Kingpin

Two-time Emmy Award-winning executive producer/writer David Mills ("The Corner," "ER," "NYPD Blue" and "Homicide: Life on the Street") has created NBC's gritty new series "Kingpin." In this stylized drama, the struggles and machinations of a powerful Mexican drug-trafficking family are displayed in graphic detail as they face challenges from both the United States Drug Enforcement Agency and from the dangerous underworld in which they reside.

Yancey Arias ("The Time Machine") stars as Stanford-educated Miguel Cadena, a savvy businessman who has risen to the threshold of supremacy in his family's illegal drug cartel as power begins to pass from one generation to the next. Behind the opulent façade of the Cadenas' lifestyle of private jets, yachts and villas stands a massive drug-dealing operation that produces immense quantities of illegal narcotics despite the ongoing family infighting.

Also starring in "Kingpin" are Sheryl Lee ("L.A. Doctors," "Twin Peaks") as Marlene, Miguel's beautiful American wife, who as a lawyer works to protect the family business from government intervention and who shares her husband's proclivity for ruthless cunning; Ruben Carbajel as Joey, the couple's 8-year-old son whom they attempt to shelter from their dangerous lifestyle; Bobby Cannavale (NBC's "Third Watch") as Chato, Miguel's ambitious and brutal yet loyal brother; Angela Alvarado Rosa ("Boss of Bosses") as Delia Flores, a DEA agent ardently fighting to thwart drug dealers wherever she finds them; Brian Benben ("Dream On") as Dr. Heywood Klein, a successful plastic surgeon who is conflicted over his role in the Cadenas' North American operations; and Shay Roundtree ("Drumline") as Junie Gatling, one of Klein's go-to men in the trenches of the drug trade.

"Kingpin" is produced by NBC Studios and Spelling Television, Inc. Aaron Spelling and E. Duke Vincent are executive producers along with two-time Emmy winner David Mills ("The Corner, " NBC's "ER"). Dan Sackheim is co-executive producer. Allen Coulter ("The Sopranos") directs the pilot episode from a script by Mills.