Kingdom of Shadows Page #4

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has become the major vehicle

used by smugglers to bring

contraband into the U.S.

- Oscar fronted me

about 200 pounds of marijuana.

We loaded the plane,

and we took off

for the United States.

As we broke out

of the cloud cover,

we encountered a plane

coming directly towards us,

almost like driving

by the freeway.

They would pull up and fly up,

right up in front of our prop.

- The Customs Bureau

has set up

an aerial interdiction program

using military type aircraft,

searching the sky

for any aircraft

not on a regular flight plan.

- The prop wash would propel us

up into the air,

and then when you hit that

down-burst, the plane would fall.

It would fall a lot.

And it was extremely scary.

These guys began to motion

for us to go down

or for us to pick up the radio.

As we stopped, people with arms

appeared from

all over the place.

Even the security guard

at the airport

came outwith his shotgun.

And I still had

a seat-belt on,

and there was a guy

with a 12-gauge shotgun

pointed at my face.

And he could not see

what I was doing with my hands.

Every time that I would

go to lower my hands

to undo the seat-belt,

I'd see this guy tightening up

on that trigger.

Finally I yelled loud enough

to these guys.

And as I came across

the pilot's seat,

they grabbed me,

and my first step back

onto American soil was

face first into the tarmac of-

of an airport.

I barely got in before the

minimum mandatory sentencing

were issued to the judges that

took away their discretion.

It was after

I got into the jail,

and they began

to describe this stuff

that I realized

how fortunate I was,

because some of the people

that were busted right after me,

they would have been facing

a 20-year sentence

without any possibility of

them-you know, mitigation.

I was lucky to have been caught

when I was caught.

I ended up getting paroled

for having completed five years.

, Okay-

Okay.

A lot of the undercover work

that we did along here

was transportation.

I had a commercial

driver's license.

I was able to infiltrate

a lot of organizations

that used tractor trailers

to transport the narcotics

from the supplier in Mexico.

[radio chirps]

[radio chirps]

It's not like

when you see in the movies,

you know, that they find out

you're a federal agent

and they're going to kill you.

The danger is where you've sold

that role that you're

trying to play,

that you've sold it so good

that this guy has no

inclination that you're a cop.

And it could be that they try

to rip you off.

- The individuals

that are picking up

want to keep both the money

and the product,

and they'll just kill you.

They're going to wait

until you're not looking

and then shoot you in the head.

- Do you work tomorrow?

- Yes.

- It never really

crossed my mind,

me thinking I'm living

a dangerous lifestyle

or if anything could happen.

I thought it would never

come to our family.

I thought we were

always protected.

Me not realizing how dangerous

his job really is,

I guess I just

put a blind side to it.

I didn't want to know

what would go on.

When I was pregnant,

there was a list that came out.

There was just

a bunch of threats,

and Oscar was mentioned in it.

You don't wanna

eat your chicken?

The government sent some

security armor system

for our house,

and they actually issued

Oscar a couple more guns

and an automatic weapon

for the family

to keep in the house.

He's actually taught me

how to shoot the gun,

how to shoot in the dark,

so I can help to protect

the family.

- Okay, well,

then take this one.

- Here, let me have it.

- Trade.

- Where did you do

most of your time?

- In Three Rivers.

- Three Rivers.

That's a medium also, isn't it?

- That's a medium.

- Yeah.

- I reached out to Don

when I was incarcerated.

It was a sense of joy

hearing of Don.

That he was doing well.

He was out.

At the time of sentencing,

you get sentenced to months.

Sol hear 150 months,

and it didn't seem like much.

But I go back to my cell

and I start breaking it down

into years.

It's 14 1/2 years.

Because of marijuana

being illegal,

I lost all my 20s.

- All that stuff

is so old and gone,

but the way these idiots

are down there now,

it's almost as though

you fear retribution

just so they can say, you know,

"I - I killed so-and-so and

that makes me achingon."

What Auden got is just

absolutely unreasonable.

14 years for marijuana.

That's just absolutely insane.

Our law is unjust.

It's not effective.

Yes, it is a path I took.

Yes, it did result

in me going to prison.

I think my children paid a

heavy price for my actions.

I was young.

I had a lot of kids.

I started having kids

very early.

I thought, "I'm providing

money and a place for them,"

but there was always

some selfishness involved.

I bear some shame for that, but

I can't change any of it now.

- The biggest thing

was to see him

brought in by guards,

handcuffed.

He had raised his hand to

ask to go to the restroom.

Just the process of going

through door after door

of locked door behind you

to go see your father,

that was really

strange for me as a child.

We always kind of

would try to hide it,

that my father

was a drug dealer,

but it would get out.

Principals find out,

teachers find out.

It makes its way through school.

Some people were

almost intrigued by it

to the point

that they idolized that,

and then some people

really looked down at you.

- I'm gonna live with my share

for having committed a crime,

but it grows from the bottom up.

There's always somebody else

just ready to take

the place in line.

I don't think they stop

one damn joint, to be honest.

I mean they catch some of it,

but there's always surplus

created to deal with that.

- We're still seeing

the traditional drugs

that we always saw:

cocaine, marijuana.

What's troubling to us

as U.S. law enforcement

is the fact that we're seeing

more and more meth.

Marijuana still continues to be

a heavy profit earner

for the Mexican cartels,

but the laws are shifting

to where more and more places

are legalizing it.

They're businessmen,

they're gonna adapt.

If they're not getting a profit

from smuggling marijuana,

then they're gonna

move into something else

that is profitable.

Meth is more addictive

than any drug

and it's more destructive.

So they're trying

to push more and more meth.

There's been

some historical marks

where the drug game changes.

One of them was the death of

Amado Carrillo Fuentes.

He died during a botched

plastic surgery attempt

in 1997.

After his death, there wasn't

one true cartel leader.

That's when people started

scrambling

to take territories,

take plazas.

That's when you saw

the violence spike up

both in the United States

and Mexico.

The reason that I do

a lot of media now

is that I'm not going to

remember everybody

that I encountered

doing undercover work,

and to me,

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