But Chapo&rsquo;s greatest contribution to the evolving tradecraft of drug trafficking was one of those innovations that seem so logical in hindsight it&rsquo;s a wonder nobody thought of it before: a tunnel. In the late 1980s, Chapo hired an architect to design an underground passageway from Mexico to the United States. What appeared to be a water faucet outside the home of a cartel attorney in the border town of Agua Prieta was in fact a secret lever that, when twisted, activated a hydraulic system that opened a hidden trapdoor underneath a pool table inside the house. The passage ran more than 200 feet, directly beneath the fortifications along the border, and emerged inside a warehouse the cartel owned in Douglas, Ariz. Chapo pronounced it &ldquo;cool.&rdquo;
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The tacit but unwavering tolerance that Mexican authorities have shown for the drug trade over the years has muddled the boundaries between outlaws and officials. When Miguel Angel Mart&iacute;nez was working for Chapo, he says, &ldquo;everyone&rdquo; in the organization had military and police identification. Daylight killings are sometimes carried out by men dressed in police uniforms, and it is not always clear, after the fact, whether the perpetrators were thugs masquerading as policemen or actual policemen providing paid assistance to the thugs. On those occasions when the government scores a big arrest, meanwhile, police and military officials pose for photos at the valedictory news conference brandishing assault weapons, their faces shrouded in ski masks, to shield their identities. In the trippy semiotics of the drug war, the cops dress like bandits, and the bandits dress like cops.
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It might seem far-fetched that the cartel would try to assassinate one of its own, the son of Mayo Zambada, no less. But Sinaloa guards its secrets ruthlessly. After Chapo&rsquo;s friend Miguel Angel Mart&iacute;nez was arrested in 1998, four men came to kill him in prison, stabbing him repeatedly. In that assault, and another that followed, he sustained more than a dozen stab wounds, which punctured his lungs, pancreas and intestines. After the second attack, he was moved to another facility and kept in a segregated unit. This time, an assassin managed to get as far as the gate outside Mart&iacute;nez&rsquo;s cell and chucked two grenades at the bars. Locked in with nowhere to run, Mart&iacute;nez could only cower by the toilet to shield himself from the blast. The roof caved in, and he barely survived. Asked later who it was that tried to have him killed, Mart&iacute;nez said that it was his&nbsp;compadre, Chapo Guzm&aacute;n. &ldquo;Because of what I knew,&rdquo; he explained. (Today he is living in witness protection in the United States.)

Cocaine Incorporated&nbsp;by Patrick Radden Keefe for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, on El Chapo, the head of Mexican drug cartel Sinaloa