General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20263 min read

Yankee (2019 TV series)

Yankee is a Mexican crime drama television series produced for Netflix by the Mexico City company Argos, first released on June 14, 2019. It follows Malcolm Moriarty, a young entrepreneur from the United States who flees across the border into Mexico and, using modern technology such as drones, rises in the drug trafficking world under the nickname "el Yankee".¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Network and production	Netflix original produced by Argos Producciones, announced as in production in Mexico City on September 21, 2018¹
Premiere	June 14, 2019, with all 25 episodes of season 1 released on Netflix³
Format	One season of 25 Spanish-language episodes, rated TV-MA; genres listed as crime, drama, and thriller²^•⁴
Premise	An Arizona man on the run from the police crosses into Mexico and gets deeply involved in drug trafficking with the help of modern technology³
Lead cast	Pablo Lyle as Malcolm Moriarty, with Ana Layevska, Leonardo Daniel, Sebastián Ferrat, Pamela Almanza, and Daniel Martínez⁵
Key creators	Creators Diego Enrique Osorno, Veronica Velasco, and Epigmenio Ibarra; main director Carlos Carrera²^•¹

Spoilers

Premise

Malcolm Moriarty is a real estate agent and drug trafficker living in Arizona who gets into trouble after an altercation at his house and must flee to Mexico to escape the police.²^•⁶ To protect his family, he enters the drug trade and, with the help of high technology, quickly builds his position in the trafficking world, becoming a powerful capo known as "el Yankee".¹^•⁶ At the border he shows the character Cara Sucia a new way of moving drugs across, and the two become allies and later enemies as their rivalry endangers their lives and their families.²^•⁶

The first season runs 25 episodes with titles such as "El vuelo de Esquila", "Aberraciones", and the finale "Happiness Is a Rebellion", in which Yankee and Phoebe decide how to handle their future.²^•⁴

Production

Netflix announced the start of production in Mexico City on September 21, 2018, scheduling the series for a 2019 release. Yankee was produced by Argos with Epigmenio Ibarra and Verónica Velasco as executive producers, Carlos Carrera as main director, and a scriptwriting team of Diego Enrique Osorno, Eduardo Antonio Parra, Cesar Gandara, Alexandro Aldrete, and coordinator Alo Valenzuela.¹ It was one of four series Netflix planned with Argos, alongside Justiciera, El club, and El jefe, set to premiere between 2019 and 2020.¹

A quiet release. The first season premiered on June 14, 2019 without any kind of publicity, which SensaCine attributes to the legal trial that lead actor Pablo Lyle was facing at the time.⁷

Cast

Pablo Lyle stars as Malcolm Moriarty. The main supporting cast includes Ana Layevska as agent Laura Wolf, Leonardo Daniel, Sebastián Ferrat as Cara Sucia, Pamela Almanza as Phoebe Moriarty, Daniel Martínez as Sheriff Valenzuela, Gabriela Zamora as Yvonne, and Julio Casado as Prosecutor Del Toro.⁵^•³

Release and availability

The series was added to Netflix on June 14, 2019 in the United States, Mexico, and many other countries, with Spanish (Latin America) as the original audio and subtitles in English, Spanish, French, Chinese, and other languages depending on the region.³^•⁸ TVmaze lists the show as ended after its single 2019 season, while some listing sites have carried a "returning series" status.⁴^•³

Some reference sources disagree on basic details. Rotten Tomatoes describes the protagonist as a young man from Texas and lists a release date of April 26, 2019, while Netflix's own synopsis and most listings place the character in Arizona and the premiere on June 14, 2019.⁹^•²^•³

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026