La Barbie: The Narco Who Almost Made It To The NFL

Edgar Valdez Villarreal, known as La Barbie, grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Laredo, Texas, where almost nobody imagined the star linebacker of his high school football team would become one of the most wanted narcos in Mexico's history. Years later, that same kid would end up standing shoulder to shoulder with Arturo Beltrán Leyva, El Chapo Guzmán, and El Mayo Zambada, at the very center of one of the most powerful criminal alliances the country has ever seen. For this investigation, I went through court documents, interrogation transcripts, and testimony given directly by Edgar and his own family. What you're about to hear goes far beyond anything previously published: details about his childhood, his personality, the family bankruptcy that pushed him toward crime, his early years running weed across the border, and how a kid from Laredo allegedly ended up becoming one of the most valuable and feared men inside the Beltrán Leyva Organization. There is also the untold story of how he built his own paramilitary wing, Los Negros, forged an alliance with a Colombian-powered smuggling operation moving hundreds of kilos a week into Atlanta and Memphis, and won the trust of a cartel leader through nothing more than a pair of horses. And for the first time, we go through his own words, taken directly from his interrogation, to understand what he says really happened behind his rise from a small-time smuggler to a member of La Federación. Much of what you're about to hear comes directly from court records and testimony rarely covered in this level of detail. This is Episode 1 of the complete story of La Barbie, from Laredo to the Sinaloa Cartel. And this is only the beginning, his full story, from his rise inside the cartel to his fall, will be told across upcoming episodes. Music: Tension Mode - Soundrisemusic