‘Cowboy Cartel’: Inside the Mexican Drug Cartel’s Deadly Horse Racing Scheme

Tackling a story that would have been perfect for a fourth season of Narcos: Mexico, Cowboy Cartel concerns the most dangerous drug outfit in the world, a rookie FBI agent with an intriguing tip and a spot-on hunch, and racehorses whose money-making potential proved irresistible for villains intent on laundering their ill-gotten gains.

Premiering on Apple TV+ Friday, Aug. 2, this sharply directed four-part docuseries from Dan Johnstone and Castor Fernandez is an intricate and gripping tale of criminal enterprise machinations, investigative strategies, and immense danger, and it’s augmented by the participation of virtually every law enforcement agent involved—not to mention aesthetics that are a cut above the usual non-fiction TV pack.

In September 2009, Scott Lawson graduated from the FBI training academy and, because he spoke a bit of Spanish and had previously been a cop, was sent to the border town of Laredo, Texas. Separated from its Mexican sister city of Nuevo Laredo by the Rio Grande, Laredo was the biggest trade crossing between the two countries, and that meant it was a hotbed for cartel drug activity. At the time of Lawson’s posting, the biggest cartel in the land was Los Zetas, which had begun as a special forces military unit—trained at Fort Bragg to combat cartels—that had flipped sides, first working for the Gulf Cartel before going into business for itself. What separated Los Zetas from its competition was the extremity of its violence, and it didn’t take long before it ruled not just the border but most of its homeland through fear, intimidation, bribery, and brutality.

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