Héctor Luis Palma Salazar

Throughout the 1980s, tensions between the two organizations had started to ratchet up following a series of violent feuds.

The kidnapping and murder of the wife and children of Héctor "El Güero" Palma, a staunch ally of El Chapo's, by a Venezuelan trafficker connected with the Arellano Felix brothers, was one such sore point.

Another was when Ramón Arellano Félix shot Armando "El Rayo" López, a close friend of El Chapo's, point-blank in the head at a party in 1988.

Following the revelation that their rival was using their territory without permission, sporadic violence between the factions gradually snowballed into full-blown war.

The Carrillo Fuentes Organization strengthened its position around Juárez.

Guzmán recognized the vacuum that was being created, and he began working with other drug figures like Héctor Salazar or Ismael El Mayo, who [chuckles] was just convicted to life in prison, Zambada, to develop the network that became known as the Sinaloa Cartel.

I hope you'll go back and watch my video on, uh, on El Mayo.

Now, it's really tempting in such a short video to describe this move as a simple promotion, but it was a whole lot closer to a violent reordering of the market because every border crossing, every airstrip, each highway and warehouse and political relationship had immense value.

They show killings, they show all kinds of stuff.

So I'm like watching the news and they caught, a big drug lord in Mexico, they caught him, it was Güero Palma.

They caught Güero Palma, right? So I'm watching the news and I'm like, oh damn, they caught Güero Palma.

And then they're, you know how they parade you with the cameras and all that? So they're parading Güero Palma to the cameras and all that, and there's an old man in a military uniform walking next to him, and they post him up to take pictures, and the military old man is standing next to him, And I'm looking, and I look, and I'm like, holy shit.

I'm like, Dad, that's my friend's grandpa.

And he's like, oh, damn, that's your friend's grandpa? Like, yeah.