Jacob Diaz

A week later, vehicles began arriving with roughly 50 to 60 kilos of corn every two weeks.

The product was handed off to a single associate on consignment, $29,000 per kilo, anywhere between 10 to 15 kilos at a time.

He then distributed the product to dealers throughout Central Florida.

On average, each kilo represented a profit of $4,000 to $5,000.

Diaz was 20 years old, and I was making between $25,000 to $30,000 a month.

After four months, the car stopped coming.

On September 5, 2006, a federal grand jury in Texas indicted Vicente Guerrero for conspiracy to import and distribute several tons of

Nine days later, he was arrested by customs agents as he entered the United States.

Shortly thereafter, Guerrero learned that Rios had been arrested months earlier and had secretly been cooperating with law enforcement.

Between the arrest of Cardenas and Guerrero, the Gulf Cartel's ability to supply its distribution network was crippled.

The Beltran Leyva Organization was one of the principal factions of the Sinaloa Cartel.

The faction oversaw the Federation's affairs in Mexico City, along with the Mexican state of Sonora and Guerrero, which included, among other plazas, the city of Acapulco, Guerrero, and its strategically significant seaport.

I flew into Mexico City in December 2006, Diaz tells me.

Ole's contact with Vicente Guerrero's organization in Houston had disappeared.

Whether he'd been arrested or killed, Diaz couldn't say.

Regardless, they needed product and Ole, unlike Diaz, couldn't easily travel across the border to meet with the cartel.

This is when I started flying back and forth between Acapulco and Houston and Orlando.

This is when I seriously got into trafficking.

Diaz took a bus from Benito Juarez International Airport in Mexico City to Cuernavaca, where the young narco met with Ole's cousin at the Marriott Hotel.

He'd arranged a meeting with a member of the Beltran Leyva organization in Cuernavaca, an affluent enclave located an hour south of Mexico City.