Jacob Diaz

There were half a dozen other foster kids in the home, according to Diaz.

Some of them were really messed up.

One kid had seen his mother get murdered in front of him.

The Texas State Trooper was bored.

For the second day in a row, he'd been detailed to ride alongside an oversized load being transported on State Highway 281.

Beside him, a freightliner rolled slowly, pulling a trailer hauling three 75-foot-long high-frequency transmission poles from McAllen, Texas to Houston.

This was the third transport in two days complete with chase cars front and rear and white utility truck following closely behind the big rig's extended trailer with bright yellow flags announcing oversized load and proceed with caution.

For a trooper that would have rather spent his shift chasing drug smugglers, it was a shit detail.

Unbeknownst to the Department of Transportation and the trooper, concealed within the concrete pole's bowels was a metric ton of cocaine.

In the Mexican state of Tomalipas alone, the Gulf Cartel controlled the lucrative Matamoros, Reynosa, and Nuevo Laredo plazas, key border crossing points which served as prime drug smuggling routes between the United States and Mexico.

A plaza is a geographical area that is controlled by a cartel cell that is responsible for overseeing the transportation of narcotics in that specific region.

The bulk of that product was destined for Houston, a major transshipping and distribution point which served as the Gulf cartel's American base of operations.

The organizations that transported the cartels crossing over land from the Rio Grande Valley to Houston had to run a seven-hour gauntlet through some of the most heavily patrolled highways in the nation.

That's where men like Vicente Sanchez Guerrero took over.

Sanchez Guerrero was a 30-something-year-old Mexican-American who owned a number of businesses, one of which was a small trucking company based in McAllen.

Sanchez Guerrero was a key figure in the Rio Grande Valley.

His drug ring was responsible for transporting multi-ton shipments from McAllen and Brownsville to Houston.

He would often utilize ingenious methods to accomplish his missions, one of which involved transporting the Gulf cartel's product, utilizing the services of unwitting Texas state troopers to ensure safe delivery.

Sanchez Guerrero, like Ocio Cardenas, was part of a generational shift taking place in northeastern Mexico, with younger narcos taking over control of the drug business.

Unlike the older generation, men who built the Mexican drug trade and strived to keep a low profile, Sanchez Guerrero was flashy, quick to show off his $60,000 Rolex and luxury vehicles, and well-connected.