would be a good movie?

- That's really up to others.

I've had a lot of fun.

I'm Mike McGowan, I'm a former FBI Special Agent.

We had an opportunity as law enforcement

to make an investigation against

the world's most powerful drug organization

in which we targeted the Sinaloa Cartel and Chapo Guzman.

So taking almost up to a year to prepare this

we finally set the first meeting

to take place in Florida in early 2010.

If you were to write a script from that day

this is how it would look.

The Sinaloa Cartel was responsible

for hundreds of murders in Mexico

and billions of dollars of narcotics

being transferred throughout the world.

And I remember clearly to this day

that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up

because to have an opportunity

in 2009 to take a run at Guzman

and the Sinaloa Cartel was unheard of.

When we first began this investigation

we had a cooperating witness who came to us

and said, "I can give you the Sinaloa Cartel."

He choose to cooperate with the FBI

in order to have some of his property,

which had been seized in his earlier cases

returned to him and his family.

Chapo Guzman wanted to set up a pipeline

from Mexico into Europe to supply all of Europe.

So we put a plan into effect in which

he believed we would be drug traffickers

out of Europe and specifically Italy.

After the informant went into Mexico

he was able to convince the Sinaloa Cartel

that the United States would be

okay to have meetings only.

We wouldn't buy or sell drugs in the meetings,

we would simply be businessmen

getting together to have discussions in a neutral country.

We intended to represent that we were

a Sicilian crime organization from Italy

and the intention was to use a very experienced

undercover agent who spoke Sicilian.

That agent unfortunately retired

shortly before the investigation started,

so at the last minute we had our Sicilian speaker

not available.

We looked around and decided eventually

that I would represent the head

of the organization from Sicily.

That's a little bit difficult, I obviously

don't speak Sicilian.

I sometimes struggle with English,

but working in concert with three Spanish speaking

undercover agents we felt we could overcome

the language barrier needed to target

the Sinaloa Cartel.

The meeting takes place in an ocean front condominium

overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Florida.

You looked out for miles and miles, beautiful ocean.

You take out wine, you take out food,

you take out photographs.

You turn on a soccer match.

We spent a lot of time preparing the room.

The room is also equipped with audio and video recording

and each agent has a responsibility

of knowing where the cameras are,

where you want the subjects to sit.

So it's pretty much scripted

and we went through it carefully.

So myself and the three other FBI undercover agents

had specific and different roles in this case.

The first gentleman that I worked with

was a longtime friend of mine

who is an expert in transportation.

His job was to get contraband from point A

to point B and he knew all shipping routes,

transportation systems, etc.

This gentleman had worked in South Florida

for many, many years and had the

South Florida look, clothing.

He had the Tommy Bahamas

and the right sunglasses, the right car.

When you work around the country

there are certain parts where every criminal looks the same

and South Florida is one of those.

We had a second gentleman who was named Antonio,

he was responsible for our ports in foreign countries.

We knew we were going to receive

large amounts of cocaine so we had decided

that we were going to use ports

or shipping as opposed to airlines.

So we had ports that we used literally all over the world

outside of the United States that we have access to

through foreign law enforcement cooperation.

And then the third undercover was my underling Patricio,

he spoke both Spanish and Italian.

He was going to replace me.

I was the old man.

I was the head of the organization,

soon to be retired, he was my right hand man,

my most trusted associate.

If anyone spoke to me privately

it would be Patricio my number two,

so again it's very important to set up this dynamic

that they see a pecking order.

They see a criminal organization

that has a chain of command in it.

And we have to convince a member

of the Sinaloa Cartel we're criminals

just like they are.

They're very, very cognizant of who appears to be real

and who does not, so we had to sell ourselves

as a criminal organization and that's

why we mirrored many of the same roles

that the Sinaloa Cartel had.

And representing the Sinaloa Cartel

was a gentleman named Manuel Jesus Guzman,

who was identified as a blood relative of Chapo Guzman.

He would be Chapo's spokesmen during these negotiations.

Manuel Guzman entered the United States,

we sent the informant to pick him up

at the Miami International Airport

and deliver him to our ocean front condominium

for negotiations.

So as we're waiting for the meeting to happen

as I said, I was dressed appropriately

as a crime boss and I noticed my friends

and fellow agents were nervous as was I

and it was typical and natural to be nervous.

We had a lot expected of us and just prior

to Manuel arriving at the condominium

I went in to use the men's room

and double check everything and I looked behind the door

and I found a gaudy purple velour bathrobe

that for some reason I thought would fit the scene better.

So without telling the other agents

I got out of my $5000 suit

and I put on this hideous velour bathrobe.

I walked out into the room and the place cracked up,

everybody went nuts laughing it really broke the ice,

everybody calmed down and at first

I was gonna go back and change

and then I said, "He would never suspect

"this is the FBI."

So I kept on the purple velour bathrobe

for the remainder of the meeting.

You have to understand when you're an undercover agent

you have to do things that the bad guys

don't expect FBI agents would do.

Manuel arrives, he was dressed in a business suit

as if it was a important business meeting.

So Manuel enters the room in the company

of the informant, he's now meeting the three undercovers.

I'm out on the deck sunning myself

in my purple bathrobe and after five or 10 minutes

I don't see him coming out where he was supposed

to be introduced to me.

So I went inside and low and behold

we found out that Manuel has a fear of heights,

which we didn't know.

So here we are 30 stories up on the ocean

and he's hunkered down in a corner

of the building and he won't come anywhere near

the camera range.

It took awhile, but we were able to calm him down

at least enough to come out and sit on the couch

and begin negotiations with us.

I make a point of introducing myself

and then walking immediately away from him

because I don't want to talk to him at that point.

You have to understand we set up relationships,

so if I was the old man or I was the El Jefe, the boss,

I wouldn't negotiate with Manuel.

I'd only negotiate with Chapo.

And I stayed out on the porch,

I ignored him for the first couple of hours.

So the other three undercovers

have the responsibility for making him comfortable.

I also had a very attractive female FBI agent with me

who was my date for the meeting

and so I'm literally getting a suntan

and putting lotion on, having a drink,

relaxing with my lady friend and try to make it

as natural as possible.

Patricio my number two would come out,

whisper in my ear and I would whisper something back

and send the message in.

From where I was outside I could see in

and I could see the transformation

in his uneasiness roll away.

At one point he started slapping the hand

of one of the undercovers like they were old buddies.

I could tell by the body language

that things were going well.

When you negotiate a massive drug deal it takes hours,

it's a very long negotiation and I waited

'till it was going well until I came in

and when I did come in as we had all agreed

I was never gonna speak directly to Manuel,

so I would just sit there and listen,

get up go get something to eat.

I wasn't being rude to him,

but I wasn't waiting on every word

that's what my underlings are there for.

He offered to send an initial shipment

of 5000 kilos, which if you know anything about cocaine

that's a lot of cocaine.

And we said, "No."

It's the first deal no one's doing 5000 kilos.

So here you have cops turning down

the Sinaloa Cartel.

A lot of cops would say, "Yeah, give me all five.",

that's not how drug negotiations go.

We had to lower the quantities we were interested in.

We wanted to set up a system that would last for years

and years, not just one deal.

It's like any business deal, initial meeting

the groups hit it off, they're throwing some numbers

back and forth and now they're gonna go

and regroup and have more discussions.

He didn't even want to leave.

He was having such a good time, seriously.

2011, we began to exchange what's called test loads

with the Sinaloa Cartel.

They would send vessels from Mexico

to Europe, no drugs would be on those vessels.

There were plantains, pineapples,

everything under the sun except cocaine,

but you have to do that if you're a real drug trafficker

that's how it works.

So we had to be patient and pay for this.

After almost three years of investigation

in July of 2012 the Sinaloa Cartel

shipped us approximately 700 pounds,

I believe it's 346 kilograms of cocaine,

which in conjunction with the Spanish National Police

the FBI seized in Al Jazeera, Spain.

As a result of those arrests and subsequent investigation

we were able to charge in the United States

Chapo and eight of his executive board members

with drug trafficking.

Even though Chapo was in Mexico

we couldn't get our hands on him

at that point he was indicted in our case,

which was later one of a number of cases

that lead to Guzman's eventual extradition

into the United States.