“Cowboy Cartel”: Mexican drug lords’ horse race disguised as a deadly crime ring

It's not every day that you hear the words “horse” and “deadly drug cartel” in the same sentence.

The new Apple TV+ docuseries “Cowboy Cartel” examines the Mexican drug cartel Los Zetas and its dismantling under the leadership of new FBI agent Scott Lawson.

The Zetas were once considered one of the deadliest drug cartels in Mexico and were led by brothers Omar Treviño Morales and Miguel Angel Treviño Morales. But then the four-legged animals got involved.

In January 2010, the FBI office in Laredo, Texas, received a tip that the Zetas were involved in money laundering operations involving Quarter Horses on American soil.

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The duo's other brother, José Treviño Morales, was involved in a sham operation involving multimillion-dollar fake purchases and deals to conceal drug money through the sale of quarter horses and racing winnings, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas said after his conviction in 2013.

The plan involved structuring cash deposits of less than $10,000 to avoid mandatory bank reporting requirements, officials said.

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On June 12, 2012, the FBI raided the home and stables of José Treviño Morales in Lexington, Oklahoma. (AP)

The most difficult part for Lawson and his team was proving that the crime was actually illegal and committing it before the brothers and the Zetas returned to Mexico.

On June 12, 2012, the FBI finally raided José's home and stables. This led to the arrest of Miguel and José in 2013, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence in a federal prison.

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José Treviño Morales thanks the crowd at the All American Futurity horse race at Ruidoso Downs, NM, on September 6, 2010.

Most of the other Zetas were eventually caught and are currently serving their sentences behind bars, but some have joined other cartel groups.

The four-part series features, for the first time, interviews with Lawson and other local and national law enforcement officials who helped uncover the brothers' illegal activities.

Lawson, an investigator from rural Tennessee, infiltrated the deadly cartel to uncover its international money laundering activities.

“My boss told me, 'Here we are working against the Zetas,'” said Lawson, who was responsible for solving the case.

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Police officers abduct a horse from the stable area of ​​the Ruidoso Downs horse track and casino in Ruidoso, NM on June 12, 2012. (Ruidoso News/AP)

Lawson also provides insight into other key information about the arrest of the brothers and their accomplices, revealing that as part of the complex investigation that spanned more than three years, 1,200 police officers converged on the same day to arrest the brothers.

Others involved in the arrest and featured in the series included IRS agent Steve Pennington, Irving police officers Steve Junker, Brian Schutt and Kim Williams, Assistant U.S. Attorney Doug Gardner, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist Ginger Thompson and Joe Tone, author of Bones: Brothers, Horses, Cartels, and the Borderland Dream.

“Anyone who opposed them ended up dead,” says one of the interviewees.

“Anyone who opposed them would end up dead.”

This photo released during a press conference of the Mexican government on July 15, 2013 shows a series of photographs of Miguel Angel Treviño Morales. (Reuters/Secretaria de Gobernacion)

From a 911 call from a special agent who was shot and attacked on a Texas highway to cars bursting into flames, experts on the case are analyzing in detail how the gang marked its territory with violence.

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“All cartels use violence to achieve their goals. The Zetas have taken this to a new level,” said a law enforcement official.

“All cartels use violence to achieve their goals. The Zetas have taken this to a new level.”

“When you think of the drug cartels, you think of the drugs, you think of the violence and you think of money,” another person says, as footage of masked men with guns counting cash is shown. “But you don't think of horses.”