How The Sinaloa Cartel Moves Cocaine Across America

How The Sinaloa Cartel Moves Cocaine Across America

From The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell by Johnny Mitchell

August 30, 2026 · 2h 19m · Episode 249

About this episode

Jacob Diaz shares his journey from foster care to managing a cocaine trafficking operation and his subsequent transformation into a legitimate business owner.

At just 18 years old, Jacob Diaz went from growing up in extreme poverty and foster care to helping manage a massive cocaine trafficking operation stretching from the Texas border to Florida. In this episode, Jacob explains how he started as a driver and translator before eventually handling logistics, coordinating drivers, collecting money, managing stash houses, and helping oversee the U.S. side of an operation connected to the Beltrán Leyva organization. At its peak, the network was moving dozens of kilos a week, with Jacob describing hundreds of kilos moving through individual customers and millions of dollars changing hands. Jacob breaks down how the operation stayed under the radar, how cocaine moved across the country, what life was like around cartel figures in Mexico, and the mistake that eventually brought federal investigators to his door. After being convicted on a federal cocaine conspiracy charge and serving more than seven years in prison, Jacob completely changed direction and built a legitimate business helping people repair their credit and access funding. This is the story of how a teenager went from homelessness and foster care to the center of a…

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Host: Johnny Mitchell

Guest: Jacob Diaz

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Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Beltrán Leyva organization

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