His guys c me at 100 I got p***e it was him
After a lifetime of service to his country, Jack Riley sat in his corner office overlooking the Pentagon planning a retirement playing golf. As number two in America’s Drug Enforcement Administration, he had led the most successful operations in the agency’s history. The target of his obsessions were either dead or safely put away.
But then in July 2015, Riley’s nemesis, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, escaped.
While being held in Mexico’s supposed maximum security Altiplano prison, the leader of the murderous Sinaloa Cartel – the world’s biggest drug-trafficking organisation – fled through a mile-long tunnel built under his cell before riding away to freedom on a makeshift motorbike.
“I was going to retire until this d*** escaped,” Riley said.
Chapo had been his white whale, the object of an infatuation that sidelined everything else, including his family.
“I love my wife and kid, but I was never home for dinner,” said Riley.
What followed was a very personal four-year mission that this week ended with Chapo being put behind bars on US soil for life – and Riley finally retired.
After a three-month trial in New York, jurors found the Mexican guilty on all 10 charges after six days of deliberation.
They convicted the near legendary cartel boss of operating a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds, international distribution of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other drugs, and use of firearms.
He faces life in a “supermax” American jail in Florence, Colorado, known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies” alongside Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, British shoe bomber Richard Reid and 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.
The verdict brought a welcome end to Riley’s decades-long hunt for America’s most wanted man, who once offered an €88,000 bounty to anyone who brought him the DEA agent’s decapitated head.
It is a fact Riley, 60, admits not only scared him but also “p***ed” him off.
In 2007, Riley was handed a transcript of a conversation wiretapped by his staff. It eavesdropped on Chapo’s men negotiating a price to kill him.
“I saw a transcript, and it basically said, ‘What do you think Chapo would give us to shut him up and cut his head off.’
“The joke is, they talked about only $100,000 (€88,000), which p***ed me off.
“What bothers me the most is I did exactly what that d*** wanted me to do. I got scared, and I started looking over my shoulder. And that’s what he intended.”
R60m pesos (€2.7m) reward offer
iley is the son of a hospital pathologist and a nurse, and grew up in Chicago. His first jobs with the DEA had him working undercover as a 1980s yuppie making cocaine deals.
But he soon realised he wanted bigger fish – those who ran the operations.
As he worked his way up through the ranks, he became involved in combating the Colombia drug trade, helping bring down Pablo Escobar in Medellín and catch the leaders of the Cali cartel. Then when during the early 1990s Chapo announced himself to the world by executing dozens of rivals and decapitating several Mexican cops, Riley’s interested piqued.
“The images were seared into my soul. I never forgot the brutality or the name,” Riley said. Plus Chapo showed a gift for logistics no other cartel could match.
At one point, he was called “El Rapido” because of his ability to move drugs from Mexico into the States within 24 hours.
“Guzman was the most business-savvy son of a bitch who ever ran a criminal organisation,” Riley said.
His obsession with Chapo helped him become the head of the El Paso DEA office covering nearly one-third of the Us-mexico border. Upon his arrival, Riley made known his sole intention was “to get El Chapo under control”.
His display of defiance did not go unnoticed. A sign reading, “Welcome Jack Reilly [sic]” was hung off a bridge just across the border in Mexico.
Weeks later as he drove along deserted road, Chapo sent his men to give a warning.
Riley was pursued at speeds of up to 100mph before he got out of his car, gun drawn expecting a firefight. But his pursuers inexplicably then sped off. Their job, however, was done.
“That whole thing was just to scare the s*** out of me,” Riley said. However, it only served to further cement his resolve.
“I got p***ed off and said, ‘It’s either him or me,’” said Riley. “I’m a stubborn old Irish cop from Chicago. I’d put my money on a me.” Despite a move back to his hometown, Riley refused to let his hunt for Chapo die. He began building a case in the Windy City targeting local gangs who worked for the cartel boss to stop the streets flooding with heroin. Under one roof Riley brought together the DEA, FBI, state troopers and police to chase the “chokepoint guys” – the brokers who were buying in bulk from Chapo before then selling it on to the gangs. It opened huge resources to him including wiretapping local criminals’ phones. “What really stands out is how were,” Riley said.
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