Good evening.
I'm Helen Mirren,
and you're watching Documentary Now!,
season 50.
In order to tackle a dangerous topic,
a documentary filmmaker
often has to put their own life on the line,
and no group of filmmakers risk more
than those at Dronez,
a consortium of participant journalists
whose motto is, "ballz to the wallz."
And it should be noted that both "ballz" and "wallz"
are spelled with zeds.
Please enjoy tonight's film,
Dronez: The Hunt For El Chingon.
The world is nuts.
No one knows what's gonna happen next.
But whatever goes down, we'll be there,
keeping a close eye on all the madness.
This is the world of Dronez.
Hi. I'm Jamison Friend.
We're here in the Dronez offices in Brooklyn, New York,
where our staff is working hard
to bring you the real news of today's world.
For this week's story, we go to Juárez, Mexico,
where the war on drugs
has turned this once beautiful city...
into the deadliest place on Earth.
Kidnappings, murder,
a broken system,
Mexicans...
Ciudad Juárez,
it's the city most closely associated
with the Mexican drug wars.
To have this once beautiful city
become the drug capital of the world...
time for a little geography lesson.
Mexico is directly south of America,
which means it shares a border with the United States.
And what goes over that border?
Drugs.
Is that sinking in yet, America?
This is happening
in your backyard.
In Juarez, the drug game is headed
by the Salvez cartel,
which is run by this man,
El Chingon.
He's killed thousands
and made millions,
but he left a big mess in the process.
We decided to hit the streets
and ask the locals what they could tell us
about this modern-day Mexican Scarf ace.
You guys seen El Chingon?
El Chingon?
Oh, he's saying it's dangerous to have a camera.
All right, thank you very much.
Yeah, whatever, bro.
Hey. So they're saying...
Hey, thanks, man.
Unfortunately for us,
most were too paralyzed by fear to speak up.
She's clearly afraid of something, man.
Tell us your story.
Are you afraid?
She might be asleep.
El Chingon!
Finally, through social media,
we met someone brave enough to talk.
- Buenos tardes. - Hey, hi.
Buenos tardes.
Manuel Bautista has lived in Juárez his whole life.
Last year, his son Felipe
was kidnapped by the cartel.
- Yeah? All right. - Okay.
He invited us into his humble hacienda
to tell us the tale.
We're going into, uh, his home right now.
Hacienda.
And just a warning.
The poverty you're about to see
may be disturbing to your first world sensibilities.
Oh, look at that.
Whoa.
Just to give you an idea of the size of everything,
just so you can get the scale,
I-I-I want to show you guys that this
is how far my arms extend
in a hallway in a home
where someone is raising their family.
So the family portrait... like, look how sad this is.
Wow, this is how people live, you know.
They make do with what they can.
This kid's probably a drug dealer now.
Look at him. You can tell.
He was a man who had next to nothing,
but the real tragedy was not what he owned
but what he had lost.
What did he say?
I'm not really sure.
Just look at the floor.
No, but look back at him.
Yeah, yeah, no, we've...
We've lost friends too,
you know, um, Raya and... and Rick and, um...
Yeah.
And, uh, Sam... a lot of people
To, uh, the urban farming boom.
They left Brooklyn and went to Detroit.
We're happy to hear your story,
and we're getting your story out there.
And, uh, it's all drug money,
and everything's built on drug money,
and, you know, your clothes are drug money,
and this house is built on drug money.
Manuel wanted answers,
and we wanted answers, too, about El Chingon.
Comes in and pays for the rug.
Who's that? What's up?
- It's El Chingon. - Yeah, yeah.
- All right, all right. - All right.
Turn the light off. Turn the light off.
All right, so some guys,
uh, who work for El Chingon are outside.
We're gonna talk to them, relate,
get 'em to relax,
and maybe get some info out of 'em.
Let's see how it goes.
What's going on, fellas?
How's it going?
Well, that didn't work.
So Kyle and John were dead.
Luckily for us,
they had already recorded their voice-overs,
but we still wanted to get to the bottom
of this whole El Chingon stuff,
so we brought in two more reporters
who'd been off on other assignments...
Trevor Kenney,
who was in Alabama making omelettes
with a racist sorority...
Ow..
Whoa!
That was not cool.
And Bryce Bowen,
who was in the middle east where he was introducing
The Syrian rebel forces to Mario Kart.
You're just driving. You're just driving.
What time does that end?
We put Bryce and Trevor on the next flight to Juárez
to pick up where their brothers in arms had left off.
Back to the mean streets.
Here at Dronez, we had a sneaking suspicion
that John and Kyle were killed off
because they were asking too many questions
about the infamous drug lord El Chingon.
But that wasn't gonna stop us from tracking down the man
behind the legend.
We're gonna go meet this New York Times reporter
and, uh, see what she knows
about El Chingon,
trade some secrets.
Dronez.
Yeah, we've been doing
some research on El Chingon,
and it turns out that he's, like,
super oppressive to the people.
I don't know, like Skeletor or Darth Vader or something.
Yeah, yeah, like, just an evil presence.
Yeah, it's funny.
You'd think that the locals
would be, like, really against him,
but people here, they really... they really love him.
I mean, he's kind of a Robin Hood-type figure to them.
He provides for them in a way
that their own government cannot.
But that's what you heard.
- Right. - No, that's what I know.
I've been doing research on it.
The cartel has a really huge stronghold
on this whole town.
I mean, they fund festivals.
They have a lot of bars.
They have dangerous, scare...
What is it? What's the name of the places?
Uh, the Caballo de Oro.
- Hacienda Corona. - Right.
So they're like touristy kind of places?
No, these are places you do not want to go ever.
We should go there.
No, no, no, you guys do not want to go to that place.
It is one of the most dangerous places.
The cops don't want to go there.
- To you. - To you.
To everybody, you guys.
But what if we sp... well, I don't speak Spanish.
Do you speak Spanish?
Well, exactly. You guys...
No, I mean, the army won't go there.
Seriously, you guys.
The army in every country's paid off.
I've been everywhere.
No, I've done stuff too, you know?
I went to the Ukraine.
They buried me up to my neck, and dudes took turns
hitting me in the head with a golf club.
And I was fine there.
I covered fist boxing in China.
You know, it's where those, like...
Just like fist fighting, no boxing gloves,
uh, just a melee, uh, of... of men,
you know, a group just, like, throwing punches,
and that's their sport.
And I was there to cover it.
I got bruised, but...
I was embedded in Tunisia.
They put me in a tent, and they fattened me up,
and then they just, like,
tried to marry me off to, like, one of the men.
Why?
I got a kick-ass story out of it.
- I would go to that length... - Wow, wow.
- Okay? - Yeah.
Because we have the balls to go in there and do it.
Okay.
Like, this is extreme.
You understand you might die?
That's what someone told the guys before us.
Yeah.
And they're dead,
and that's why we're here, but...
I don't know, guys.
If you're gonna go,
can I give you a name of a good fixer?
We already got somebody,
and he's pretty sweet.
All right.
Good luck to you.
Our fixer is none other
than our good friend,
streetwise rapper Ty Dolla sign.
♪ Yeah, I'm paranoid ♪
♪ I'm trippin', I've been smokin' ♪
Rolling with Ty gives you immediate cred,
and as a bonus, it was his first time in Mexico.
Well, the music was a bit of a boner,
so to make things interesting,
we asked ty to get up onstage
for an all-out, no-holds-barred rap battle.
Yeah, yeah, go up!
I think you should go check it out.
No!
It was time to hit the dance floor,
and thanks to our good buddies
in the third world fashion scene,
we were already rocking the freshest new styles.
These are pointy boots.
They're supposedly hugely popular here.
We wore them to mix in with the locals,
but, um, it doesn't look like anyone else
is really, um, wearing 'em.
We look like a couple of chooches.
As the night went on
and we looked around the club a little more,
we made an incredible discovery.
El Chingon, this is the guy we're looking for.
There were pictures of El Chingon everywhere.
It turns out the people of Juárez
actually love El Chingon.
He's kind of a Robin Hood figure to them,
a hero who provides for them in ways their government can't.
Even the words to the song seemed to reflect this.
So this band,
what they're singing about...
they're saying that this Chingon
is a great guy
and he's really cool
and he can drink six to eight beers a night
and never get a hangover.
Spending a night in dangerous territory
had been risky, but by doing so,
we had won the trust of the locals,
and now that trust was about to pay off.
All right, look.
We met these guys inside. They're cops.
They have some information on El Chingon.
They're gonna tell it to us,
but we can't bring the camera in the car, okay?
But we've got our microphones on,
so listen in, okay?
Yeah!
Oh, sweet ride.
So, fellas, what's up?
Trevor and Bryce's tragic end
was confirmed in a letter from Ty Dolla sign.
"Dear Dronez,
I think they melted your friends."
And then these were delivered to the office.
Hey, hey, hey, don't open that.
Let's keep these, put 'em in the lounge,
throw a couple coffee table books on 'em.
Mm.
Right?
- Mm-hmm. - Mm-hmm.
First John and Kyle.
Now Trevor and Bryce.
Clearly someone in Mexico was sending us a message,
but our work in Juárez was far from over.
So we sent in two of our very best reporters,
Lars Klegg, who was up in the frozen north
Investigating Mongolian horse pimps...
Hey, so, uh, how much is the horse?
And Denver McIver, who was deep in the Amazon
for a little taste of an ancient tradition
known as the burn circle.
Oh, really?
Di-di-di...
And this time,
we weren't messing around.
We were ready to turn Juárez upside down
To find El Chingon.
El Chingon!
Chingon, where are you?
El Chingon, where are you?
But as it turns out,
tracking down the most wanted man in Mexico
wasn't as easy as you might think.
Luckily we got hooked up with a local "profesoro"
who had some sweet insider information,
'cause knowledge is power.
- Thanks for having us. - You're welcome.
- Hi. How are you? - Thank you.
We're Dronez.
Hope you don't mind our camera guy.
It's Chris.
Everybody knows El Chingon
lives somewhere in the foothills of Salvez.
That is why it's called the Salvez cartel.
Oh, Salvez cartel, okay.
You're reporters.
You knew that already.
- Yeah, yeah. - Right, no, yeah.
- The foothills. - Yeah, we...
- Salvez. - Salvez, in the foothills.
- Let's go. - And so if we just get...
- So if he's in the foothills... - No, no, no, wait.
Promise me. Do not go there.
Even the police do not go to Salvez.
Because...
Because if you go there, you will die.
These guys don't play around.
But wait a minute.
Especially with a camera,
they won't even ask any questions.
You will be killed.
But that's the key.
We do ask questions.
Okay, so you shouldn't go there, then.
Foothills in Salvez. Right.
Promise me you will not go there.
We promise we won't go.
Been walking for a couple hours.
Should be pretty close to El Chingon's house.
There's no place to really walk.
There's a lot of weeds.
Weeds are a lot thicker than you think,
a lot stronger.
And, uh, we're the only ones out here.
New York Times isn't doing this.
Uh...
I think New York Times did do a piece out here.
- They did? - Yeah.
Well, cut that out.
- Whoa. - Oh, wow.
So how do we find El Chingon?
The same way they found Bin Laden.
We looked for the biggest house
and knocked on the front door.
It's got to be the house.
There's a dude. Hey.
Um, hi. We're from Dronez.
Uh, you're the...
Oh, whoa, whoa!
- Whoa, whoa, whoa! - Oh, god, help me, help me!
No!
We're okay.
We're... we're good. We're cool.
We're cool. We're cool.
We're cool.
- We're fine. - We're cool. We're cool.
- Hi. - Hi.
We're... we're, um... we're, um...
We're from a show called Dronez,
Um...
With a z.
- The camera. - Put the camera...
Put the camera up on him.
- Um, we... - We were just walking around.
We saw the house.
We wanted to find you.
Kind of what we do is, uh,
We kind of find the craziest people,
and we kind of just wanted an interview with you.
- And, um... - This is our cameraman.
Uh, this is Chris. We're... we're unarmed.
Yeah, we're fine. We're cool.
And we just want to... yeah,
We just want to get to...
To get to ge... know the real you,
If that's a thing that you are open
and you and your friend... your friends could be in it.
All you guys can be in the...
You know, we can interview everybody.
The... we can interview
Each and every one of your guys.
You guys could be on, uh, the... the internet.
Okay.
Wh... what's up?
- Okay. - Okay.
Hey, okay.
Mic, everything's working? Camera's good?
Holy shit.
- All right. - Thank you.
And thank you, man.
Thanks. That was... all right.
We suddenly had unprecedented access
into the life of the world's most dangerous drug trafficker.
At first, it was invigorating.
Oh, my god, I've never done
this much coke in my life.
Yes, you did. What about Beth's barbecue?
- Oh, yeah. - Right?
Chris, you got to get on this.
Here, I'll hold the camera.
Hit that shit, bro!
But as soon as we began walking in El Chingon's shoes,
a strange logic emerged.
Whoo!
, man, that's some
Fast and Furious shit, man.
- Dude!
And as we unraveled the enigma,
we learned so much about the real El Chingon,
like his middle name, which is Ignacio,
which shortens to Nacho.
Pretty rad.
Oh!
Most importantly, we discovered that deep down,
this powerful kingpin is really just a fun dude
who's into cool stuff,
like smoothies...
Oh-ho-ho-ho.
A total partier with suave taste
and a generous heart.
We danced with his daughters,
hung with his compadres,
and fiesta'd Mexican gangster style.
Oh! Oh, my god.
Dude, are you okay?
You okay?
, Americano.
You okay?
Yeah.
Yeah, you, dude.
Things are going pretty good.
Uh, we still haven't gotten that interview yet.
I think El Chingon is gonna sit down with us pretty soon,
and it's gonna be pretty great,
but, I mean, Juárez isn't that bad.
You have to speak up for the mic.
I learned that from Chris.
Chris, you're a asshole, man.
You're an animal, Chris!
Dronez.
- Dronez. - Dronez, Dronez!
We finally built up enough trust
to sit down for our long-awaited interview
with the man himself, El Chingon.
Thank you so much for making us feel so welcome.
Uh, it's been an unbelievable experience.
So, um, I guess, uh,
we could start doing this interview.
So how do you decide who, uh, is gonna be,
like, a guard for you?
Shit! Oh, oh, oh!
Oh, no. Oh, no!
I'm.
It all happened so fast.
One of the deadliest raids
in the history of the war on drugs.
Afterwards, the cops searched the property,
Smoked out the survivors,
but El Chingon was nowhere to be found.
He was the stuff of legend,
like an epic verse
from one of their shitty polka songs.
Wh-what do I say?
I mean, I have been embedded
with the federal police for an entire year,
and this is the biggest operation
they've ever conducted.
And apparently, you guys are right in the middle of it,
so that is ju... that is...
Wow.
The cocaine's still in...
- What are you talking about? - The cocaine's still in there.
- Who cares? - You can't just leave it there.
Come on.
We're lucky.
What do you mean we're lucky?
Where we gonna go? Got to walk back.
Could've got arrested.
We'll die. That's nuts.
Dronez.
Nice work, boys.
We're all really stoked about your next piece
on vodka dicking.
You put your dick in some vodka
and get super wasted
on another can't-miss episode
of Dronez.
Oh, yeah.
That's good beef.
Kobe beef, straight from Tokyo.
But let's... let's take a look at these bananas.
These are just natural,
not yellow, you know, chemicals,
not brought to you by Tide.
It's just like a regular banana,
And that's the simple life
that we kind of forget about, you know?
Like, you can actually eat a banana off a tree
as opposed to...
Huh.
Why do you guys own two copies
of Anger Management?