'Narcos: Mexico' Season 2: Why was Rubén Zuno Arce's uncle's name beeped out and referred to as Mr X?
Spoiler Alert for 'Narcos: Mexico' Season 2 Episode 3 'Ruben Zuno Arce'
Kiki Camarena's death has left a sword hanging over Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo's (Diego Luna) neck. It is quite bewildering how his partners, Rafael Caro Quintero (Tenoch Huerta) and Don Neto (Joaquín Cosío) are behind bars but he roams free — that too, in the lap of luxury. How does he manage that?
Clearly, Félix has a connection with the Mexican government that is keeping him safe. In Episode 3, Rubén Zuno Arce is tricked into flying to Mexico instead of Guadalajara and is arrested by American officials.
Played by Milton Cortés, he is shown to be a wealthy businessman whose uncle was the Secretary of Defense during the 1980s. It was at Rubén’s home where Kiki Camarena was tortured and murdered. In a particular scene, when Rubén is being interrogated in the courtroom, his uncle's name is beeped out.
Who really was Rubén's uncle? And why did they have to beep his name out? In 'Narcos: Mexico', he is never named. In fact, he is referred to as Mr X! Going by the scarce details in the Netflix series, he provided protection to Félix.
Secretly, he supported the Guadalajara cartel as it rose into the cocaine trafficking business. He even warned Félix about a DEA operation set to begin at the American border.
In real life, Rubén Zuno Arce is the brother-in-law of Luis Echeverría Álvarez. The 50th President of Mexico, he served from 1970 to 1976, which marked a controversial rise in repression and arbitrary arrests.
Not only did he get engrossed in Third Worldism, but his government also sparked a dirty war and put a ban on rock music. At 98, he resides in Mexico City as the oldest living former Mexican president.
When Rubén was convicted by a California court and sentenced to life in prison in the year 1992, Echeverría reportedly made several requests to then-president Carlos Salinas to pressurize the US for his release.
However, nothing worked. In an attempt to protect the former president's name, the showrunners of 'Narcos: Mexico' seem to have fictionalized Rubén's higher-up affiliation to an uncle named Mr X.
At the age of 82, Rubén lost his life to metastatic lung cancer and cardiovascular disease in a federal prison in Coleman, Florida in 2012.