Cartel Tycoon: How to Unlock San Rafaela DLC Capos & Gang Emblems

This guide is to help players make sense of the global unlocks in the San Rafaela DLC campaign “Crashing the System.” There are four unlocks in total: two capos and two gang emblems.

You can complete all four unlocks with a single save folder, but you will have to back track to early in the game.

For this guide you will need to reserve two or three save slots within your gang’s campaign save folder so you can backtrack to those. You may want more, it’s up to you.

Capo: Guillermo Falcó
Complete the Crashing the System scenario with Party and Journalist support.
(Take over Southern territories by building with legal money, and defeat Julio Ochoa’s gang – Espada de Bolivar).

Capo: Damian Luna
Complete the Crashing the System scenario without Party support, but with Northern Gang support.
(Take over Southern territories by building ONLY with dirty money, and supply weapons to Espada de Bolivar).

Cartel emblem: Puppet government
Complete the Crashing the System scenario with Party support and Northern Gang support.
(Take over Southern territories by building with legal money, and supply weapons to Espada de Bolivar).

Cartel emblem: Watching eye
Complete the Crashing the System scenario without Party support, but with Journalist support.
(Take over Southern territories by building ONLY with dirty money, and defeat Espada de Bolivar).

We want to get you into the best position to accomplish the necessary quests so here’s a few pointers to start with. You can skip this section if you already can play well. I’m not your father.

The map:

I primarily sell opium, cocaine and meth on this map. There are some good cannabis spots. In sandbox you can easily sell everything of course but I didn’t really need to go up to heroin for the campaign.

Many areas on this map are resource poor so you will need to manage your logistics well.
Holden Delgado and Gena Vargas (my #1 bae) are great for this map because they’re strong characters and you can mitigate their desire for high terror by doing meth and cocaine deals regularly.

Prepare a good economy first:

You’ll receive a quest to take over the Residence in Ballenas and to give Roberto a pay rise. My recommendation is to hold off on the pay rise as long as you can and set up your economy first. You’ll need the residence to deliver money. If you’re worried about Roberto getting upset, you could build another residence instead, but I wouldn’t worry about it. You should have enough time.
Ballenas is mostly only good for opium.

You can grow cannabis here but the soil quality is poor, so you’ll not have great returns, but you should do it anyway. Work towards getting a good opium supply first, including packaging the product in workshops so that you can sell much more (you need to be able to package for a quest anyway). Start with coffee because it grows so well, but place your farms so that you can switch production if you need to. There’s space for vegetables and avocado nearby. Once you get going, work on the cannabis.

Smuggling points:

Checkpoints (and seaports) are fine if you’re selling packaged goods, but they are annoying. Goods will occasionally be ‘confiscated’ (what actually happens is when a good is under confiscation the checkpoint simply will not sell it). If goods are marked suspicious they will still be sold but will increase terror. You must keep an eye on your checkpoints and switch production and packaging if the goods are under confiscation. In Ballenas I switch between packaging in coffee, avocado and chicken, but it will take you a while to get there.

To sell more than one good at a time you need to place a lieutenant at the checkpoint to smuggle it. When you are smuggling the chances of goods being confiscated or suspicious goes up.
You can smuggle goods through the airport but keep in mind that capturing the airport will raise enemy gang strength. I recommend doing the airport quests once you capture Riomanos so you have free building slots, and letting it sit until you are ready to take the region.

Get the River Pier early, but don’t capture Riomanos:

I think it’s possible that capturing Riomanos before you receive the quest to capture the southern territories may break the outcomes of that quest, but I’m uncertain. The reason I say this is I failed to correctly follow the “No Party support path” on a playthrough when I captured Riomanos early, but it’s also possible I accidentally used legal money.

The developers (discord) have confirmed that you can spend legal money or dirty money on either path, so long as you use the majority type of money that is appropriate for the path you are going for.

You don’t need Riomanos to use the River Pier. Do the quests from the Riomanos mayor, and once they’re done, just play without capturing the city.

So get the River Pier early because that’s your big money maker, and get the residence to help you move the dirty money. Make sure you get the River Pier upgrades.

Build your gang relationships:

Get ALL the gangs on good terms and keep them there. It’s really easy and it pays off. Be strategic about it. The central gangs are stronger so you could possibly decide to take them out first (I’ve done it). The way the campaign wants you to play is ultimately clear out the northern gangs first, and then the central gangs.

Talk to gangs, and do deals with the gangs and pay them for passage whenever possible. It’s easy money and keeps their relationship high. Use this strategically when you take over regions to keep them friendly. If you have a good relationship, don’t talk to them again until after you take a region, so when their attitude drops you can just instantly put it back up again.

Deals are BIG early game money makers. You can buy dried cannabis from Ismael in Tetlán, and deliver it straight to your workshops to be packaged, then ship it out of the River Pier. The money you get back is WELL worth the cost of buying the product.

It’s even better with Gerardo in Méxitlan. Buy meth from him and ship it unpackaged out of the seaport. This will have you rolling in money early game. Even better, you don’t have to send your trucks through Ismael’s city so there’s no tax on your money trucks.

Going through Riomanos to the pier from Méxitlan or Tetlán will generate terror, though.
Once you are feeling confident, give Roberto a pay raise. We’ll make a save soon. Everything should be pretty easy from here.

If it’s your first playthrough I recommend going for Guillermo Falcó and the Puppet Government emblems first, so you can learn the map a bit, because building with only dirty money in early game is a bit of a pain.

Early game you’ll receive the quest “Buried.”

Once you give Roberto a pay rise you’ll get the quest “Fundraising” to sell packaged opium and cannabis. Once you get close to filling the quota, save your game. Name it something so that you remember what it is (like “Party Support Choice”. You’re going to come back to it for the other unlocks.

To secure these paths you have to capture the southern territories (Riomanos & Monteleon) by either building only using legal money (Party Support) or only using dirty money (No Party Support).

NOTE: Despite what the devs have said, I have failed to get the No Party Support path because I built a few buildings that can ONLY be built with legal money (university, cathedral, residence) . SO I SUGGEST YOU AVOID THEM. This locks you out of using hotels. I know it’s hard ☹

This is why we get our economy going first.

Go ahead and take Riomanos and Monteleon, and get your legal money.

The easy way to tell whether you successfully did this quest is you will next receive a quest to research the cocaine production chain if you did the No Party Support path.

Either way, for your next steps I recommend getting the indigenous territory because there’s great cocaine production to be had. The campaign will also lead you towards taking the guerrillas where can also make cocaine and sell it at the river pier in the indigenous territory. Manage the gang relationships.

You’ll be doing a quest “Campaign Trail II” to take over the four northern regions. Once you’re ready to take over the second one, you *might* want to make a save.

You’ll be given a choice here. I haven’t confirmed it, but I believe that the choice is affected by whether you have party support or not (please confirm it for me if you can).

Essentially the choice you make decides whether you get to keep Wagner Castrillon (very boring and mostly useless) or you get to recruit Camila (very cool and very sexy). I personally think this choice is easy.

No matter which route you go, if you select “Truth” the gangs will attack you. You have to survive, so be ready.

Now, If you’re on the Party Support path, telling the Truth leads to Camila and lying leads to Wagner.

If you’re on the No Party Support path, telling the Truth leads to Wagner, and lying leads to Camila.

I’d like for other to confirm this for me. This quest won’t affect your global unlocks.

SAVE!!!

Make a save before taking your fourth northern territory. Name it something memorable like “Journalist or Gang Support Choice”

Once you’ve got those northern territories under your control, you come to the next major choice.

Roberto (he is the journalist) will appear and give you a quest.

This one is very simple.

Side with Roberto by defeating Espada de Bolivar to get the Journalist Support.

Deliver weapons to Espada de Bolivar to get the Northern Gang Support.

From here you can play however you like. Go get those central territories!

Now let’s say you’re following this guide and are currently doing the Party Support path first. You probably want to unlock Falcó first, so go ahead and side with Roberto by wiping out Espada de Bolivar.

Play to the end and after the cutscene make a save to be certain that it keeps your unlocks (you can overwrite it later).

Load up your Journalist/Gang save and deliver the weapons to the gang. Play to the end and watch the cutscene. You’ll get the Puppet Government emblem. Again save and back to menu.

Now you have to go waaaay back to when you took the southern territories, so load that save.

This time, when you take over Riomanos and Monteleon, make sure you use ONLY dirty money.

Make a save just before you take that fourth northern territory! Deliver weapons to Espada de Bolivar and play through to the end to unlock Damian Luna.

Then load up that previous save, and wipe out Espada de Bolivar to get the last emblem unlocked.

And you’re done!