"_" "_" "_" "Nowadays, the US government can listen to anything you say." "They know where you are, they know who you're talking to, and trust me, they know who you're fucking." "You turn on a cell phone or a computer, and you're doomed." "But in Colombia in 1989, it wasn't that easy." "First off, there was no Internet." "No cells." "The best they had were satellite phones, and in order to capture a satellite phone, you had to fly directly over it." "On top of that, the only people who had sat phones were the filthy rich... the landowners, the politicians..." "And lucky for us, the narcos were richer than them all." "And once you got a signal, you didn't know who you were listening to." "That's why back then, the US government developed software that could identify the voices of our targets." "I got Poison at 400 to 1700 megahertz, gentlemen." "And you guessed it:" "no GPS either." "Hammer, prepare to engage." "Once we got a target, we still had to locate it." "So we had to triangulate their signals using assets on the ground." "OK, he's in Modelia." "He's on the west side." "Hawkeye, how do you copy that?" "Can you be more specific?" "Police units are standing by." " It's gonna be raining women." " Poison didn't know it, but he'd just made himself a date." "Negative on Hammer." "This fuckwad just told us where he's going." "Hammer, disengage." "So who do we give this to?" "DEA?" " Yeah." "Let's give it to Javier Peña." " Peña's an asshole." " I'm gonna give it to the other guy." " Sure." "By "the other guy," he meant me." "I'm Steve Murphy, Drug Enforcement Agent." "And as you can see, I am deeply embedded in Colombia." "Hello?" "Poison will be partying at La Dispensaria." "Got it." "He's meeting Lizard and the rest of them at midnight tonight." "OK." "I would've loved to go after Poison myself, but the DEA is restricted in a foreign country." "So I did just what you would do..." "I called the cops." "Hola." "In case you're wondering, this is the asshole." "Javier Peña, my partner." "And this is Colonel Carrillo, the leader of the Search Bloc, the unit we helped create to capture the bad guys." "Boy, did he have a lot of love for the narcos." "Party time in Zona Rosa." "Everybody goes there." "Especially the local hitmen." "Colombians call them sicarios." "Now, Poison, he was one of the best." "Crazy motherfucker who killed dozens of people." "Probably hundreds." "But don't get me wrong." "I would've sent Carrillo there even if Poison never killed a fly." "I don't have a lot of love for the narcos either." "I wouldn't blame you if you held me responsible for this bloodbath." "Yeah, I pushed the buttons." "But don't call me a bad guy just yet." "My fellow Americans..." "Take Richard Nixon, for instance." "People forget, but 47 million Americans voted for Nixon." "We thought he was one of the good guys." "And Nixon thought Chilean General Pinochet was a good guy because he hated the commies." "So we helped Pinochet seize power." "Then Pinochet turned around and killed thousands of people." "Maybe not such a good guy after all." "But sometimes, bad guys do good things." "Nobody knows this, but back in '73, Chile was on its way to being the world's biggest cocaine processing and exporting center." "They had deserts to hide the labs and miles of unpatrolled coastline to ship the product north." "But Pinochet spoiled the party." "He shut down 33 labs and arrested 346 drug dealers." "And then, being Pinochet... he had them all killed." "They say when a nuclear holocaust destroys the world, only the cockroaches will survive." "I guess they were right." "The bullets missed Mateo Moreno, aka Cockroach, and he was smart enough to play dead." "He wasn't killed on that day." "Instead, he won the damn lottery." "Cockroach had been stealing from his bosses for months." "Now he was left alone in the world with the perfect product." "A product whose offer creates its own demand." "Back then, we were just finding out about the effects of cocaine on the human brain." "We didn't know much, but we knew it was some pretty powerful shit." "...this will give us better results, OK?" "Cocaine hijacks the pleasure centers in the brain." "A rat will choose cocaine over food and water." "It would choose cocaine over sleep, over sex... over life itself." "The human brain isn't quite the same as a rodent's... unless we're talking about cocaine." "Cockroach knew he had the perfect product." "He just needed to smuggle it to the right markets." "Gracias." "And the best smugglers in the world were in Colombia." "WELCOME TO COLOMBIA" "Like Goldilocks, he had three options." "And pay attention, because all three are important to this story." "The Ochoa brothers:" "Jorge, that's Fabio on the horse." "A typical Colombian smuggling family." " They were smart and rich..." " Salud!" "...but Cockroach felt the high life had made 'em too soft." "Another possible partner was José Rodríguez Gacha, nicknamed "The Mexican," for his love of tequila and sombreros." "He dominated the emerald smuggling routes." "Emeralds are a pretty rough trade, even by Colombian standards." "If you make it to the top... it means you've killed your enemies." "_" "And sometimes, your partners." "Cockroach worried that the emerald trade had made Gacha too hard." "So he zeroed in on his third option:" "a man Cockroach knew would be just right." "Yeah, you guessed it:" "Pablo Escobar." "The man who would change my life forever." "Pablo was making a killing in the smuggling business." "Cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, you name it." "At the time, Pablo owned half the police in Medellín." "But DAS was Colombia's version of the FBI." "They didn't play by the same rules." "Good day." "Back then, Miami was a paradise." "I signed up for the sand, surf and women." "In '79, the bad guys I was chasing wore flip-flops." "DEA!" "Stop!" "I was a young DEA agent, partnered with my buddy, Kevin Brady." "Kevin was a little slow afoot." "Why you running, huh?" "What you got?" "What is this?" "Huh?" "What is that?" "That right there..." "that's a goddamn promotion." "Let's go celebrate." " Whoo!" " Look at that." "Go!" "Go!" "Go!" "How you like me now?" "How much money you owe me?" "What happened to the money you owed me last week?" "That's right, that's right." "All right." "All right, who do we pick?" "How 'bout her?" "No, no, no, we gotta fuck with him." " Yeah, let's mess with his head." " Um..." "Oh, right there." "See her?" "At the bar?" " Which one?" " Blue top, blond hair." "That's his type." " Oh!" "Strike!" " She's hot." " All right." " Whoo!" "Murph!" "Sparrow, three o'clock." "Hey, while you were walking back, she was checking your ass out." "Oh, she was checking out your ass." "Get the fuck outta here." "Come on." "Listen, she eye-fucked you the entire time you were bowling." "She was." "She was eye-fucking you." "The entire time." "I'm serious, I'm serious." "Look at her." " Uh-huh." "That's his type." " Talking about the blond one?" "No, the other one." "Of course the blond one." "She's the hottest one there." "She's your type." "You dicking me around?" "Fuck it, I'm going in." " Go get her." " Mm!" " Yup." " Hey, while you're up there, get us another pitcher, will ya?" " Pace yourself." " Look at him." "Look at his swagger." "How you doing?" "Busy." "I just said, "Look, if you don't wanna be there, you don't have to be." "No one's forcing you to do anything." So, I don't know..." "Yeah, those bastards got me." "But I couldn't let it end like that." "Excuse me." "See those guys over there?" "Uh, they're fucking with me." "Telling me you were checking out my ass, and who checks out a cop's ass, right?" "You're a cop?" "Not a cop, actually." "I'm DEA." "Drug Enforcement?" "So you're the one making pot more expensive." "Come on, why don't you do me a favor?" "I wanna show these guys up." "Why don't you, uh... give me your phone number?" "How about a fake number?" "That'll work." "Hey, buddy, you got a pen?" " I'm sorry for the trouble." " Sure." "Have a good night." "Aah..." "Shot down!" " Where's the pitcher at?" " The pitcher?" "Oh, I..." "I didn't make it back with the pitcher." "I just came up with this and I couldn't read it." "What does that say?" " Read it and weep!" " Aw..." "Gimme that." "How much did that cost you?" " That's your handwriting." " It's not my handwriting!" "I figured, what the hell." "Worst that could happen, I'd wake up some grandmother in Boca." "Hello?" "So it wasn't a fake." "I thought you might figure it out." "After all, you're DEA." "And just like that... she had me." "The minute Pablo laid his eyes on the paste-processing labs in Peru, cocaine had him." "It's been a while." "That's half a million dollars... per trip, using the same smuggling routes he always used." "Easiest money he ever made." "Back in Medellín, Pablo didn't waste any time." "He bought a house in his old neighborhood and opened his first lab to turn Peruvian paste... into cocaine powder." "It was a mom-and-pop operation, so small they called it The Kitchen." "But make no mistake, it would change Medellín forever." "There you go." "Like her son, Pablo's mother Hermilda was very resourceful." "Hey, Mom, how much do you think we can fit in there?" " Around five kilos, honey." " That much?" "Trust me, Pablito." "I love it." "Let's do it." " Pablo." " Thank you, my love." "It's Gustavo." "Five kilos, right?" "Pablo loved his young bride Tata, and she loved him." "He was a family man till the end." "The guy they got to wear the jacket was the Lion." "He was a friend of Gustavo's who'd spent his childhood in the United States." "The Lion was one of the first guys to ever bring coke into Miami." "Welcome to the United States." "Thank you." "Have a great day." "Next, please." "His contact was a crazy nut job named Carlos Lehder, half Colombian, half German, and 100 percent playboy." "Big fan of John Lennon and Adolf Hitler." "Go figure." "Back in '79, this piece of work was flying bales of grass up from Colombia on a fleet of small planes." "The Lion made more than 20 flights between Medellín and Miami." "Drugs in, cash out." "And the rich and famous in Miami snorted every single gram of it." "And in no time, Pablo had to replace his cars with trucks." "Gustavo had the trucks filled to the brim with potatoes, the major item Colombia imported from Peru." "He didn't even have to bribe the cops." "The coke paste was hidden in the spare tires." "Each tire could fit about 20 kilos." "Ten trucks, 20 kilos each, going back and forth every day..." "You do the math." "No way the Lion could transport it all." "Pretty soon, the Lion had to come up with new ways to smuggle the drug to Miami." "During the early '80s, most flights out of Bogotá had several mules on them." "They didn't even know about each other." "And you know what?" "Getting in was easy, because nobody worried about cocaine in America." "All we cared about was grass." "Pretty soon, cocaine was hidden in almost every legitimate Colombian export." "Fish, coffee, flowers, rubber hoses..." "anything." "But even that didn't do it." "The real game changer was filling Lehder's planes with coke instead of weed." "Within months after meeting Cockroach," "Pablo was establishing the first dedicated narco routes from Colombia to America." "It was a real milestone in the story of narcotics, folks." "Then Pablo closed The Kitchen and started opening cocaine labs in the middle of the jungle." "Under the canopy cover of the Colombian rainforest, he could expand his production capability indefinitely without anybody noticing it." "Pablo couldn't hide his success from his friends." "They were violent, crazy and filthy rich." "Guys used to getting what they want, one way or another." "When I started, a one-kilo grass bust was cause for celebration." "And before long, we were seizing 60 kilos of coke a day." "We thought we were making a huge difference." "Truth is, we weren't even making a dent." "They let us have 60 so they could bring in 600." "Pablo's coke flooded in." "It didn't take long for Miami to get addicted." "And I mean that." "It was like the whole city was running around trying to get this shit." "And with the money... came the violence." "The hippies had been replaced by Colombians, and these guys didn't wear flip-flops." "The Miami coroner said Colombians were like Dixie cups." "Use 'em once, then throw 'em away." "The Dade County morgue couldn't fit all the bodies from the drug war." "They had to rent a refrigerated truck from a local company to hold all the extra corpses." "That was the first person I ever shot." "A teenager not old enough to buy a six-pack." "Hey... it was self-defense." " Kevin called you?" " He's worried about you." "Did he forget to tell you the kid was 17?" "He sells drugs, right?" " Yeah." " Yeah, then fuck him." "What happened?" " Coming through!" " I was about to finish my shift when we got hit with the lights and sirens." "Stay with me." "I have an unconscious pregnant female." "Paramedics said she collapsed after she got off her flight." "By the time she got to us, she was barely breathing." " Pressure 60 over 40." " Dilated pupils, rapid pulse." "I knew she'd overdosed on cocaine but she had no residue on her nostrils, no injection marks." "We did everything we could." "She died in the ER." "We tried to save the baby..." "The baby died in my hands." "I'm so sorry." "She was body-packing 11 ounces of cocaine." "Two of the pellets split open." "Twelve grams in her bloodstream." "No one survives that." "Pablo was fucking Cockroach over." "But Cockroach should've listened to Gustavo." "Instead, he found another way to get his fair share." "Pablo didn't know it then but this mug shot was gonna cause him a lot of grief down the line." "Turns out Cockroach was a real cockroach." "Not only did he sell Pablo to the authorities, he was stealing from him all along and selling his coke in Miami, too." "Cockroach's dealer was Germán Zapata, a Colombian with a plumbing business that served as a front for his cocaine operation." "He had 1200 keys in the van..." "and guess who was buying the load?" "The plan was to trade vehicles, and Zapata would be arrested once he left the port." "1200 kilos." "That would get us on the cover of the Miami Herald." "OK, gringos." "How's the plumbing business?" "Fine." " How's it look?" " Plumbing business is very good." "Come on, amigo." "I'll show you." "Everything was going perfect." "Like I said, amigo..." "100 percent pure." "Except that Pablo was onto Cockroach." "Got a full load here, Murph" "Don't move!" "Don't move." "Don't move!" "Don't move." "Get down!" "Hands!" "Down!" "Don't look at me." "Fucking..." "In the case of the State of Florida v. Juan Diego Díaz, after taking into account all due considerations, bail has been set at two million dollars, or a bond of $200,000." "I got to the courthouse early the day of La Quica's trial." "My testimony was gonna put that bastard on death row." "The US District Attorney said La Quica met his bail of two million dollars, paid by a wire transfer from, well..." "why don't you take a guess?" "La Quica boarded and was back in Medellín by midnight." "From '79 to '84, there were 3,245 murders in Miami." "And outside the Tourist Bureau and the cops, no one much cared about that." "What got the US government to take notice was the money." "Billions of dollars a year, all flowing from the US to Colombia." "And that..." "America couldn't take." "A group of powerful businessmen went and met with President Reagan." "They were terrified the narco economy would sink the real economy of Miami." "Or... maybe they were pissed off that they weren't getting a cut." "Whatever it was, the businessmen came at just the right time." "It's back-to-school time for America's children..." "It was time for America to suit up against a new enemy." "Drugs are menacing our society." "They're threatening our values and undercutting our institutions." "They're killing our children." "It was classic Reagan." "Folksy, direct and tough." "He vowed to go after drugs at the source." "But it was Nancy who stole the show." "So to my young friends out there, life can be great." "But not when you can't see it." "So open your eyes to life, to see it in the vivid colors that God gave us as a precious gift to His children." "Say yes to your life." "And when it comes to drugs and alcohol..." "just say no." "They say when a nuclear holocaust destroys the world, only the cockroaches will survive." "Leave that piece of shit there." "I guess they were wrong." "During his career, Pablo would kill over a thousand cops." "But I wouldn't learn that till later." "My dad volunteered to fight in World War II because of Pearl Harbor." "But you think he knew anybody in Hawaii?" "No way." "He was a West Virginia farm boy, but these fuckers stepped on our soil." "So he laced up his army boots and went to fight." "It was his duty." "Cocaine in Miami?" "Kilos from Colombia?" "This was my war." "This was my duty." "And I was ready to fight it." "And my wife was ready to fight it with me, too." "Your ticket, please." "OK." "We had no idea what we were in for." "One year later... all that patriotic bullshit was right out the window." "OK, man, what do we got?" " We got Poison..." " Excellent." "Who else?" "We got Lizard." "Uh..." "We got, we got..." " Big Badmouth." " That motherfucker." " Thank you for the gift, agent." " No problem." "If there's one thing I've learned in the narco world, it's that life is more complicated than you think." "Good and bad..." "they're relative concepts." "In the world of drug dealers, you do what you think is right... and hope for the best."