"Joe toft:" "Escobar was 100 times worse than i thought." "He was a maniac." "George jung:" "Pablo told me, he said" ""don't ever come here and tell me you screwed up."" "He said, "i don't even wanna begin to tell you the consequences for that."" "Popeye:" "Pablo Emilio Escobar gaviria was a murderer, a drug trafficker, a terrorist, but he was my friend." "Steve Murphy:" "That's one man i could of shot and never lost a minutes' sleep about it." "Javier peña:" "I wanted Escobar... dead." "[Theme music plays]." "♪ ♪" "♪ ♪" "During the, the mid-80's, a lot of the cocaine was comin' in from Colombia." "We were seeing hundreds and hundreds of kilos." "In the streets in Miami, the streets in New York." "We started seeing Colombian traffickers killing other Colombian traffickers." "And we always sort of had one person that was sending the majority, a guy by the name of" "Pablo Emilio Escobar gaviria." "He had his own little empire going in Colombia at this time and 80% of the cocaine was being sent by Pablo Escobar in the medellin cartel." "And basically Pablo was the ceo." "Reporter:" "One of the ringleaders is thought to be one of the richest men in the world, Pablo Escobar." "Steve Murphy:" "You've got a man who has been estimated at being worth between $8 and $30 billion." "There's just so much money to be made in that business and it's easy money." "For example, to produce a kilo of cocaine in Colombia the expenses are roughly $1,000." "To transport that kilo into the United States, your transportation expenses are gonna be between" "$3 and $4,000 back in that day." "So you've got a $5,000 investment per kilo." "Well during that time a kilo of cocaine in Miami would go for about $60,000 a kilo." "If you got it up to New York you might get as much as 80,000." "Joe toft:" "There's so much money involved, they didn't even bother to count the money, they weighed the money." "The largest seizure that we made of cocaine in San Antonio, the record seizure, was 5 kilos." "In Colombia we were seizing hundreds and thousands of kilos every week." "It was a complete different scene." "President Reagan:" "For the key to our anti-drug strategy, my very reason for being here this afternoon, is not to announce another short-term government offensive, but to call instead for a national crusade against drugs." "George jung:" "The war on drugs is probably one of the most futile efforts ever." "It's a monster." "Man: get on the floor, get on the floor, get on the floor!" "[Child crying]." "George jung:" "It took a while for the drug enforcement agency to actually come to a realization about what the hell was happening." "Reporter:" "The American drug crisis has reached such proportions, that confiscating nearly 800 pounds of cocaine in Miami, or $8 million, one week's sales by a New York drug ring, doesn't even faze the drug lords." "It's a $100 billion a year business." "George tung:" "I used cocaine for a period of time." "But to be in that business, you can't use drugs and do it right." "Javier peña:" "Pablo Escobar was motivated by his own greed, by his own power." "Joe toft:" "Money goes hand in hand with power." "The more money you have, the more people you can influence." "The more people you can buy, the more you can be untouched." "The more you can corrupt." "Popeye:" "Pablo Emilio Escobar gaviria was a murderer, a drug trafficker, a terrorist, a kidnapper, an extortionist, and a thief." "But he was my friend." "Joe toft:" "He was unpredictable." "The only thing you could predict is that he carried out whatever threat he made." "So if he said he was gonna kill somebody, he killed 'em." "George jung:" "Well there's an old saying that marijuana business was done with a handshake and the cocaine business was done with a gun." "Steve Murphy:" "Escobar took the violence to a whole new level." "You know law enforcement was just wanting to get this guy out of the society." "He was that big of a threat." "You see all the senseless deaths that are being committed because of this one person." "If you didn't agree with him, he would take you out with, without even a second thought." "Javier peña:" "I had never seen it, I'm, I'm coming from a, you know, from a small office in Austin, Texas." "I wasn't used to this type of stuff." "I always remember him saying he wanted body count." "He wanted the more bodies, so that way he could show" "Colombia that he was winning the war." "Popeye:" "I remember the happiest day for Pablo Escobar." "He met a basque terrorist who know how to make remote control car bombs." "We placed dynamite in a 1954 buick, with thick metal-like armor." "It was crazy!" "It's the first time i ever saw the boss drop his guard." "He was estatic!" "George jung:" "Let's face it." "It's a dirty, dangerous, evil business." "And if you wanna be the king, you know, sometimes the king has to pick up the phone and drop bombs on people." "Javier peña:" "My biggest fear was wrong time, wrong place." "The car bombs." "Steve Murphy:" "There was a time when he set a car bomb off." "The primary shoppers at that time were moms with their children buying school supplies." "When you see that type of carnage and those horrific acts being portrayed against innocent people, especially children who haven't even had a chance at life yet." "Honestly, that's one man i could have shot and never lost a minutes' sleep about it." "Popeye:" "We thought that Pablo Escobar was immortal." "He handled the worst situations with ice in his veins." "Steve Murphy:" "As the government continued to build a case against Escobar, the next thing you see, is we see a guerrilla group attacking the justice ministry." "The building itself!" "Physically attacking this building." "Simply so he could get in there and destroy thousands of records that might or might not contain information that would be incriminating to him." "What, how many justice ministers were killed?" "Seven, eight?" "He would stop at nothing to get his own way." "Multiple murders and needless deaths." "And why?" "It was all because one man, one guy wanted to impose his will on everybody else in that country." "Popeye:" "In that moment, we won the war against the Republic of Colombia." "We planted 250 bombs throughout the country, left and right." "We almost destroyed it economically, morally and physically." "general maza:" "We were fighting the most powerful criminal organization in the world." "It became personal." "He first tried to kill my family in Santa marta." "So it was kind of self-defense, because if i didn't take him out, he'd take me out." "It became him against general maza." "It was an obsession for him." "Popeye:" "We were unable to kill Miguel Alfredo maza márquez." "He was the man." "He was in charge of 80% of Colombian intelligence." "Steve Murphy:" "Pablo set off a 500-kilo bomb, trying to kill one person:" "general maza márquez, who was in charge of das, it's the Colombian equivalent of the FBI." "There were over 100 people killed in that bombing just because he wanted to kill one guy." "[People yelling]." "Popeye:" "People in the center of the explosion disappeared." "It was insane!" "It left an incredible crater." "It was the 9/11 of the time." "It was the biggest terrorist attack in the world." "It was vicious, but the goal of killing" "Miguel Alfredo maza márquez, was missed." "general maza:" "The bodyguards, the secretaries..." "That was a disastrous day." "Walking down nine floors, seeing people maimed, people crying for help..." "It branded my life in such a way, that for me to sleep peacefully, i need medicine because without it, i can't sleep." "Popeye:" "Huge power was demonstrated that day." "Pablo Escobar won by showing such brutal power." "By detonating a bomb of that caliber," "Colombian society and authorities bowed their heads to the power of Pablo Emilio Escobar gaviria." "Joe toft:" "Escobar was a hundred times worse than i thought." "He was a maniac." "Javier peña:" "Who has that audacity to order those killings?" "The avianca bombing, the das bombing, numerous police officers, judges, ministers of justice, presidential candidates." "I wanted Escobar..." "Dead." "George jung:" "You know the oldest most honorable professions in the world are prostitution and smuggling." "They go back way before Christ, okay, there's the silk road." "And i don't think i really innovated any of it, i just enhanced it." "The money, you know, just kept building and building and the thrill of it was like a, an opiate." "I couldn't get enough of it." "I didn't have to sell it or try harder out there." "I had the greatest advertising system in the world promoting it, the entertainment industry." "$60,000 a kilo was nothing to people in, in, in that industry." "And they just bought it up like candy." "even Johnny Carson would make jokes about it on TV, on his show okay." "I mean, everybody knew it, everybody knew what was going on." "Woody Allen made movies about it, everybody laughed about it, studio 54 was lined up for blocks." "You couldn't even get in the men's room or the ladies' room because everybody was in there snorting cocaine and it was like, it was incredible." "The first time i met Pablo was at his, his ranch." "It was 1975, we flew down there in a private plane." "You know, it was all business." "I told him that, you know, i was experienced in transporting across Mexican borders and i didn't see any reason why i couldn't transport it out of Colombia." "And he was intrigued by that." "I told him, "i don't' wanna buy this stuff, i don't want you to front it to me." "You own it."" "And i said, "I'll charge you $10,000 a kilo to get it back into the United States."" "Pablo told me, he said that "cocaine is poison," he said." "And he said, "i don't want you to come here and tell me someday that you lost the load because you were stoned on cocaine."" "He said, "i don't even wanna begin to tell you the consequences for that."" "Joe toft:" "When i arrived in Colombia, it didn't take me very long to realize that i didn't know a thing about Colombia." "Bombs were going off everywhere, people getting killed left and right." "By the time i was there maybe a year i was obsessed with Pablo." "I mean, i had to get Pablo." "Man:" "Pablo Escobar gaviria!" "Javier peña:" "What we hadn't realized was that" "Pablo Escobar was a very charismatic person." "This guy was relying on hundreds and hundreds of young kids working for him." "We hadn't realized that that sicario base was so large." "Steve Murphy:" "Why he's recruiting from kids that are 14, 15, 16, 17 years old." "He's turning them into murderers for money." "He's turning them into sicarios, into assassins." "Javier peña:" "I remember debriefing one of the sicarios, i think this kid was like 15 years old." "He had already admitted to 10 killings." "He said, "you know what?" "Our life expectancy is 21, 22 years old." "We know we're going to get killed, but if we can satisfy our boss, Escobar, if we can prove that we are loyal to him, this is what we want." "Timothy Ross:" "Pablo Escobar had a, a brilliant recruiting system, because he offered not just the chance to be somebody, to have power, to have a gun." "He became somebody with status in his barrio." "He became the person who, if he did take on a job for" "Pablo and got killed, would leave his family rich." "And this is part of the, the almost mystical belief in, in the Escobar structure." ""If i do give my life, my mother will be cared for." "So my mother," often identified with the virgin Mary, the structure of religious belief, and the sanctity of a woman, "she would be left rich."" "Popeye:" "The most important moment of my life was when i looked into Pablo Emilio Escobar gaviria's eyes." "I became totally obsessed." "I took my dad's car to go look for Pablo Escobar's hideout, and i found him." "He said, "what are you doing here?"" "I said, "sir, i don't have a job, and i know all of your hideouts." "Kill me or hire me."" "He laughed and said, "do you know how to handle an mp5?"" "It's a rapid-fire machine gun." "I said "yes sir, i know how to handle one."" "He said, "come with me."" "And i started working with him." "I worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 30 days a month." "Steve Murphy:" "Popeye has taken ownership of between 250 and 300 murders that he personally committed." "My understanding is that he directed the murders of as many as 3,000 people." "Not murders that he actively participated in but he directed the activities be taken and the murders be committed." "Timothy Ross:" "Pablo Escobar used natural spirituality, mysticism, catholicism, as part of his, his own hold on power." "So people would go and pray to the, the virgin who would have their weapons blessed by a statue of a virgin before they went on a killing." "So blood and christianity became mixed." "Popeye:" "The hit man has a close relationship to religion and death." "We live and breathe violence." "There's even a virgin called 'our lady of the hit men.' the hit men kneel at the virgin and pray," ""blessed virgin, i have a job, an execution."" ""I don't want the police to capture me." "I don't want to go to prison."" ""I need the money to help my mother."" "A true hit man from antioquia pray and kills." "Timothy Ross:" "As the famous phrase went:" "You either take silver or you take lead." "You take the bribe or we'll kill you." "♪ ♪" "Roberto Escobar:" "My brother Pablo was maybe the best student in school at that time." "He did his homework very quickly and he helped all the students in his group do their homework." "When Pablo was 30 years old, he went to a place called 'basurero', where they threw out all the city's trash." "And there he realized that many people, some 200 or 300 families, lived in slums and cardboard houses." "They lived off the city's restaurants and rich people's waste." "My brother got home that day, he was so sad he was almost crying, and said, "this is wrong," "I'm going to build them a neighborhood."" "George jung:" "His objective was to help the poor people because he grew up in that environment and he, he knew about going hungry and whatever, his family being hungry." "Steve Murphy:" "Pablo Escobar used some of his wealth to go help homeless people." "So he took people who were living in a trash dump, built low income housing for them." "I don't wanna give him any credit for anything." "But at least that one neighborhood helped those people." "The bad thing was it instilled a loyalty from those people to Pablo Escobar." "Joe toft:" "He did a lot of things for the poor, he built soccer fields, he built barrios, he built houses, he built parks." "People adored him." "People thought he was the greatest thing that ever happened." "I think he did this for a purpose, i think he did this for his security to protect himself." "He created an infrastructure of people that depended on him, people that would become his informants." "Popeye:" "When the state doesn't help in the poor communities, the mafia steps in." "The mafia comes in with their motorcycles." "Machine guns and their pistols, and the people embrace them." "Group:" "Pablo, Pablo, Pablo!" "Pablo Escobar:" "Muchas gracias." "[Applause]." "George jung:" "If you're born into a lower caste, you really don't have much of a chance." "His intention was to rise up out of that lower system and be accepted by the ruling class." "Timothy Ross:" "Pablo Escobar and a lot of his associates, they were known as the "emerging class."" "The new people, the new money." "Pablo never had charm, he had power." "He also wanted to be president." "There were a number of cases in which certainly one lawyer was seen actually taking money around to uh, buy votes." "It was very, very blatant." "Pablo got into congress as number two on the slate for another man, so that man then resigned, so he became the congressman." "Politics gave him a double advantage." "He had immunity, he could then help legislate, he could put pressure on other congressman so that they would legislate, particularly against extradition." "They fought extradition tooth and nail, bomb and gun." "They fought it all the way." "Steve Murphy:" "He did not wanna be extradited to the United States." "He knew if he came to the United States, he would go to a real prison." "Popeye:" "Pablo Emilio Escobar gaviria was afraid to die in prison." "We know what U.S. prisons are like." "The maximum security ones are scary." "Timothy Ross:" "Anybody who opposed him, be it a cabinet minister, be it a presidential candidate, a judge, whoever it was, could be taken out, could be killed." "As the famous phrase went:" "You either take silver or you take lead." "You take the bribe or we'll kill you." "George jung:" "Pablo was only not a gentleman if you betrayed him." "You know, there's not a very wide gap between goodness and badness." "Who's to say who's really good and who's bad?" "Documentary:" "Pablo Escobar has been identified by American authorities as Colombia's leading exporter of cocaine." "Timothy Ross:" "I asked Pablo if he'd go on camera and talk to us." "He said, "no, no way," he wouldn't." "The abc news documentary was shown by the then justice minister, Rodrigo Lara bonilla, as evidence against them." "The first time people had named names, shown faces, and described their operations, what they were doing and how they were doing it." "Lara bonilla started organizing serious operations against them." "As justice minister he had control of police operations, could give instructions to the army, to das, to everyone." "Joe toft:" "And he basically says to the Colombian people" ""i will put an end to this, the drug traffickers." "I will declare an all-out war."" "Timothy Ross:" "And Pablo declared war on Lara bonilla and in fact on me, because i had helped um produce the documentary that he had used as evidence again them that for the first time named names." "Popeye:" "That's when the politicians put the brakes on him." "He was expelled from the senate." "Pablo Escobar gaviria put on his warrior boots." "We were in a full-on war." "Steve muprhy:" "When Lara bonilla called him what he was, a drug trafficker, a murderer, and a thief, what happened to Lara bonilla?" "He was murdered." "drive-by shooting, as he was driving down the street in his car." "Popeye:" "When Pablo Escobar gaviria killed minister Rodrigo Lara bonilla, all hell broke loose and the real war started." "Timothy Ross:" "I got a call from friends in the" "U.S. embassy who said, "we just heard from a good intelligence source that Pablo has sent two men, by road, to bogotá, to kill you."" "You're always a little afraid, always checking," ""is there somebody watching, is there somebody lying in ambush."" "I remember coming to my apartment building, i saw to my left a man suddenly moving to block me off that way." "I turn to the right another man moving to block me off there." "And a car, with the door open, suddenly cruising in front of me and the man in front of the car coming towards me." "I suddenly realized i was being pincered by the three of them." "I leapt on to the hood of the car, over it and away, turned back, it was as if nothing had happened, the car moved away, everybody disappeared." "If somebody wants to kill me, if somebody has put a price on my head, I've done something that, you know, that i had to do, it's my job." "George jung:" "I had no idea what was going to come." "What was lying like a monster on the horizon of insanity." "♪ ♪" "Timothy Ross:" "In the 1980's, the whole country faced Pablo 'cause the whole country was effectively held to ransom." "This is frightening times for a lot of people." "And a lot of policemen were getting killed, sometimes one or two or three in the same day." "This meant that every step they took outside their police barracks or their own homes, they were in danger." "even in their homes they might be in danger." "Some were gunned down in what seemed to be safe places." "Steve Murphy:" "There's a $300,000 price tag on my head, on Javier's head, on every DEA agent in Colombia's head." "The price tag on a Colombian uniform police officer was 100 bucks." "Joe toft:" "You kinda feel responsible because you're putting the pressure on the cops to do this work, to go after this, to raid this place, to y'know, i mean we're constantly pushing." "The DEA is constantly pushing." "And these guys are going out there and they're getting killed." "About 300 cops were assassinated." "I mean, cops were being assassinated when they were in the park uh playing with their kids." "I went to more funerals in Colombia than most people go to in 10 lifetimes." "And this particular, uh..." "Memory that i have is that i went to a funeral where a bunch of cops had been ambushed." "They don't embalm in Colombia, okay?" "So the stench is incredible." "And they're constantly doing incense, y'know." "The priest is always going around trying to, to cover up the smell." "And i saw this woman, when they brought the casket in, who was the wife, who was pregnant and had a little kid that she was pulling in that was probably 2 or 3 years old." "And she doesn't wanna let go of the flag." "It's, where the casket is, they bring the casket into the chapel." "And uh she is just bawling." "[Sighs]" "general silva:" "Pablo Escobar paid for the death of every officer." "The price was determined by their rank." "Every day 10 or 15 police were killed." "[Yelling and gunshots]." "Javier peña:" "It was a Friday night, i was at a restaurant, and i remember the waitress frantically comes over crying, sobbing, "everybody get out!" "They've just killed Luis Carlos galán, the government has declared martial law."" "It was people screaming, crying, it was chaos." "[Sirens]" "How can you order the assassination of a presidential candidate?" "I just, you know, could not fathom that." "Pablo Escobar could do it, and he did." "In the morning, we have a emergency meeting at the embassy and, wow." "President virgilio barco vargas, he signed a piece of paper authorizing extradition." "And we started raiding fincas, buildings." "We started extraditing medellin cartel top-level traffickers." "Joe toft:" "It was surreal." "It was, it was a constant adrenaline run." "It was non-stop, uh, i had a hard time going to bed and, and calming myself down so i could sleep." "Steve Murphy:" "You'd be coming into the landing zone to launch an operation, to launch a raid and the commander of the force would look at you and say," ""you and me, front door."" "Well they've got long guns, they've got galil rifles, 7.62 millimeter rounds, they've got Uzis, they're loaded for bear, and I've got a Smith and Wesson" "9-millimeter pistol." "But you don't say no." "If you said no, you're gonna lose credibility with your counterparts." "Javier peña:" "We're all in this together, trying to get rid of a monster." "We're not going after dope here, we're not going after money, we're out here to go after" "Escobar, in essence, we're gonna kill him." "A lot of the search, a lot of us finding Escobar was revenge." "Popeye:" "The national police were torturing us and we were torturing them." "There was a police captain, if any of us were captured alive." "He had scissors for cutting up chicken and he would cut off our toes and fingers." "We'd find stumps on the corpses." "They drilled holes into the knee caps." "They drilled into the spine and brain." "They were throwing us alive out of national police helicopters." "The war was brutal." "The war was crazy." "Javier peña:" "I always remember this day in my mind, that he's talking to his wife, telling her how much he loves her, how much he's missing her." "And in the background, I'll never forget, you hear a person just shout." "It's a shriek." "And he covers the phone, and tells the sicarios," ""cover his mouth," and then just starts talking to," ""honey, i miss you." "I love you."" "At one point you're telling them how much you love them, and the other point they're killing someone in the background in front of you." "Popeye:" "When you're in total war, you kill children, women, and you just carry on." "Joe toft:" "He intimidated a whole country." "The bombs, the, the, the killings, bodies all over the place, little kids waiting for a bus being blown up." "It was overwhelming." "Ambassador busby:" "The ambassador to any country is the personal representative of the president of the United States." "I took that very, very seriously." "I saw my role in that to define the strategy that we were going to use to go after Escobar, to make sure it was implemented, and to make sure everybody was contributing to the effort." "Joe toft:" "On November 27th 1989," "Escobar blew up an avianca flight from bogotá to Cali." "The bombing of the avianca plane was clearly orchestrated by Escobar." "Escobar had one of his lieutenants get on the airplane with what he told him was a 'listening device' when in fact it was a bomb." "They thought president gaviria was going to be on that flight, and it was an assignation attempt against gaviria." "Gaviria was operating under enormous pressure, and more than anything i think what he wanted to do was to get Escobar off the street." "And maybe get the blood bath stopped." "And he made some concessions to do that." "Joe toft:" "Gaviria was scared." "Gaviria was scared that he was gonna get killed or his family was gonna get killed and he capitulated." "[Speaking spanish]." "And the constitutional assembly voted and they did away with extradition." "Ambassador busby:" "I was horrified by it." "I understood the pressures that were of bringing it about on the part of Mr. gaviria." "But i certainly did not like it at all." "Popeye:" "When they finally did away with extradition, you could see Joy on Pablo Escobar's face." "Pablo Escobar had won." "There was no longer extradition in Colombia." "The U.S. embassy was furious." "The Americans were furious." "The state department was furious." "The u.S president was furious." "We were happy." "We won." "Joe toft:" "The surrender of Escobar was, i mean, unbelievable." "Steve Murphy:" "Here's a guy that's the biggest cocaine trafficker in the world, responsible for thousands of deaths." "He negotiates a deal with the government of Colombia in which they tell him, "if you agree to plead guilty to just one crime, we'll absolve you of every other crime that you've committed in your life."" "He said, "i will surrender, but i will surrender to a prison that i select, and by the way I'll build it." "I will hand-pick all my fellow prisoners." "I will select the guard force, and the Colombian national police are not allowed to come within two miles of my prison."" "And what'd the government of Colombia say?" ""Okay."" "Popeye:" "When we were in 'la catedral' prison, we'd beaten the government." "We were in a 5 star jail." "Steve muprhy:" "When you walk into a two-room suite, it has color coordinated draperies and upholstery, an office, a walk-in closet." "It was just, it was a farce." "What kinda jail cell is that?" "It's nicer than most hotels I've stayed at in my life." "Popeye:" "We ate very well." "We had parties." "Beauty queens came to visit." "We had orgies." "Pablo Escobar enjoyed the pleasures of sex." "He enjoyed having two beautiful women make love to each other." "Ambassador busby:" "Our people constantly were picking up information that the situation in the prison was unacceptable." "That he was bringing in prostitutes, that he was, he was leaving the prison." "They had photographs of him outside the prison even though he was supposed to be in there." "And we were constantly pinging on the Colombians and saying you know you can't do this, this is, this is horrible." "Look at this, look at this." "Popeye:" "Pablo Escobar was re-establishing his cocaine trafficking to the u.S from 'la catedral' prison." "100 kilos over here, 200 over there." "I would get up at 5:00 am." "I was the one driving the truck and the army was aware." "They were on the payroll." "Joe toft:" "It was a huge embarrassment to the government." "The reporting that i did to Washington DEA headquarters was very, very critical about what was going on in Colombia." "Ambassador busby:" "The phone rang in the middle of the night and uh president gaviria decided that he's going to move Escobar to a military prison, where the army would be in charge of him." "I was ecstatic, i thought that was a wonderful thing." "I said "keep me informed, that's wonderful,"" "and i don't remember how many hours later, not very many, i got another phone call that said it was a disaster." "The general, he disobeyed the president's order." "He wouldn't assault the prison because he was on the take, and kept delaying, and kept delaying, and kept delaying." "I've always been convinced that what happened during those hours that he refused to go is that they arranged for Escobar to leave." "I mean, that's clearly what happened." "Reporter:" "The manhunt is underway in Colombia for escaped drug kingpin Pablo Escobar." "Joe toft:" "The game was back on, the hunt was back on." "Law enforcement should not celebrate when a prisoner escapes." "But this was a moment of celebration, for not only for the DEA but for the police." "We were actually ecstatic that Escobar had escaped." "general silva:" "Pablo Escobar had very sophisticated security systems." "His security team was trained by officers who came from abroad." "They had a well-planned strategy which made it almost impossible to capture him." "We were simply waiting for him to make a mistake." "Joe toft:" "He always had a means of evading capture." "One operation, and we went into this finca, we had a good tip that he was there, the operation was ran." "He escaped into the jungle, there were horses waiting for him there." "They took the horses for a few uh miles, uh, there was a boat waiting for him there." "They went down this river for a few more miles." "And then there was a Toyota Land Rover parked with a driver waiting for him." "And he did this everywhere, he always had an escape route." "So all he needed was, you know, just a few minutes." "So it was a very frustrating hunt." "Steve Murphy:" "We got a tip that he was at a house on the side of a mountain out in the country." "When we got into that house the coffee was still warm." "He saw us coming." "One of the things that Escobar was known for was his fetish for nice bathrooms." "It if had a nice bathroom in an otherwise, y'know, shack house, we knew that was a hideout for Pablo Escobar." "Popeye:" "He would go in to shower, he would always take three hours." "He had a tiny toothbrush and would go tooth by tooth and take another two hours." "The army was breathing down our necks." "The boss would take out his small radio that he carried, and listen to the live newscast, and figure out how the search was developing." "So the boss started calling me "popeye, popeye, popeye..."" "I wondered what was up." "So i took the safety off the machine gun." "I was in at the front line so that if they got to us," "I'd fight so he could escape." "And he says, "popeye, medellin just scored a goal!"" "I thought to myself, "oh, son of a bitch!" "If they find Pablo Escobar here, that would be a goal!"" "Steve Murphy:" "Javier and i just had the sense that man, this thing's just gonna keep dragging on, we're never gonna catch this guy, y'know it seems like every time we think we're getting close something happens and we're not." "The fact that a lot of our friends that were Colombian national police officers were killed as a direct result of this investigation, it became very personal." "Javier peña:" "A lot of the search, a lot of us finding Escobar was revenge." "And i'ma say it:" "This wasn't about taking him alive." "This was about killing him." "♪ ♪" "Popeye:" "Pablo Escobar gaviria began to make mistakes, he started talking on the phone." "One day i went to get the mail." "I said, "boss, there's a package with a phone in it for you."" "He put his pen down and said, "look popeye, i need this phone to call my family in an emergency." "If you're afraid then leave!" "My brother's turning himself in tomorrow."" "Then the boss says," ""look popeye, you've been loyal to me." "You've contributed a lot to this organization."" "He thanked me for everything, we hugged, i walked to the door, we looked at each other's eyes, and that's the last time i saw him." "Ambassador busby:" "Escobar was this schizophrenic character who was a murderous thug, monstrous person." "And yet he had a real affection for his own family." "He was kinda like an axe murderer that likes puppies." "I always thought that if we could make him nervous about his family, then maybe it would cause him to stick his head up." "Once he started making telephone calls, then it was possible to trace him to where he is." "The, the final take down battle was that he was trying to arrange a television interview to explain that he was a wonderful man who had just been persecuted by the" "Colombian government." "And he was talking to his son." "And it was a lengthy conversation, they were going over questions one after the other." "The Colombians were able to pinpoint him to a specific location." "They looked up and saw Escobar in the window and said, "i see him."" "Joe toft came into my office and said they are locating him, he was monitoring the operation, what was going on, and came in later and said, "they got him." "He's been killed, he was shot on a rooftop." "He's dead."" "Steve Murphy:" "Escobar knew he couldn't stay on the phone for longer than a certain amount of time." "Why he did it that day we still don't know." "[Inaudible yelling]." "George jung:" "I think that you play the game so long, you actually reach a point in time where you're exhausted mentally and physically and you're tired of it." "It, it comes to the point where you just, you wanna end the game." "I watched Pablo on t.V., okay, and it was sad, terribly sad that Pablo was, met his demise in that manner" "and there's really nothing else to say about it." "Steve Murphy:" "Realizing that Pablo Escobar was finally dead, that his reign of terror was over, that the citizens of Colombia were infinitely more safe that night simply because one man had been killed, it was, it was exhilarating." "I mean, we'd finally come to the end of this investigation." "The Colombia police officers were wanting their trophy shots and everybody was very happy that this was over." "Popeye:" "No other criminal organization in the world has faced the government and killed 540 police and wounded another 800." "In order to kill Pablo Emilio Escobar gaviria, it took the CIA, the DEA, the Colombian police, the Colombian army." "They needed the Colombian mafia as well as the paramilitary." "Just to kill one man." "Javier peña:" "I chased him since i got there in 1988 until he gets killed in '93." "With Escobar, i think the world saw the invention of narco-terrorism to reach that level of violence that the world had never seen." "Joe toft:" "Bringing him down gives me a great deal of satisfaction, being part of the effort to bring him down." "There's never been a trafficker like Pablo, and i include chappo and everybody else that's out there today." "Ambassador busby:" "The drugs are still produced in south America." "But the Mexicans have become the driving force and they have become the major criminal organization." "Popeye:" "We human beings do not enjoy what we have, because we're longing for what we don't have." "To me, happiness is a ritual." "For me, to walk into a store and tell a lady," ""would you be so kind to sell me an iced cold beer?"" "And the lady says, "with pleasure."" "She takes out the beer, it clanks against the other beers." "She pops it open, and gives it to me with foam dripping down." "That's a beautiful thing!" "Steve Murphy:" "Popeye took advantage of the deal." "He was sentenced to 30 years." "Popeye was released from Colombian prison last September." "And this man's a free man walkin' around in Colombia right now." "Quite frankly, i don't think it'll be long before somebody kills popeye in Colombia." "Roberto Escobar:" "My brother was someone who always thought about humanity." "He thought about the poor, and wanted to help them somehow." "He was a believer, a man who believed in god." "Steve Murphy:" "It's nice to be called a hero, but we never felt like that." "We always give credit to the Colombian national police and we always will."