Original subtitles

♪ ♪

OSPINA: How we doing?

Thanks for visiting the city of Medellín, man.

It's really a pleasure for us to have tourists like you guys

here right now.

Where are you from?

MAN: Slovenia. OSPINA: Slovenia.

Oh, far away, you came so far, man.

Thank you.

In Medellín, we pay a high price because of the cocaine business.

We pay the price in blood and tears.

We were the murder capital of the world back in 1991.

There was an average of 30 murders a day in Medellín.

Hundreds of bombs and explosions.

Pablo Escobar was one of the biggest

drug dealers in Medellín.

His net worth was close to $30 billion US.

And Pablo Escobar became like a Robin Hood, man.

He used to go to the poor neighborhoods,

giving people money, but at the same time,

he's the gun.

He's the motorcycle.

Do this job, do this for me.

So we tour guides are trying to show everything with a

little respect because there's a lot of scars on

the people of Medellín.

Okay, guys.

Here we are at the cemetery where Pablo Escobar is buried.

Don't expect like, a big monument.

Drug business is a short career, man.

I can count on my hand the people that were drug dealers and like,

"Oh, I retired from being a drug dealer and now I live a happy life."

Nah, man.

The outcome of this career is jail, sorrow or death.

REPORTER (over TV): Shake this square world and blast off for kicksville.

NIXON: Public enemy number one is drug abuse.

NANCY: Just say no.

REAGAN: Halting the drug problem in America is like

carrying water in a sieve.

BUSH: Take my word for it, this scourge will stop.

REPORTER 2 (over TV): There's now an understanding that the

war on drugs was an abject failure.

MAN: You have to stop and ask yourself, how did we get here?

TRUMP: We will build a wall.

COOK: Well, I was home, sleep comfortably in my bed,

and I got a call from an investigator.

It was probably somewhere between 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.

And he said, "Listen."

He says, "I need help. There's been a fire.

There's an explosion. I have no idea what it is.

I think it may be a bomb factory.

I need someone from Major Crimes."

I said, "I'll call Bob Sears."

SEARS: I had never of Minden, New York, so I said,

"Hey, Kenny, can't this wait 'til tomorrow morning?"

He says, "No, I think we should go."

COOK: When we got there, it was chaos.

SEARS: We'd got the firemen out, we'd got the troopers out.

We'd got the deputies out.

We had to stabilize the scene.

COOK: By sun‐up, we had all the bosses there.

We had news media.

It was, you know, huge.

We started checking the various buildings.

SEARS: And we started opening these 55‐gallon drums and we

started smelling, "What do we have?"

COOK: We called the lab chemist.

He said, "Get outta there immediately."

He said, "If you open the wrong container,"

he said, "some of the stuff will kill you.

You've got what appears to be a cocaine lab."

REPORTER (over TV): It turned out to be the largest cocaine

processing laboratory in the country,

but nobody knew until the trailer on the farm in Minden

blew apart in a fire last Thursday night.

Did you see anything suspicious going on?

WOMAN (over TV): None whatsoever.

SEARS: We always associated cocaine laboratories

with South America.

This was an anomaly.

COOK: In the ten days that they were operational,

they had processed approximately 1,600 pounds of cocaine

for transport to New York City.

SEARS: We, we were angry.

How could you do this in Upstate New York?

The Cali Cartel had not only penetrated New York City,

but also penetrated Upstate New York big time.

They sent their soldiers up to Minden, New York

to do their dirty work.

REPORTER (over TV): They're called 'coca dollars' or 'narco bucks.

Cash accumulated by the cocaine cartel,

billions of dollars earned faster than they can be spent.

REPORTER (over TV): Ruling a global corporate empire,

controlling every phase of the cocaine business,

brothers Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez are forcing

are modern business methods on a violent trade.

SHEDD: The Cali Cartel, they were very smart,

strategic thinkers.

They had cells who dealt with money and cells who only dealt

with the trafficking and the members of each cell

didn't know each other.

They had quite an operation.

For example; they bought a company that specialized in

cement posts for farms, and these cement poles

were probably six feet tall.

And then they applied the packaging of the one kilo or

one pound to fit the inside of the cement post.

BARGER (over TV): The drug bosses based here in Cali like

to think of themselves as corporate leaders

rather than common criminals.

SHEDD: If these guys were to do something legal,

they could be the CEOs of General Motors.

PRODUCER: You learn English in Colombia or

in the United States or?

MARROQUÍN: Watching TV, man. PRODUCER: Watching TV?

MARROQUÍN: Watching TV, hiding all the time.

My name is Sebastián Marroquín, formerly called Pablo Escobar.

I am the son of Pablo Escobar.

I grew up living a life full of money, full of power.

My, my father, at the time, he was perhaps one of

the richest men in Colombia.

I realized very early that he was a bandit,

because he told me when I was seven years old.

So, you can imagine being a child.

Perhaps you know the meaning of the word 'bandit,' but you

don't realize how huge the organization was that

my father was in charge of.

REPORTER (over TV): Pablo Escobar has been identified by

American authorities as Colombia's leading exporter of cocaine.

The Escobar family has reportedly amassed

nearly $2 billion, smuggling 1,100 pounds of refined cocaine

into the United States every month.

MARROQUÍN: We were living in a life that

we felt power was endless.

SHEDD: The Medellín Cartel was very rough, very vindictive.

The Cali people, they looked at it more as a business to expand.

MARROQUÍN: The Cali Cartel took control of all the

Medellín Cartel routes in New York,

and that make my father very upset.

MARROQUÍN: The Mónaco Building was our, our family home.

We used to live there but I started to be so aware of the

consequences of my father's actions because I was forced

to hide more than he.

He was more free than I was in that time.

(explosion)

MARROQUÍN: And my father became even more crazy than

ever because he felt for one hour that all

of his family were dead.

♪ ♪

MARROQUÍN: I kept saying to him,

"Look, Dad, you should stop," you know.

But he was full of excuses for violence.

TOFT: Galán's campaign was to get rid of

trafficking in Colombia.

He was vocal.

He was very aggressive about it.

He promised the Colombian people that he

would do away with the cartels.

Galán was gonna be the savior of Colombia.

My name's Joe Toft.

I was the DEA agent in charge of the Bogotá office in

Colombia from 1988 to the end of September 1994.

But when I got there, it was actually almost like

walking into a war zone.

There were bombs going off all over the place,

assassinations of politicians, of judges.

Escobar had no fear of Colombian justice.

The only thing he feared was the

U. S. Government and DEA.

TOFT: There was no question that he was gonna win the election.

Galán was going to be the next president of Colombia,

and Escobar knew it.

(crowd cheering)

(gunshots)

(gunshots)

TOFT: Yeah, it was chaos.

He was dragged from the platform into a car and taken,

and later found out that he had died in the hospital.

TOFT: He was killed just like everyone that got in Escobar's

way was killed, and the message was very clear.

"You mess with me, you die."

REPORTER (OVER TV): More than 100 people have been killed in

a plane crash near the Colombian capital, Bogotá.

The plane, an Avianca Airlines Boeing 727

was on a domestic flight to Cali.

Witnesses say the plane was blown apart by two explosions.

TOFT: You know, blowing an aircraft out

of the sky is um, it's inconceivable.

TOFT: Americans died on that aircraft.

President Bush took this incident to clearly state to

the world that Escobar was a direct

threat to the United States.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

BUSH (over TV): This, this is crack cocaine seized a

few days ago by Drug Enforcement Agents in a

park just across the street from the White House.

It's as innocent‐looking as candy but it's turning our

cities into battle zones and it's murdering our children.

REPORTER (over TV): So far this year,

75 gang members and their victims have died in

the wave of violence.

The police battering ram smashing into fortified houses

where cocaine is cooked into the lethal crack form.

It is narcotics that is driving this engine of destruction.

REPORTER 2 (over TV): The epidemic of crack is

now out of control.

MAN (over TV): Crack is here to stay, like they say.

REPORTER 3 (over TV): Bringing death to American streets,

ruining whole neighborhoods.

BUSH (over TV): If Americans use cocaine,

then Americans are paying for murder.

In Colombia alone, cocaine killers have gunned down a

leading statesman, murdered almost 200 judges and

seven members of their supreme court.

We have a responsibility not to leave our brave friends in

Colombia to fight alone.

♪ ♪

TOFT: And the U. S. military started using

their surveillance aircraft, etc.

in an effort to help locate Escobar.

TOFT: There were hundreds of raids at places where he

allegedly was and there was evidence that he was there,

that he'd barely escaped.

MARROQUÍN: My father was always like,

pushing things to the limit.

I remember many times,

"Patrón, be careful, the police is 500 meters away."

"Oh, just bring my lunch in, I'm hungry.

Tell me when they are 200 meters."

He'd start eating his lunch and,

"Patrón, Patrón, they're 200 meters away."

"Oh, just let me know when they are 50 meters."

He was, like, always a step ahead.

He didn't care.

He didn't felt any fear at all.

So, 50 meters before the police arrive,

he would just walk a little bit and he'd hide in the woods

and he watched them, and once they get away,

he finish his lunch.

TOFT: It was a very difficult time for Escobar.

Our intelligence told us he was moving every 24 hours,

trying to avoid detection, from bunker to bunker.

Escobar was, I mean he was under incredible pressure.

REPORTER (over TV): Drug kingpin Pablo Escobar

apparently is about to turn himself in.

REPORTER (over TV): Colombian officials this morning are

calling the surrender of trafficker Pablo Escobar a

major victory in the war on drugs,

but Escobar also won something that he wanted: a promise that

he won't be extradited to the U. S.

MARROQUÍN: He changed the constitution of a country so

he could surrender to the authorities easily,

confess a couple of crimes and be out of jail,

like, in eight years.

REPORTER (over TV): It looks more like a Spanish villa

nestled in the mountains outside Escobar's hometown.

The plans include a soccer field,

spacious dining hall, game room, private baths,

televisions, telephones and fax machines.

TOFT: One of the conditions was that he would

have several of his confidantes,

his sicarios and bodyguards with him.

He had complete autonomy of his surroundings.

He went in and out whenever he wanted.

So, the whole thing was a farce.

You couldn't make this up.

MARROQUÍN: During those days, I heard many stories about how

he was dealing with the drug trafficking business.

He used commercial flights with,

you know, the complicity of the authorities in

Medellín International Airport

and Miami's International Airport.

So, he used to send 800 kilos per week with

the help of the authorities.

And not a single gram was seized.

TOFT: The people that President Gaviria sent to the

prison to arrange for the movement of Escobar to a

different location, they become part of the whole thing

because they're taken hostage.

He had double walls on the building that he built where

he stashed guns and money.

He broke into the wall, got his money and got the guns and

walked out of the place.

I'm pretty sure that the army were on the take also,

because Escobar had to walk through the army.

So, you know, I mean the whole thing was just,

was just unbelievable.

REPORTER (over TV): Pablo Escobar was king of kings in

the Colombian worldwide cocaine business,

a man so powerful he arranged his own luxurious prison when

he finally surrendered to authorities.

But tonight, he is out of that prison again after a bizarre

showdown between his guards and government security agents.

REPORTER 2 (over TV): Pablo Escobar is,

without a doubt, the most powerful and ruthless of all

the drug bosses and his final words to a Colombian official

before he escaped were, "We are at war again."

REPORTER (over TV): Violence rules indiscriminately.

Twelve died and more than 200 passers‐by were injured in

this recent explosion.

It was the end of the daily lunch break in an area of

Bogotá packed with banks, shops and restaurants.

REPORTER (over TV): This time, there was no

mistaking the culprit's identity.

They'd left their signature at the scene.

'Pepes', or people persecuted by Pablo Escobar,

are vigilantes waging war on those associated with the

notorious drug lord.

♪ ♪

TOFT: The 'Los Pepes' translation into English stood

for 'people persecuted by Pablo Escobar'.

We thought it was a vigilante group that had

formed to fight the Medellín Cartel.

And initially, we were going to have some t‐shirts printed

in the office that, "We support Los Pepes".

And I'm glad we didn't do it.

MARROQUÍN: My father's enemies,

they all got together and they start killing everybody

who helped Pablo Escobar.

TOFT: Los Pepes were waging a dirty war against Escobar and

having the knowledge of the inner workings,

they were extremely effective.

TOFT: We recognized from the intelligence that we were

getting that Escobar was desperately trying to get his

family out of the country.

♪ ♪

MARROQUÍN: The plan was to leave the country and stay a

little while in Germany because Germany agreed to

receive one of our cousins in the past.

TOFT: We recognized that his Achilles was his family and we

were pulling every string we could to deny

him entry into Germany.

MARROQUÍN: When we arrived to Germany,

they stopped the plane in the middle of the airfield and it

was surrounded of, you know, police and they ask us to come

down and we went to explain the situation,

how violent was Colombia and our life was in danger, etc.

But the decision was already taken by the government.

TOFT: The main tool that we had at the time to capture him

electronically was to monitor his conversations and to use

directional finding equipment to locate him.

(phone ringing)

TOFT: And that's when Escobar lost it.

Up to that point, he had been very careful about

talking on his phone.

But he was so angry, he was so disappointed,

he started calling, you know, everybody he could.

(phone ringing)

MARROQUÍN: Well, my father started to call to our room

many times and every time he called,

he was just saying, "Don't call anymore."

(phone ringing)

And I kept, I insist and I said,

"Look, we shouldn't stay so long in our phone calls."

He knew that if he stayed on the line for

more than 60 seconds, you know, it could be traced.

(phone ringing)

(phone ringing)

TOFT: There was a lieutenant in charge of the directional

finding equipment.

He got in the car and he drove around,

trying to locate him.

Then he's driving by this street and he's telling them,

"It's here," and he looks up on the second story and he

sees this bearded guy talking on the phone.

Immediately, even though he had a different look at the time,

he said he knew it was Pablo Escobar.

♪ ♪

TOFT: They immediately sent a group of cops to raid the place.

Caught him completely by surprise.

As he jumped off the window onto the roof top of the house

next to him, and he was shooting back at the window

where he had jumped off thinking that that was the

only place that the cops were at.

He didn't know exactly what was happening,

he did not realize that his place was surrounded.

(gunshots)

And so he ended up getting shot a couple of times and

went down as he was firing back at the window.

MARROQUÍN: And ten minutes after,

I receive another call, I thought it was him and

it was a journalist.

The journalist said to me, "Your dad just passed away,

it's confirmed, the police confirm it is official,

your father is dead."

REPORTER (over TV): Pablo Escobar died in a

shoot‐ out with police and the military in Medellín,

the base for his cartel that once dominated the world's

cocaine market.

TOFT: I understand that as soon as they killed him,

they started yelling, "Viva Colombia."

It was a big moment for Colombia.

And he deserved it, you know, he got what he deserved.

MARROQUÍN: Well, I should say that my father wasn't killed,

my father committed suicide.

We were in a hotel that belonged to the Colombian Army,

so it was very easy to know that the phones were tapped.

For ten years of his life, he teach me that I should never

use the phone.

Why is that? Because he told me,

"Look, son, every guy that I kidnap or killed,

thanks to the phone I found them."

Suddenly, you know, December 2nd of 1993,

this guy forgot everything he taught to his kid.

MARROQUÍN: And once he understood that I think that

he committed the biggest act of love by committing suicide

and just to set us free, all his family.

REPORTER (over TV): This killing is the biggest single

blow to international drug trafficking in a decade,

but it does not mean that fewer drugs will find their

way onto the streets of Britain and America.

Authorities expect other drug cartels will simply take over

Escobar's business.

The king may be dead, the cocaine trade is not.

RODRIGUEZ: My dad and uncle, they had so much power in

those moments, they beat a score,

they're on top of the world.

REPORTER (over TV): The Cali Cartel is going global

in its quest for profit and power.

SHEDD: I don't think that the Cali Cartel really understood

they were helping destroy the Medellín Cartel...

MAN: Hurry! Over there!

SHEDD: That the Cali Cartel was next.

Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.