novelraw Chapter 1504 - 808: Underground Factory
Chapter 1504 - 808: Underground Factory
Now that the target is known, the rest becomes much easier. Although the Mexican drug lords are very mysterious in the public eye, for powerful agencies like the DEA, maybe they are unclear about the boss and drug warehouse locations, but they definitely have data on the organization. It's just that no one previously connected these few members of the Salamanca Family to those big drug lords.
In just two days, the DEA dug up Salamanca's background. That's the advantage of having informants, especially when no evidence is needed.
The Mexican Cartel is a powerful drug trafficking network composed of multiple families and key figures, most notably the organization led by Eladio Vant.
Eladio is the leader of the entire Cartel, holding the ultimate power and decision-making authority. He enjoys undisputed respect and authority within the Cartel.
He is not only a leader with extremely shrewd business acumen but also a ruthless boss with zero tolerance for betrayal and failure.
Under him is a family, the Salamanca Family. However, the reputation of this Salamanca Family is not well regarded; they are notoriously aggressive and act like typical gang thugs. Given the Cartel and Eladio's intimidation, many people are unhappy with them but have not had severe conflicts with them.
The most famous person in the family was someone named Lalo, but this person was killed during a gang conflict at their family estate a few years ago. Since then, there has been little activity from the Salamanca Family.
Eladio also had an underling named Borsa, who was an organizer equivalent to a Mafia consigliere. There weren't many rumors about his personal strength, but Eladio deeply trusted him. Just a few months ago, during a large-scale crackdown by the Mexican government on drug traffickers, one operation was a raid on Borsa's home, where he was shot dead by SWAT on the spot. It's unclear who has taken over Borsa's position, and there's certainly turmoil within the Cartel Group.
When these materials were presented to Jimmy, his first reaction was not about the Salamanca Family but about that person named Borsa. He had previously handled several drug-related cases, and the source of those drugs was a person named Borsa. It seems it was also this Cartel organization involved in trafficking.
But now that he's dead, there's no way to investigate further. Anyway, Mexican drug lords aren't just one or two people; someone will always get the goods to the United States. There's no need to think about this person anymore.
With the target clearly defined, the rest becomes easy to follow up on. However, now there are still two lines of investigation running concurrently: Jimmy prioritizing the Cartel organization, while also having to consider Gus' line. According to Hank and their hypothesis, this Gus is likely an important figure in the blue meth network and an important participant in the attack on Hank.
They have always been watching Gus because they discovered that Hector Salamanca, this stroke-afflicted old man, had his treatment and subsequent nursing home fees paid by an unknown Foundation, which was significantly funded by the Fried Chicken Brothers.
Apart from the Salamanca line, there's also Hank's previous investigation of the sequence number on the Fried Chicken Brothers' napkin that linked to Madrigal Electromotive GmbH, and the Fried Chicken Brothers also happened to be invested by a member of Madrigal's catering industry. These correlations make it really difficult for Hank and others to give up on the Gus lead directly.
If all these clues are linked, it's basically possible to determine that Gus should also be a member of the Mexican Cartel organization or even one of Eladio's subordinates. The only question is why the blue meth hasn't become widespread in Mexico, given that such high-purity goods should be very popular among drug lords. Eladio couldn't possibly let his subordinates operate like this.
Investigation into Gus continues, but these matters are not something Jimmy can handle alone; collective efforts must be leveraged.
-----------------
Gus finally relaxed a bit; the DEA has already gone to the Casa Tranquila Nursing Home to question Hector. However, according to his reports, the DEA has gained nothing so far. The Cartel's influence in Mexico isn't small either, taking down Eladio won't be easy, but Eladio is a big target, enough to draw the DEA's attention.
Previously, Gus and Tyrus were the only ones in contact with Hector. No others were involved. Now that Tyrus is no longer around, as long as Gus and his people don't return to the nursing home, no one will have evidence of their connection, temporarily halting the DEA's investigation involving him.
His lab has been shut down for almost a week. Although the current stock can last for a few more days, he can't remain closed forever; the losses would be significant. The key is, once credibility is lost, other partners will inevitably have other thoughts. For Gus, this is unacceptable.
He contacted Mike, having him arrange for someone to investigate whether anyone is tailing Walter and Jesse. If nothing unexpected is occurring, they should resume operations.
Walter hasn't been idle these days. His wife Skye successfully acquired the car wash where he used to work, intending to launder the funds from his drug manufacturing operation. It's just that they had only just acquired it, and it wasn't on track yet, when he had to get back to work.