There were always two hotel rooms. One for his counterparts doing the surveillance and one he used as the stage to play a ruthless Mexican drug trafficker making the deal for enormous amounts of cocaine, marijuana or heroin. One small slip of the tongue, or a slight bead of sweat on the brow could result in his violent, painful death. He was willing to do anything to convince the dangerous criminals he was one of them. Whether showing them a million dollars cash packed in a suitcase, flashing a bag of diamonds, buying rounds of drinks for everyone in a nightclub, whatever it took to make them believe he was as greed-filled and callous as they were. It was a spectacular cat and mouse game with the ultimate reward of sitting next to a hand cuffed cartel head on a flight headed to prison. It was listening to him beg for his freedom, offer millions in bribes, threaten his life and both knowing he had won. DEAL In a deadly game of working undercover, DEA Special Agent Michael S. Vigil recounts standing face to face with treacherous drug lords who began their conversation with "If you are a federal agent we will kill you." By Michael S. Vigil iUniverse LLC Copyright © 2014 Michael S. Vigil All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4917-3519-0 Contents Dedication, v, Foreword, ix, Chapter 1 If You Are a Federal Agent, We Will Kill You, 1, Chapter 2 Dragnet and The Untouchables, 9, Chapter 3 A Very Dangerous Game, 17, Chapter 4 Facing the Feared, 26, Chapter 5 Do Whatever It Takes, 44, Chapter 6 Just Another Day on the Job, 70, Chapter 7 Corruption, Power, and Greed, 96, Chapter 8 Mexico: Where Good Guys Wear Masks, 110, Chapter 9 Expect the Unexpected, 122, Chapter 10 The Deal in Brazil, 133, Chapter 11 The Lure of White-Powder Wealth, 156, Chapter 12 A Culture of Violence and Death, 170, Chapter 13 A Two-Million-Dollar Suitcase, 196, Chapter 14 Paradise Cracked, 223, Chapter 15 From Kilos to Tons, 240, Chapter 16 Massacre on the Plain of the Viper, 285, Chapter 17 The Devastating Heroin Flood in Texas, 295, Chapter 18 Unlikely Partners, 306, Chapter 19 Global Operations, 327, Chapter 20 I Did It My Way, 343, CHAPTER 1 If You Are a Federal Agent, We Will Kill You Imagine a criminal foreign environment with no computers, no cell phones, and no diplomatic protection; this was Mike's world ... this was Mike's playground ... make a mistake, a miscalculation, or misread the intentions of an individual, and your life ends in a blink of an eye. Now live that life, make cases, prosecute, arrest, and produce volumes of intelligence that to this day is the history of that threat ... and you begin to see that Mike Vigil's journey into the depths of that world is something that modern law enforcement will never experience or ever see ... —L.D. Villalobos Chief Intelligence Officer, DEA El Paso Intelligence Center (Ret.) The small caravan moved swiftly on the narrow, winding road. The blazing sun beat down on the scorched Sonora Desert. Heat waves bounced off the dark, cracked asphalt in a yellow, shimmering curtain. Most of the caravan consisted of at least a dozen grizzled and hardened Mexican Federal Judicial Police (MFJP) based out of Hermosillo, Sonora. They were heavily armed with 9 mm semiautomatic handguns and their weapon of choice, the .45-caliber pistol. Many of them also carried machine guns with long curved magazines packed with dozens of bullets, in case fate was not kind and the afternoon turned violent and nasty. I was leading the caravan in a truck with a large camper shell that made steering on the winding road somewhat problematic. The truck had been seized by the MFJP at a roadblock when they found a couple of tons of marijuana hidden inside. The marijuana was destined for the lucrative consumer market in the United States, where distributors would have sold it on the streets for millions of dollars. After all, the drug trade was all about the money. Ironically, the truck would now be used against the violent Mexican drug traffickers, who were some of the most vicious and brutal in the world. Accompanying me in the truck was an informant who, a week earlier, had introduced me to a group of significant drug traffickers associated with Rafael Caro Quintero. The organization belonging to Caro Quintero was responsible for numerous brutal murders throughout Mexico. The informant was short and heavyset, with thick, dark hair, and his eyes always reflected a blank, merciless stare. He was on the periphery of the drug trade and knew enough about the business and certain drug networks to be a valuable source of information. He realized that it was better to provide information and act as a mercenary than take the risk of going to jail or dying. Jail or premature death is the typical retirement plan for drug traffickers. Of course, he was in danger as well by acting as an informant, but to him, it was less of a risk and the DEA was paying him decent money. The MFJ