The making of a kingpin

US agents helped make Joaquin Guzman the most powerful drug lord in the world. Aram Roston reports

THERE are usually just three ways for a trafficker to leave a Mexican drug cartel: go to prison, get killed, or become a government informant.

Two weeks ago, I had dinner at an expensive restaurant near the Mexican border with a man who got out by the third route. He was, until recently, an important figure in the Sinaloa cartel’s drug-running operations, working indirectly for the boss, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.