So if I wanted to get a meeting with El Mancho, what would I have to go through in order to get to him?

It'd be tough doing.

He is known for very, very strict security measures.

He basically is up in the mountains of Halisco.

He's surrounded by something like five security rings,

each ring with a couple of hundreds of gunmen

and there are minefields that you have to know your way around.

If you go, we know from a couple of people who we were told went up there,

that they're hooded.

They have to leave all electronics behind.

And they're taking on what is a six-hour journey up into the mountains of Halisco.

He sounds extremely heavily guarded and extremely hard to get to.

Yeah, he is. By all accounts, he is.

That's our colleague Jose de Cordoba, who's based in Mexico City.

The reason El Mentiono, whose full name is Nemesio O'Segera, is so well-guarded, is because

he's become one of the most powerful drug lords in the world.

And he's feeding America's seemingly insatiable appetite for cocaine.

You should know that the cocaine trade is really exploded, and it has expanded enormously in the last couple of years.

And so that's, you know, the U.S. has, not that it ever went away, but the U.S. has rediscovered cocaine.

According to one drug testing company, cocaine consumption in the western part of the U.S. has gone up by 154% since 2019.

And U.S. and Mexican authorities say El Mancho is the key supplier for a huge part of that market.

I think without question, he's the most important drug trafficker in Mexico, which would make him one of the most

...