot as a potential candidate for her summer paramour. But when he told her that he had relatives in New York and frequently visited the city, she viewed him as unsafe, and eliminated him from consideration.
“Hope you enjoy the tour. Shall we take the usual route?” Chula nodded, and the helicopter ascended. Sounding very much like a tour guide, the pilot said, “As you probably know, the ranch covers roughly 10,000 acres, with 10,000 to 20,000 heads of cattle at any one time.”
Rebecca tugged on Hector’s arm, “Down there.” Hector saw what appeared to be an endless number of cattle. The pilot handed Hector and Rebecca binoculars.
“Off to the North, you will see a series of large buildings, where we work on improving breeding techniques.”
Morales said, not intending it as a joke, “Don’t you need bulls for that.”
As the helicopter approached the buildings, the pilot said, “No; just a large syringe containing bull semen. It’s much more efficient.”
“But less fun for the bull,” Rebecca interjected, causing the pilot to add, “You are a funny lady.”
She tugged at Morales’s arm and teased, “And what about you, sir? Do you think I’m a funny lady?”
Putting on his best face but annoyed that the pilot beat him to the punch, he replied, “Yes, indeed.” He noticed that she still held onto his arm, and this pleased him. The warmth of her touch provoked a flicker of sexual excitement within him. The helicopter banked steeply to the left.
The pilot said, “We can’t get any closer than ٦٠٠ hundred yards; the noise upsets the steers.”
In the distance, a mesa rose to about two-thousand feet. As they approached it, Morales noticed an array of listening towers and large antenna dishes. Anticipating his questions, the pilot lied, “Before you ask, Mr. Chula communicates with people all over the world. Fluctuation in the price of beef is an important economic factor in his business. But he is not only in the cattle business. He owns an interest in an oil company, a pipeline company, and has several container ships.”
The reality was that the devices were employed by the Cartel’s Intelligence Department to monitor emails and phone calls from various law enforcement agencies on both sides of the border and to monitor officials, both friendly and not.
Chula interjected, “Let’s do a pass over the farm and head back. Hector, Rebecca, look out to the west.” In the distance they saw an ultra-bright light. “What you are seeing is a reflection coming from what we call our farm. But it’s not one that grows crops. It’s a solar panel farm and provides energy to our entire operation and the adjoining towns. As much as we can, we attempt to be environmentally friendly.”
The solar farm was an example of the Cartel’s use of a portion of its excess cash to invest in an array of legitimate businesses, including a hedge fund run not so much by typical investment types, but by scientists and economists from MIT, Caltech and Stanford. The fund, called “Cutting Edge Investments” (CEI), invested only in highly sophisticated technology companies and was always be on the lookout for emerging companies that promised the “next big thing.” The mechanism of the fund provided an excellent way for the Cartel to launder money. Located in Cambridge, the managers of the fund were unaware that they were really working for a drug Cartel. Nor were they at all suspicious when Chula, and later Isabella when she was an adult, interfaced with the fund’s manager and suggested that they look at a particular stock. The stocks she recommended always went up, because her suggestion was based upon insider information gleaned by Chula’s hacking group.
When they returned to the hacienda, Chula said, “Rebecca, I need to speak with Hector for a while. She nodded, walked off, and said, “See you later, Hector. I’ll be at my pool.”
Once they were in Chula’s study, he said, “Hector: let me tell you why I’ve asked to see you. You know me and your father go back a long way. When I began in this business with maybe 500 acres of mostly scrubland and a few hundred heads of cattle, I realized if I had enough capital, I could develop a thriving cattle business. No banker, however, had any interest in helping me because I was an unknown quantity, and no rancher had attempted to develop what I called ‘Mexican Kobe.’ They were all skeptical of my business model. Then I met your father. He understood my vision, and his bank loaned me enough money to make a significant purchase of acreage and steers. We�
�ve been close friends ever since. Your father’s bank does all my banking. I owe him a lot, which brings me to why I’ve asked you here.”
Morales had a sinking feeling because he knew that Chula would act as his father’s surrogate and pressure him to give up the idea of attending a public high school. Although he could be resolute with his father, he knew he would have difficulty saying no to Chula. He cared for his father, but never viewed him as a man’s man. His father was a businessman who did those conventional things that those similarly situated did. Chula, by contrast, had a commanding presence, an aura of manliness. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have welcomed any advice that Chula offered, but not what was sure to come. Morales, at that moment, suspected that the whole reason for his invitation to the ranch was for Chula to convince him to give up a public high school in favor of the safety of the private school his parents had chosen.
“You will try to convince me not to go to Mexico City High School.”
“I will not attempt to convince you of anything. I am not in a position to do that.”
“Why?”
“I can’t give you advice because I don’t know the reasons for your choice. So, tell me Hector, why do you want to go to Mexico City High instead of a private high school? I know it to be in a terrible part of the city with a lot of toughs and quite a few gang members. Some will be very jealous of you and may try to beat you up just for the hell of it. Others will try to extort money from you.”
“I know that, and I’m not afraid. I’ve never been afraid of anything.”
“So, Hector, that means we are birds of a feather. I am the same way and as long as you are not reckless, that quality will serve you well as you get older and have to meet the challenges of life. Not all challenges are physical, however. But what I want to know is why you made your choice?”
“I started hanging around with some boys at Mexico City high. They differed from all the boys and girls from my school.”
