‘Narcos: Mexico’ on Netflix: Is Scoot McNairy’s Agent Walt Based on a Real Person?

For five seasons now Narcos has been fictionalizing the confrontations between notorious drug lords and acclaimed DEA agents. But that’s not exactly the case for Narcos: Mexico Season 2. Though it’s true that several DEA agents launched an operation in response to Enrique “Kiki” Camarena’s tragic murder, Scoot McNairy’s Walt Breslin wasn’t one of them.

To better understand McNairy’s composite character it’s easiest to go back to the beginning. In the 1980s Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, aka El Padrino, (played by Diego Luna) came to be head of the Guadalajara Cartel. A former cop turned drug lord, Félix Gallardo always had a talent for working his way up from nothing, and that’s exactly what he did with the Guadalajara Cartel. Instead of accepting his cartel’s territory or risking it by waging war with neighboring cartels, Félix Gallardo proposed a coalition. Underneath him the Guadalajara Cartel, the Juárez Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, and the Tijuana Cartel were unified, setting up Félix Gallardo as their de facto leader. It was a brilliant plan that forced Colombian Cartels to give Mexico more money as they transported cocaine to the United States. But it almost came crashing down thanks to DEA Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena (played by Michael Peña).

Camarena infiltrated one of the Guadalajara Cartel’s operations, which infuriated Félix Gallardo. The drug lord ordered Camarena to be kidnapped. He was tortured over 20 hours before being killed.

Obviously the United States wasn’t happy to learn that one of its agents had been murdered by a cartel. Making the loss even more brutal was the fact that the ’80s saw the DEA in its early stages. The branch was still under-appreciated and not well understood, making those in its ranks all the more loyal. Following Camarena’s death the DEA launched Operation Leyenda, the largest homicide investigation the branch has ever undertaken.

The operation sought to arrest the three men deemed responsible for organizing Camarena’s murder: Ernesto “Don Neto” Fonseca, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, and Rafael Caro Quintero. Both Fonseca and Quintero were arrested in 1985 soon after Camarena’s death. But Félix Gallardo was able to avoid arrest until 1989.

Though we do know some of the men who were involved in Operation Leyenda, like former head of the Guadalajara DEA office James Kuykendall, Narcos: Mexico largely doesn’t name the real agents involved in the case. Instead Scoot McNairy’s Walt is partially a composite of all the DEA agents who fought to bring justice to Camarena and an original character. So no, Walt Breslin wasn’t a real agent involved in the Drug Enforcement Agency in the 1980s. But he’s not too far off from the truth.

Watch Narcos: Mexico on Netflix