Cowboy Cartel

When you think of drug cartels, you think of the drugs,

you think of the violence,

you think of money,

but you do not think of horses.

- -

There's this projected reality,

and then there's this whole world behind it.

Horses, cocaine, money laundering...

I'd never seen a case like this before. I don't think any of us had.

A drug cartel was able to exploit a US industry,

but possibly the most interesting thing

was that somebody bothered to do anything about it.

It was the biggest money laundering investigation in Texas history.

You know, for a new agent, it was the chance of a lifetime.

But trying to dismantle the Zetas,

it really just appears impossible.

The gunfire that you hear at this moment

it is a confrontation between federal forces

and organized crime.

Then it was like, holy shit.

We need to take 'em down before it got out of hand.

There's only so much you can view from the outside looking in.

What you really need is somebody on the inside of their world.

I'm just making sure, because you know, people in Mexico is pushing me.

On the other side of any approach you make...

...could be you know, the barrel of a gun.

We are shot! We are shot!

I am an ICE Special Agent.

Three years to piece together this giant puzzle.

Yeah, we were trying to take down

the most violent cartel in Mexico with paper.

Everybody was in way over our heads at that time.

- -

Here we go.

Good evening.

This is the first time since taking the oath of office

that I've felt an issue was so important, so threatening,

that it warranted talking directly with you, the American people.

All of us agree that the gravest domestic threat facing our nation today is drugs.

Our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more

by hiring a record number of new border guards.

The system is broken because there are people

who are exploiting human beings for material gain.

We are continuing to speed up the delivery

of equipment and training.

We're putting unprecedented pressure on cartels.

We will continue to send a clear message: that violence must stop.

- The Zetas. - Los Zetas.

- Los Zetas. - The Zetas cartel.

The horrific drug cartel.

It's incredible how violent the Zetas are.

Strangled, stabbed, beat to death.

They have changed the rules of the game.

- The man, the legend... -

The Scott Lawson. Mark.

See, that's what I need in my life.

We moved to the country in '98,

because I wanted to be around horses.

Put my hand on a horse every day,

and where I can smell those horses every day.

I'm... I'm hooked. You know.

One of my all-time favorite country songs, country and western songs,

...was by Hank Thompson.

He had a song called "Money Trouble and Love."

And it's a great song. It says,

"It takes a lot of money to get you out of the trouble that love got you into."

Some real parallels there into, uh... into the racehorse business.

We've got money, horses, drugs...

And a Mexican cartel.

The cartel guys, they're crazy about the horses.

They're really interwoven in the quarter-horse business.

And I just... I'd like to take some of those out of the web, you know.

Just get it down to good, honest people and good, fast horses.

Tough deal.

Go, go, go.

The quarter horse is the horse of the American West.

It's the horse that America's kids have grown up on.

You may think you don't know what a quarter horse is,

but you do, you've seen it.

When you see a cowboy riding a horse in the movies,

or when you see a horse loping across a ranch,

those are all quarter horses.

It's the cowboy's horse, and it still is the cowboy's horse today.

It's tough, it's stocky, it's smart.

They're work horses, but they can run.

We think of horse racing as thoroughbred racing.

the Kentucky Derby, right? They go around the track.

And we have a mint julep and we wear funny hats once a year.

But horse racing started in this country as quarter horse racing.

They call thoroughbred racing the sport of kings.

Quarter horse racing is the sport of cowboys.

It's dustier, it's a little grimier.

They're running for a quarter of a mile, and it all happens...

...in the blink of an eye.

The quarter horse racing industry is...

It... it just is... the epitome of the Wild West.

They're off!

It has a history of doping, illegal gambling, fixing races.

It's not particularly well regulated.

Cash just changing hands.

Quarter horse racing is pretty corruptible.

And anything that can be corrupted, organized criminals love.

They can do anything to win,

and winning for them is millions of dollars.

There's a certain kind of guy

who usually populates the winner's circle.

It's ranchers and wealthy businessmen

who tend to win these races

and dominate the sport of quarter horse racing.

Tempting Dash forging right to the lead.

But all of a sudden, on the quarter horse racing circuit,

there's this new owner who keeps showing up in the winner's circle...

- - ...named José Treviño.

Where will I find José Treviño?

Just like Tom pointed out,

this horse basically unknown in October was a sensation by November.

You've really got something special here, don't you?

- Well, I think so. -

And I, and I hope it can get better over time.

José Treviño, he was a bricklayer or something like that.

He goed out and winned the million-dollar race.

You know, life-changing experiences,

and that's the dream that, you know, everybody wants.

It was the American Dream.

A poor Mexican immigrant coming to this country,

making a living laying bricks,

turning that into a horseracing operation that was now making him rich.

And that's what everybody believed it was.

But everybody in the industry wants to know, who is this guy?

When there's a newcomer and they win an inordinate amount of races,

it kinda puts the spotlight on 'em.

Well, you've got a fantastic horse, that's for sure. Congratulations.

Yeah, thank you. I loved to buy that horse. It was cheap.

I think that, that's the reason they sell the horse,

because it got cheap.

And it was so small.

I know you guys notice that horse real small,

but he's real fast, too.

Small is good. Thanks very much, congratulations.

The champion two-year-old colt...

My name is Scott Lawson.

From the time I can remember, I always wanted to be a cop.

I grew up in a very small rural town in West Tennessee.

With my parents being divorced,

I would go see my dad on the weekends, and...

He was a chief deputy for the local sheriff's department.

I would ride on patrol with him, you know.

My mom obviously didn't like that at all.

But, you know, I had that hero impression of law enforcement

from a very young age.

I think by the time I was 14, 15 years old,

I was reading John Douglas.

The pioneer of profiling in the FBI.

Through my dad's wisdom, you know, he always told me,

if you want to be in law enforcement, you need to go federal.

And that was that seed that gave me this dream to join the FBI.

Atlanta!

I'd like to go east of the mighty Mississippi.

And south of the Mason-Dixon.

With that said, I'm going to New York City.

I've been to New York. You're going to like it.

San Antonio.

Criminal.

I thought, well, it's Texas,

It's, uh... it's the South.

It's not quite as close to where I wanted to be as I thought,

but you know, that's manageable.

And one of the supervisors at the academy said, "Scott, come here."

So I walked over there and he said, "Son, you're not going to San Antonio.

You minored in Spanish and you used to be a police officer."

He said, "They're gonna send you to the border.

You're going to Laredo."

So I walked down to the library in Quantico,

and I Googled, "Laredo, Texas."

Two hyperlinks pulled up.

The first one said, "Laredo, Texas, the armpit of the United States."

And I was like, well that don't sound too great, you know.

The second article said,

"Laredo, Texas, the truck stop of the United States."

And I'm thinking, "What in the heck have I gotten myself into?"

- -

When I first started working on the Texas border,

I worked for a daily newspaper,

and I thought it was really beautiful

how united the communities were on either side of the river.

Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, they are sister communities.

There's just this really beautiful symbiosis

between the two sides of the river.

People always say, "The river doesn't divide us."

But as the years have passed, that's become less of the case.

The bridge in Laredo is the biggest crossing of trade