The Fragile Empires Of The Worlds Most Infamous Drug Lords

The Fragile Empires Of The Worlds Most Infamous Drug Lords

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the twenty seventh of November nineteen eighty nine, Aviyanka
Flight two oh three takes off on a routine flight
from Bogata International Airport in Colombia. Five minutes later, the
Boeing seven to seven is ripped apart by a massive explosion.

(00:22):
One hundred and ten people are killed.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
The death certificates read cause of death blunt trauma due
to falling from aircraft. The plane exploded in mid air
and then crashed, and I am sure that while the
plane was going down, many people were still alive on
that plane.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Colombian accident investigators soon established that this was no tragic accident.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
There was a cassette recorder where somebody was duped into
believing that when they maintained a certain altitude that they
would turn on that cassette recorder and they would receive
certain instructions, and what it really was was an explosive device.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
The Columbian authorities realized the target of the attack was
presidential candidate Cesar Gaviria, who canceled his flight at the
last minute. Gaviria has staked his political career on denouncing
Colombia's most infamous cocaine godfather Pablo Escobar.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Imagine one man ordering the destruction of an aircraft and
well over one hundred people on board had to perish
because of his one desire to kill one man.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Two of the dead held US passports. Escobar's indiscriminate slaughter
has laid him open to the full weight of American justice.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
There was always a big effort to capture Pablo Escobar,
but this placed it on a worldwide scale because at
that point in time, you can charge somebody with terrorism,
which creates a much much greater jurisdiction when it came
to American authorities and charges that you could pursue against
an individual.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
The destruction of flights two three is the latest outrage
in a brutal criminal career that began when Escoba was
just a boy, the son of a farmer and a

(02:28):
school teacher. The future drug lord grew up in the
dangerous streets of Medai in the northwest of Columbia.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
He initially started robbing gravestones from cemeteries and shaving the
names off and then reselling them.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
He was known to local law enforcement. He was a
car thief. He was a bit of a thug, juvenile
de lincood, if you will.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
That was his background, but he soon realized there was
a better way to make big bucks smuggling cocaine. At
the time, cocaine was grown and processed in Chile, Peru,
and Bolivia. Then the marijuana smugglers of Colombia began to
take an interest in this more profitable drug.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
They started to bring in cocaine from Peru, from Bolivia
and converting it into cocaine hydro chloride, and then from
there they had access to the Caribbean Ocean and they
were able to use some of the Caribbean islands as
transhipment points into the United States, principally as Southern Florida.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
By nineteen eighty five, eight million Americans are hooked on
the cocaine flooding into the country from Colombia. The DEA
faces an uphill battle to identify the traffickers behind the
surge in demand for this new must have drug.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
The nineteen eighties were really the boom era, if you will,
of cocaine here in the United States, and for some
reason it became a status symbol, you know, it became
a fad and you were not part of the in
crowd unless you had large quantities of cocaine or use

(04:30):
large quantities of cocaine, and as a result of that,
you know, it became the economic law of supply and demand.
And the Colombian criminals are probably some of the more
astute in the world. And we started to see, you know,
emissaries of the cartels from Columbia coming into the United

(04:54):
States and opening up distribution points. You know, throughout the
United State States, there was.

Speaker 5 (05:01):
A market for cocaine and there was nobody filling the market,
and so Columbia jumped in because they were very well
positioned geographically, and they had the infrastructure, and they had
to know how.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
At twenty six, Escoba enters the cocaine business and rises
quickly from smuggler to traffica and then producer. Nothing and
no one gets in his way.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
He was arrested in the early nineteen eighties with eighteen
kilograms of cocaine by the Columbia National Police. He was
let go because he threatened the judge, and then he
went after the police officers that arrested him and had
them all killed.

Speaker 5 (05:58):
Escobar became a very because he was willing to do
whatever it took to advance the cocaine business.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
By the mid nineteen eighties, he is head of the
powerful and infamous cocaine organization known as the Medaine Cartel,
and the payoff is colossal.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Pablo Escobar's organization was huge. He had the money to
make it huge. Ford's magazine came out with their Richest
Men in the World, and he was right near the
top of the list. So right off the bat, you
knew that this man was not a millionaire. He was
a billionaire.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Escoba fluts his immense fortune by building a vast luxury
estate in the hills near Medaine.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
The ranch had nine man made lakes, water slides, life
sized dinosaurs made out of fiberglass. We estimate that he
is all he spent, you know, maybe about ten million
dollars in constructing that ranch.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
It made me.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Angry because I knew that the mortar and concrete of
that entire structure had come from blood money.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
The cocaine Godfather's tainted millions buy more than just fancy homes.
He uses them to win the hearts and minds of
the poor. Paying for food banks, hospitals, and homes for
slum dwellers makes Escobar a hero.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
Pablo Escoba exploited poverty.

Speaker 6 (07:40):
But he was doing that not for oltruistic but very
selfish reasons, to make.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
Sure that the people weren't selling him out.

Speaker 6 (07:47):
That they looked upon him as the robin Hood, and
he had places to go on hide if necessary.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Escobar is so convinced that his robin Hood image will
make him untouchable, he takes the extraordinary step of entering politics.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
He wanted to be elected to office so it would
bring some sort of legitimacy to Pablo Escobar.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Escobar's money has brought him so much popular support. He's
a showing as a local representative to the Colombian Congress,
a position that guarantees immunity for past crimes. But then
the Escobar rollercoaster hits the buffers. In April nineteen eighty four,

(08:31):
the Justice Minister Lara Burnia accuses him outright of bribery
and corruption. He has signed his own death warrant.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Lara Burnia leaves his office. He's being tracked by a motorcycle,
the z Enniscar. A motorcycle weaves to the right hand
side of the vehicle. They open up with a n
ingram and shoot Lada Bonia several times in the head.

(09:11):
The shooter was sixteen years old and the driver of
that motorcycle was nineteen years old. That would be equivalent
to very young teenagers assassinating the Attorney General of the United.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
States, Lara Bania's murder. Since shock waves through Colombia, it
seems Escobar has finally gone too far.

Speaker 5 (09:37):
And then the game changed completely because then Escobar had
directly attacked the Colombian government, and that was something that
no sitting president, no city, Colombian government katari.

Speaker 6 (09:51):
He realized he lost his protection. That's when he turned
to violence big time. It was almost like he lost
his mind. With the day, became his cause, celeb of
the day, and if you were in his way, you
were getting.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
Shut escobob begins a reign of terror and his Medaine stronghold,
this one's booming commercial city becomes a killing field.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
When I arrived in Medeine, I saw that it was
a beautiful place. There was a progressive city, you know,
a lot of skyscrapers, a lot of construction. But once
I was there for a month, I started to see
bodies throughout Mediine, you know. And I would leave my

(10:45):
house early in the morning and I would see cadavers
on the side of the road, and when I returned
in the evening, a lot of those cadavers were still
there because the police and the local authorities just going
keep up.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
With a number of killings.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
That were taking place in Mediene, and it was at
that time known as the murder capital of Colombia.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
But one thing still spooks the King of Medaine.

Speaker 7 (11:20):
The only thing Escobar really really feared was they feared
extradition to the US, and he feared DEA. As a
result of that, he felt that he couldn't work his
way around the rest.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
Escoba has been on the DEA's radar since the early
nineteen eighties, but its agents need an ironclad case to
guarantee his extradition to the US. Now he uses his
muscle and money to derail the investigation.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
I finally had to leave the Meddeleine office because of
threats to kidnap me.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
The DEA aren't the only ones who want Escobar extradited.
In August nineteen eighty nine, presidential candidate Luis Galan makes
it clear if he is elected, Escabar will be on
the first plane out of Colombia.

Speaker 8 (12:17):
But Escobar strikes first.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Galan's murder launches open warfare between Escobar and the Colombian government.

Speaker 5 (12:39):
I had never ever seen organized crime try to take
down a sovereign government the way he did. Unpresident hasn't occurred.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
Sind Escabar's attack on the authorities in Colombia goes hand
in hand with a tidal wave of his cocaine reaching
the United States. All that comes in, the more the
price goes down, until millions are hooked.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
The addiction rates were skyrocketing. Cocaine became an epidemic of
tremendous proportions.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
The Order goes out to the DEA to focus all
their efforts on taking Escobar down. Special Agent in charge
Joe Toft finds himself leading the hunt.

Speaker 9 (13:32):
I thought I was very well prepared for Columbia.

Speaker 7 (13:35):
Yeah, it didn't take long for me to realize that
I wasn't that prepared. From day one out there, you know,
the SEI shirt, the bombings that Columbia was experiencing because
of Escobar in his efforts to trying to intimidate the country.
I mean, it was much greater than I thought it was.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
If anyone can get Escobar, it's Joe.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Toft Joe Taft would be classified as a hard ass.
He was a compassionate hard ass, but he demanded success
and in this case he made sure that no stone
was left unturned.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
The DEA has no authority to arrest Escobar in Colombia. Instead,
they work hand in hand with an elite new Columbian
police unit. This is the blockade of Buskada or search.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
Block in my opinion, to be a member of the
Columbia National Police and a sign of the blockaded busquerda
in the search for Pablo Escobar at the time was
one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
But any unit is only as good as its leader,
and the Colombian Police find just the man, a lean,
no nonsense police colonel called Ugo Martinez.

Speaker 7 (15:02):
The leadership has to be from a person that's completely
committed to the class. He's going to know that Pablo
Escobar is going to try and hurt him to his family,
and Martinez proved.

Speaker 9 (15:13):
To be that man.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Martinez has a personal score to settle. In nineteen eighty nine,
Escobar's men murdered his best friend. His task is a
Metz informous working for Escobar inside the Columbia National Police
threatened to reveal every move he makes.

Speaker 10 (15:36):
He's a very fine noble man, a great leader, a
man of undoubted integrity, and I think that very much
helped to keep a liddle the confidentiality of what they
were doing.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
The DEA team believed the writing is on the wall
for Escobar, but he has lost none of the ruthless
instincts that brought him to the top of the Colombian
cocaine trade.

Speaker 9 (16:05):
When I arrived in Colombia, I was optimistic.

Speaker 7 (16:08):
I thought that, you know, within a year or two,
we will be able to get Escobar. But as time
went by, it became clear that the corruption factor, intimidation
factor made all of the normal police work that we
would do up there pretty unlikely to succeed.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Despite Colonel martinez efforts, Escobar is tipped off by his
sources in the police. Again and again.

Speaker 10 (16:41):
The local units were completely penetrated by Escobar's people and
by those who who were to benefit by protecting Escobar.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Using informants, wire taps, and surveillance, the DEA built a
complete picture of Escobar's network. If they can't get him,
they can get what he owns.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
In order to take down a drug empire, there are
numerous approaches that are taken. One of them is to
attack the wealth, to seize the assets.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Starting with his lavish ranch. All Escabar's property is taken
over by the government. Then it's his cash and his
cocaine he.

Speaker 9 (17:25):
Sees, that'st amounts of money.

Speaker 7 (17:28):
And the other thing we're doing trying to seize as
much of his dope, as much as his cocaine as possible.
And we had, I mean record sixty.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Thousand kilos of cocaine and dozens of Escaba's top men
are grabbed by the police. The drug lord's retaliation is
swift and lethal.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
Pablo Escovad put a seven hundred dollars boundary for every
police officer that was killed, and they just started killing
police officers like it was going out of style, and
that started a savage war. There was slaughter on the

(18:28):
streets and Medeene became a battleground between the drug traffickers.

Speaker 11 (18:40):
And you know, civil authorities.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
Escobar's thugs kill thirty search block officers in just fifteen days.
By nineteen ninety one, a total of four hundred and
fifty seven police have been gunned down in Medain.

Speaker 7 (19:17):
The police officers that we trusted out there that we
work with were incredible. I mean, they put their lives,
their families, lives on the line every day.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
For Joe Toft, the loss of so many Colombian colleagues
is almost unbearable.

Speaker 7 (19:38):
I mean I remember one particular funeral that was right
close to the casket and the stench because they're on
use embalming out there, and I saw this poor woman
who was pregnant, probably eight months pregnant, hanging onto the
casket as they brought up a casket and crying with

(19:59):
a little baby, probably two three year old baby. You
know that she's dragging with the other hand. I mean,
I mean I went home and cried just you know,
it was It was horrible.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
Escoba isn't just targeting Colombian police officers. At the top
of his hit list is the d E A chief himself.

Speaker 7 (20:28):
There were two occasions where we put a price tag
on my head and DA wanted to put me out
of the country. The ambassador said, you're done here and
I fought it here. I was working with the Colombians,
I was asking to do this. I was providing an

(20:48):
intelligence and they're getting killed and then there's a threat
on my life, and I'm gonna leave Colombia.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
Escoba has always been able to kill or threaten his
way out of trouble, but the blood flowing in the
streets of Medayin turns the tide against him.

Speaker 6 (21:09):
His misbegotten thought, if you will, was that hey, by
doing that, he would buy some time for himself, or
he would scare of the authorities. In fact, quite the
opposite happened. It just angered people that much more, and
they were going to get.

Speaker 9 (21:27):
Him one way or the other.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
And in Joe Toft, Escobar has a relentless enemy.

Speaker 7 (21:33):
I didn't want to leave Commande without Escobar being either
in jail or there.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
As the DEA and search blocks step up the pressure,
Escobar blindsides them with a move no one expected. On
June nineteenth, nineteen ninety one, he hands himself over to
the Columbian authorities on the condition they deny us extradition requests.
The DEA can watch as a helicopter flies him out

(22:02):
of their reach to a private prison.

Speaker 7 (22:05):
When Escobar turned himself in, we were extremely disappointed because
we felt that we were really getting close to him.

Speaker 9 (22:12):
It was just a matter of time.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Sentenced to just eight years, on a minor drugs charge.
The authorities think Escobar will be harmless behind bars.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
As much as the DEEA did not approve. You have
to understand that the government of Columbia was facing a
situation they had never seen before. No government has ever
seen it before, where a man was setting off explosives,
paying off politicians, killing politicians, killing journalists, killing innocent civilians.
What were they going to do? They were searching for

(22:47):
a solution.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
From day one of his jail time. It's obvious that
Escobar isn't going to suffer behind bars. The whole complex
has been designed and built by his organization. Even the
guards are on his payroll, and no police are allowed
Within twelve miles.

Speaker 7 (23:07):
They had a discotheque, soccer field with lights, big TV's
best stereos that you could come up with. There were
double walls that contain weapons, money, drugs.

Speaker 9 (23:25):
You name it.

Speaker 7 (23:26):
I mean, it was not a person, it was not
a jail, it was country club living basically.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
Joe Toft is disgusted by the one sided deal.

Speaker 9 (23:37):
Everything was just I mean, it smell awful. I mean,
it was just.

Speaker 7 (23:40):
It was a complete capitulation by the government again because
of fear.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
With the search block and DA off his back, Escobar
has time to rebuild his drug empire. Thousands of kilos
of cocaine are again on the move to the United States,
and we.

Speaker 9 (24:02):
Knew that was happening.

Speaker 7 (24:03):
We had intelligence on this, and we had been providing
information to the government, to the president. Nobody wanted to
acknowledge that, and I think that was part of the
arrangement that they had with Escobar.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
A year later, protests about Escobar's luxurious conditions forced the
government to order his transfer to a high security prison.
But nothing goes right.

Speaker 10 (24:32):
It was a combined army and police operation that was
not well coordinated.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Tipped off by his informants, Escobar is not ready to
go quietly for the while his men try to hold
off the troops sent for him, he breaks out and
heads back to Medai. Joe Toft and his team welcome

(25:07):
the news.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
He had escape from prison. He had violated his agreement,
and it placed us in a position to be able
to be much more focused and interactive with the government
because they now saw that their strategy, their agreement with
Pablo Escobar failed.

Speaker 7 (25:27):
You know, I remember celebrating with the police officers that
we trusted we worked with.

Speaker 9 (25:31):
It was a day. Okay, we're back on. The game
is back on, and now we're going to go together.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Once again. The elite Colombian Search Block Unit and the
DEA A back on the hunt.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
We realized immediately that we would be going back to
work exclusively to try and track down Pablo Escobar.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
The Colombian government realizes that can be more negotiation with Escobar.
The one million dollar reward for his capture is increased
to two point seven million dollars by the Bush administration,
but finding him won't be easy. Escobar enters an underground
world of code names and aliases, of safe houses and

(26:21):
ever changing radio frequencies.

Speaker 7 (26:24):
He did it successfully for quite a while and on
running around that taxi, you know, with different costumes or whatever.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
But a new asset helps the DEA penetrate the fog
of secrecy that has fallen over Escobar. Code named Centrospike
and operated by a top secret US Army intelligence unit,
this is a flight of specially converted civilian light aircraft.

(26:54):
Their state of the art radio direction finding equipment hones
in on Escabar's radio teller phone calls.

Speaker 10 (27:03):
The role of the US in terms of providing the
high tech capability to track the phone calls. It was
clearly absolutely crucial.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
Toft and his team feed information from CenTra Spike to
Colonel Martinez and the Search Block to help them locate
his hideout. Sensing his pursuers closing in, Escobar ratchets up
the violence. On January thirtieth, nineteen ninety three, he tries

(27:36):
unsuccessfully to kill the head of the Colombian Security Service
with a car bond.

Speaker 7 (27:51):
His car was gone by and his car was all
apro vehicle. Move the car to one side. There were
half bodies of children and people all over the street
that were waiting for the school bus.

Speaker 9 (28:11):
And when you see that.

Speaker 7 (28:14):
And you still think the guys arrived, it's hard for
me to understand.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
That twenty one people are killed, many of them children,
and dozens more terribly injured. By now, Escobar isn't only
being hunted by the DEA and the Colombian government. Rival
drug traffickers want him taken down to.

Speaker 5 (28:42):
Yeah, the Cali curtel was furious Rhythm because he had
brought so much unwanted publicity to him and they were
actively hunting him.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
Besides the Cali cartel another murderous group is out to
destroy him. They called themselves Los Perseguida us Poor Pablo Escobar,
those persecuted by Pablo Escobar or Lost Peppers. For sure,
Escobar can thank his own brutality for bringing Lost Purpose
into existence.

Speaker 10 (29:17):
Escobar had finally made enemies of his closest lieutenants by
having them having their legs sawn off with chainsaws in
his presence. Well, obviously he made enemies of them they died,
but of their families and those around them.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
The fact that many Lost Peppers killers had been part
of Escobar's organization gave them a huge advantage.

Speaker 5 (29:42):
They knew about Escobar's infrastructure, they knew most of the people.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
That worked for him.

Speaker 5 (29:52):
They knew pretty much everything about him, and so they
systematically went out and started to hunt down Escobar's entourage,
his remaining followers and either took him out as a
commissioner or killed him out right.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
Now for everyone of Escaba's attacks, there is a Los
Pepees revenge killing.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
Walls started to crumble for Pablo. His attorneys were killed,
his associates were killed. Other members of Pablo Escobar's distant
family were killed.

Speaker 1 (30:33):
For the Dea Los Pepees had a volatile new factor
in an already complex and dangerous operation.

Speaker 7 (30:40):
Well, we became aware that the little Peppers who the
little peppers were. You know, it was very important for
DEA to recognize that and not in any way get
tainted by the little Peppers. I made sure every day
as we shared our intelligence with the cops, asked the

(31:03):
police to make sure that this let's not end up
in the hands of those peppers, because I could just
see that DA provides intelligence the results and the killings
of this people or something to that effect.

Speaker 9 (31:13):
So it would have been horrible.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
But there is no denying that these lethal vigilantes are
crippling Escobar's network in a way the DEA and Search
Block couldn't lost.

Speaker 5 (31:28):
Pepines were tremendously effective, and I think they were key
in isolating Escobar fairly rapidly. They pretty much stripped him as.

Speaker 4 (31:40):
Much of his organization.

Speaker 9 (31:42):
Well, it was to our advantage.

Speaker 7 (31:45):
You got to give little Peppis a lot of credit
for Papuo Escobar's demise because they are the ones that
wage the dirty war. The Little Peppies are really responsible
for the fact that Pablo'scobar at.

Speaker 9 (31:57):
The end was pretty much alone. He didn't have many
people anymore.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
Under attack from all sides, Escobar disappears into the maze
of Medaine's backstreets. To stay in control of his organization,
he uses a radio phone, despite the risk of being
tracked by police radio location teams on the ground and
in the sky is overhead.

Speaker 9 (32:22):
Escobar was very street wise.

Speaker 7 (32:25):
He knew what we were doing, and he knew they
were using the direction of finding equipment that we're monitoring
his conversations. He never would speak from one place. Whenever
he was talking on the phone, he would always be
moving because the triangulation is impossible to do if you're moving,
and he knew that.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Again and again. The search block raid Escobar's suspected hideouts,
but every time he's tipped off before they can get him.

Speaker 9 (33:00):
I mean, the man was always prepared.

Speaker 7 (33:02):
He always had escape route wherever he was at, and
never stated in a place more than a couple of days,
because he knew sooner or later intelligence would leak out
as to where he was.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
Then, on October eleventh, nineteen ninety three, Central Spike intercepts
a call from Escobar to his wife, triangulating on the
signal They pinpoint the location to an isolated farmhouse. Immediately,
Colonel Martinez orders his search block to mountain operation. Journalist

(33:38):
Simon Strong gets caught up in the action.

Speaker 10 (33:41):
That Simon were going. Now we have a bead on
where Escobar is. And it was just a sort of
a slow afternoon and suddenly one's drawn into the operation,
going up a mountainside.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
As the ground falls close in on his hideout, US
monitoring aircraft can still hear Escobar on the phone. The
assault team gets the command go. The keyed up troopers
burst into the house ready for an intense firefight, but

(34:14):
there is no sign of their prey.

Speaker 7 (34:23):
There were a lot of days that I thought this
was going to be the day we get Pablom, and
it ended in disappointment.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
Escobar had gone to nearby woods to get a better
signal for the call to his family. The brutal killer
just won't cut contact with his wife, Maria Victoria, sixteen
year old son Juan Pablo, and nine year old daughter Manuela.
This gives Joe Toft a crucial tactical advantage.

Speaker 9 (34:56):
Focusing on his family.

Speaker 7 (34:57):
Prevailing the family from leaving Columbia was a very key factor,
and once we recognized that, and we emphasized that we
could see the end coming around.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
But the Lost Pepper's death squads, made up of Escobar's
former gang members, have his family in their sights. On
October twelfth, Los Peppers detonate a massive bomb outside the
family's apartment in Medava. They escape with only minor injuries,

(35:31):
but it's too close a call. Escobar is desperate to
get them out of Columbia. His next move stunts the
hardened deat One.

Speaker 7 (35:42):
Day, the ambassador calls me and he says, Joe. He says,
you're not gonna believe who's downstairs? And I said who?
This is?

Speaker 9 (35:52):
A voice called our son they saw.

Speaker 7 (35:54):
I went down and met with him.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
The teenage Juan Pablo walking into the embass He was
surprise enough, but the deal his father proposes takes Toft's
breath away.

Speaker 7 (36:08):
I was very impressed with a young man with his maturity,
and you know, I basically said myself, my mom and
my sister are afraid that we're going to get killed
here by Cali cartel. Will you please help us get
out of the country. We would like to get a
visa to the United States. And I basically told them

(36:30):
I said, you know, if you came in here with
a platter with the heads of Cali cartel members who
still couldn't get a visa.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
Escobar realizes there's no chance of his family escaping to
the United States. Europe seems the best chance to stay
out of Los Pepe's reach. A last minute tip off
alert's TOFT that the Escabas are on the move. Agent
Ken McGee races to the airport.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
We received intelligence that they were going to fly either
to London Land or to Frankfurt, Germany, and the plans
were departing within ten minutes of each other. We had
tickets to jump on board either plane.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
With no power to arrest or detain the Escabars in Colombia,
the DEA has to work behind the scenes to convince
other nations to turn the family away.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
It was in our interest, as investigators trying to find
Pablo Escobar that his family remain in Colombia. Therefore, by
us providing this information to the host government of Germany,
we would have the Escobars sent back to Colombia.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
During the flight, McGee secretly photographs the Escabars. He has
to make sure they have no contact with other passengers.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
When I saw Pablo Escobar's young little daughter, I felt
for that child.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
She was just an innocent young girl.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
Whose father was one of the most violent criminals on
the face.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
Of the planet. When they land, it's obvious the German
authorities have been warned about the unwelcome guests.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
When I arrived in Frankfurt, they start the aircraft in
the middle of the runway. I remember taxing down the
runway and I remember seeing tanks, police cars all lined
along the airstripe, and they escorted the Escobars off the

(38:33):
aircraft and took them into a quarantined area, so to speak,
in regards to determining what they were going to do
with the Escobars.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Thanks to top level contact between the German and Colombian governments,
it doesn't take long for the Escabars to be given
the news their plea for asylum is rejected. When he
gets the news, Escobar goes into meltdown.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
The minute he heard that Germany had denied the request,
he was on the phone making threats, calling the German embassy,
saying he would kill people, saying he would blow things up.
There was no telling what would happen.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
When they get back to Columbia. Escaba's family are taken
to a hotel in the capital Bogata under heavy police god.
As expected, Escabah immediately cools his wife. The plan to
take him down is on a knife age.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
The walls were caving in around Pablo Escobar. He was
taking more risks, he was making more phone calls. He
was also becoming more threatening in his tones.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
His acts of.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Desperation made us feel that we are getting closer and
closer and closer.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
The news is tightening around Columbian drug over lord Pablo Escobar.
On December second, nineteen ninety three, a police radio location
team intercepts a call he makes to his son.

Speaker 7 (40:23):
So angry at his family not being allowed to leave
the country that he started calling from one site, and
that's how the police was able to triangulate and find.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
The commander of the search block. Colonel Hugo Martinez has
given the job of tracing Escabar's calls to the one
man he knows he can trust absolutely, his own son.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
So you have father and son in the world of
criminal organization, and you have father and son in the
world of law enforcement. And what stands for right good
versus evil.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
The phone trace leads the younger Martinez to a quiet
residential street. Suddenly he sees a figure at a second
story window. Every man in the Columbian Police and DA
knows that face. It's Escabar.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
We immediately contacted his superiors, to include his father, to
say exactly where he was at and.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
What he had found. With just two men, Martinez calls
urgently for backup. Search block patrols raced desperately to Martinez's location.
When they get there, they don't waste a second.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
They arrived at this location and they immediately hit the place.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
Even when cornered. Escabar shows how dangerous he can be.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
He was armed with two semi automatic pistols and aged.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Escoba jumps from a back window to the roof of
another house.

Speaker 9 (42:12):
He had no idea that the place was surrounded. He
jumped out into the roof. He was shooting back at
the window, thinking that he was being chased.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
He was hit three times, he was wounded, He continued fire.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
Escaba goes down in a hail of fire.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Pablo Escobar that day lived up to his reputation as
being a notorious, cold blooded killer that fought.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
To the very end. At three h three pm, a
search block officer is the first to reach Escobar's body.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
When Pablo Escobar was killed on that rooftop, the very
first message transferred over the radio was Viva Colombia, matamosa,
Pablo Escobar, long lived Colombia.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
We've just killed Pablo Escobar. The men of the search
block have at last settled the score.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
They were elated, They were a static, they were jubilant.
You could use many words to describe how they felt,
but one word most importantly is that they were proud.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
One hundred and fifty miles away in Bogota, Joe Toft
gets the new he has been waiting to hear for
six long years.

Speaker 9 (44:03):
It's green.

Speaker 7 (44:04):
I said, Bablo is dead. You know, Pablo is finally dead. Asthetic.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
The news of Escobar's death is flashed to Washington and
for the DEA, it's mission accomplished.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
He had become a cancer to Colombia and people were
tired of his brand of proism because he was a
narco terrorist in every sense of the word.

Speaker 7 (44:35):
Escobard was a monster. I wish he would have spent
the rest of his selection in prison. I mean, that's
what I wanted, but he deserved what he got.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
Even for Joe Toft, the successful end to the Escobar
case has its downside.

Speaker 7 (45:02):
I have three kids that I left behind, and to
this day I feel guilt for my first marriage, you know,
of having left them, and if I had to do
it over again, I would not go.

Speaker 9 (45:23):
Because of my kids.

Speaker 7 (45:27):
Other than that, for me, I mean I had the
greatest job in the world. I mean I was the
head of the office going after Pablo Escobar. I think
every dagent would likely have.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
Had a job. The death of Pablo Escobar has given
new life to Colombia.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
There are many people that think of Colombia and the
first thing they think of is Pablo Escobar and drug trafficking.
But that's not true. He was a major deal in Columbia.
Pablo Escobar is not Colombia, and Colombia is not Pablo Escobar.
The people of Colombia are wonderful people.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
Escaba's cocaine empire left a trail of death from Colombia
to the USA and across the globe.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Pablo Escobar what the biggest criminal on the face of
the planet, and the world will never see a.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
Criminal that big.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
There will be drug traffickers there will be other criminals,
but no one will grow to have that amount of power.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
In the early days of a new century, a deadly
drug is destroying communities and lives across America. Mesanphetamine on
the street. It has many names, crank, glass, and ice.

(47:04):
It's cheaper than cocaine to buy, and it delivers an
instant and powerful high. By twenty twelve, one point two
million Americans in cities and rural communities are hooked on
crystal meth, many of them in their teens. The surge

(47:31):
in crystal meth is fueling violent crime across the nation.
Gangs engage in bitter turf wars for the right to
distribute the drug. The US meth trade is controlled by
one man, Joaquin Guzman Luea, but the five foot six

(47:57):
drug lord is better known by his nickname El Chapel
Mexican Spanish for shorty.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
At one point in time, probably sixty to eighty percent
of the drugs that were coming into the United States
from Mexico or originated from Chapel Guzman.

Speaker 12 (48:21):
Chappo Guzman Roeda is public enemy number one in Los Angeles,
in New York, in Miami, in Alpasso, in what is
you name It?

Speaker 13 (48:32):
The last time song was branded public enemy number one
was al Capone.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
While his meth is making him millions in the US,
his drug empire is leaving a trail of carnage across
his home country of Mexico.

Speaker 13 (48:50):
Chappo Guzman is probably responsible directly and indirectly for at
least one hundred thousand deaths in Mexico.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
El Chapo is the latest in a long line of
violent drug lords to come up through the Mexican underworld.
Sources say Joaquim Guzman Luera was born on December twenty fifth,

(49:19):
nineteen fifty four, in the small town of Latuna in
the County of Sinaloa. A chip off the old block,
he follows in his father's footsteps straight into the drug business.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
His father was a very brutal man, very violent, heavy drinker,
and it was actually his father that introduced him to
marijuana cultivation.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
In nineteen eighty one, twenty seven year old El Chapa
is introduced to the notorious godfather of Mexican drug lords,
Miguel an Hel Felix Guiado, a former police officer turned
drug kingpin. Miguel Felix holds a monopoly on drug trafficking

(50:12):
throughout Mexico. He recruits Chapo first as his chauffeur, then
as a cartel enforcer.

Speaker 12 (50:22):
When you're an enforcer for the cartel, your job description
is you'll do whatever it takes to maintain order, to
collect money that needs to be collected, and if it
means eliminating someone in the process, well that's part of
your vocation. Unfortunately, as a cicario, you're an assassin.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
Basically.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Chapo is soon put in charge of the all important
logistics of the cocaine trade.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
He was pretty much a psychopath. He would kill individuals
that had your lost loads to set an example for
others to do a better job.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
In nineteen eighty seven, Felex Gaiado gives him control of
Siniloa State and the Pacific Coast Corridor into the US.
He orders the building of sophisticated tunnels under the border
to smuggle cocaine in chili pepper cans.

Speaker 14 (51:27):
He can move a load of cocaine from Mexico to
the United States in one day. We're talking tons.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
He is rumored to be smuggling nine billion dollars worth
of cocaine into the US every year.

Speaker 15 (51:40):
He was controlling the vast amount of drugs that were
coming in the United States, from cocaine to marijuana to
even heroin, so he's a great threat to the United States.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
In nineteen eighty nine, Felex Guiado is captured spucking a
brutal and bloody power struggle between El Chapo's Sineloa cartel
and the Tijuana cartel run by the Ariano Felex brothers.

Speaker 15 (52:08):
And that's a fight over territory, and those different cartels
wanted to control and take over more and more territory.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
There were mountains on bodies. This memberman's beheading just brutal killings.

Speaker 14 (52:25):
They were hanging them on bridges with their feet cut off,
or where their arms cut off, or their bodies found
in a lineup with their heads caught.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
The killing spree turns the DEA's spotlight on the drug cartels,
leading the DEA investigation first in New Orleans and nine
years later in Mexico City. Is Joe Bond, a special

(52:57):
agent at the DEA since nineteen eighty eight.

Speaker 14 (53:02):
I love my job and beinna to the most powerful
drew A cartel leader. At the time, it excited.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Me, but the DEA aren't the only ones. After the
Sinelo and Kingpin, so are his business rivals, the Ariano
Felex brothers, leaders of the Tijuana Caatel. In May nineteen
ninety three, Ramon and Javier Ariano Felex descend on Guadalajara

(53:34):
to hunt down El Chapel.

Speaker 12 (53:37):
The Ariano brothers had hired some gang bangers to come
to Waldhada, specifically to search out and assassinate Chapogusman Luena.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
The assassins scour the city in search of their prey.

Speaker 3 (53:57):
They went hunting for Chapel, couldn't find them.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
But after several days the Tijuana Cartel get a break.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
They were at the airport getting ready to go back
to Tijuana.

Speaker 14 (54:14):
Ramon had received information that chap Ozma was coming to
the airport in Guadajara and Khalisko and was going to
take a plane and this is a particular car that
he was going to be driving.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
The informant is convinced he spotted the Kingpin sitting in
his trademark Buick Sedan in the airport parking lot, also
waiting for a flight. Wasting no time, Ramon Aliano Felex
dispatches his assassins.

Speaker 12 (54:47):
When they get to the Walajada Airport. They see the car,
They approached the car and they opened fire on the car.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Assassins riddle the car with bullet holes. There's only one problem.
The man sitting in the Buick Sedan is not Chapo Guzman.

Speaker 14 (55:13):
It was Posado Campo, the cardinal, who was driving a
car similar to Chapel's.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
The hitmen have murdered the highest ranking member of the
Catholic Church in Mexico.

Speaker 12 (55:27):
A case of mistaken identity. They mistook the cardinal for
Chapo Guzman.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
Luera investigation.

Speaker 10 (55:38):
So Reloso says, so skis and Cardinal.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
The real target is just a short distance away. Having
narrowly escaped death, he does what he does best and
makes a quick exit. Today, more than twenty years later,

(56:03):
the motive for the cardinal's assassination is still a matter
of speculation.

Speaker 12 (56:09):
The assassination of Cardinal Bossaras is a very peculiar story
that I believe has not been resolved.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
The official view is that this was a case of
mistaken identity, but some DEA agents believe in a more
sinister theory.

Speaker 12 (56:30):
There's too many unanswered questions, There's too many incredible assumptions
as to how and why.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
A new theory suggests that Chapo was just a scapegoat
and Cardinal Pazzarras was always the intended victim.

Speaker 13 (56:52):
The Cardinal himself was the actual target. There was very
sensitive information that he was going to deliver that had
to do with the drug trade.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
Many speculate that the cardinal was holding documents that reveal
a conspiracy between the cartels and the Mexican government.

Speaker 12 (57:11):
If you were to write a who done it murder mystery,
this would be a perfect subject matter because it involves
intrigue at the highest levels.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
To this day, no one knows if there really was
a conspiracy between the drug lords and senior Mexican politicians.
Either way, the Mexican government couldn't sit idly by the
assassination of Cardinal Pazzaras causes.

Speaker 14 (57:41):
Outrage in Mexico. Be in such a religious country, I mean,
this is an uproar, so the government had to do
something about this.

Speaker 1 (57:50):
Suspicion inevitably falls on the cartels. Stung into action, the
Mexican government offers a five million dollar bounty for each
of the cartel leaders, but the cartel kings go quiet.
El Chapel has disappeared, but Barely two weeks later, astonishing

(58:16):
news reaches the Dea. A Mexican informant has spotted El
Chapo in a hotel not in Mexico, but in neighboring Guatemala,
where he bribes local police officials to protect him and
his flow of drugs through their country. But unfortunately for him,

(58:38):
he doesn't pay them enough.

Speaker 12 (58:41):
The money he was paying them at the time to
protect them did not cover the cost of protecting such
a high level of individual involved in such at the
time a very scandalous and very public type of incident.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
Harboring this wanted gangster isn't worth the trouble. The police
tip off the Guatemalan army at a hotel near Tapachula.
The Guatemalan army move in and arrest him. In days,

(59:17):
he's extradited back to Mexico.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
They knew that he would create a lot of issues
if they allowed him to remain in Guatemala.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
After he arrives back in Mexico, El Chapo is sentenced
to twenty years and nine months on charges of drug trafficking,
criminal association, and bribery. And that should be the end
of the story for this drug lord. Instead, it's just

(59:48):
the beginning, the moment Al Chapo steps foot inside prison,
first in al Moya and two years after in Puente
Grande prison. He laid down his law.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
Within days. If the prison guards were calling him boss
el patron and they gave him anything that he wanted,
if you were his friend, he would take care of you.
If he were his enemy, you were going to end
up in a coffin rather quickly.

Speaker 14 (01:00:21):
He showed his power in jail and he was untouchable.
The fear that he put in these people, it was obvious.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Associates bring him suitcases stuffed with cash to bribe prison stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
It wasn't the warden that controlled the penitentiary. It was choppowu'sman.
And it was not only because of the money, but
they also fear them because they knew that if they
opposed them, he had the ability to have them killed
within the penitentiary or outside the penitentiary.

Speaker 14 (01:00:57):
There's a saying in Mexico Plata or Plomo it's either
silver or lid, which meant either you take our payoff
or were killed.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Pointe Grande is more than El Chapo's business headquarters. It's
his personal playground.

Speaker 3 (01:01:24):
There really was a party and He also want to
white the guard and the inmate population. There would be
liquor you or he would bring in some high priced prostitutes.

Speaker 1 (01:01:38):
Although already married and divorced twice, the forty year old
kingpin becomes infatuated with a female inmate, Zulema Hernandez, who
was in prison on robbery charges. At first, she resists
his charms, but eventually becomes his prison girl friend.

Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
He was considered to be like the Rudolph Valentino of
the au Lajara cartel because he loved women. You know,
that was his big thing. He loved good lucky women.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
From inside prison, El Chappo maintains complete control over his
drug empire. Despite knowing this, Mexico still refuses repeated requests
to extradite him too a maximum security prison in the US. Then,

(01:02:36):
in January nineteen ninety eight, Joe Bond gets a stunning
call out of the blue. It's from Al Chapo's brother
in law. He says, the drug lord wants the Dea
to come and talk to him in prison. If El
Chappo wants to become an informant and give up key

(01:02:59):
names the cartel's operations, it would present a huge opportunity
for the war on drugs.

Speaker 14 (01:03:08):
So our whole goal we had to get to the
key people in order to dismantle that organization. If we
could get that information from this guy, who would be
better than him to provide that into.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
In October nineteen ninety eight, DEA agents Larry Villa Lobos
and Joe Bond enter Pointe Grande Prison, posing as Mexican
human rights inspectors. With every step they take, they know
they're putting their lives on the line.

Speaker 14 (01:03:47):
Our biggest concern was what if child would just wanted
some kind of revenge. Would they torture us to find
out what we know, who we know? Would they lock
down the jail, they know that we've been kidnapped, and optimally,
will they kill us.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
El. Chapel doesn't know exactly when or how the agents
will arrive, but he's been told that they will introduce
themselves as Tito.

Speaker 14 (01:04:20):
We arrived to the jail and they took us to
this infirmary and they told us to wait there until
they brought Chapel.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Once alone, the agents scan the room for bugs.

Speaker 14 (01:04:34):
We looked under the table, We looked at the table,
we looked at the chairs. We felt comfortable enough that
we could talk to Chapel there that we were not being.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
After years of hunting him, the agents are finally face
to face with the legendary King.

Speaker 14 (01:04:58):
Ben and I introduced. I said, I mister Gruizmandoira, I
am Tito, And honestly he turned white. He could not
believe that we were there. He looked at me, and
he looked at Larry. He says, don't say anything else.
He got on his hands and feet and knees, and

(01:05:20):
he looked under the door to make sure that nobody
was standing there listening to what he was about.

Speaker 9 (01:05:26):
To tell us.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
But the agents still don't know if this is a
trap that could cost them their lives. Suddenly he offers
to give up the names of officials he's bribed.

Speaker 14 (01:05:42):
He was mad, he was upset, he had been there
five years. He just was ready to talk about everything corruption.
And I said, well, well we're gonna have to time out.
I said, okay, Well then we know you're still controlling things,
and we know you're controlling here things. Impointing go on
this well, and he just smiled.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
Bond indulges Chapo's gloating, hoping to draw out nuggets of intelligence.

Speaker 14 (01:06:10):
Ween went there knowing everything about a chapel and he
realized that. So every time we ask him out of
a certain investigation, he would praise himself and he says, yep,
I handle that, and I did it well, didn't I
just like that? And he says, yep, you were amazing.

(01:06:30):
We will tell him because he was. He was charismatic
and very smart. He was a thinker, and we got
that impression from him immediately.

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
Finally, he comes clean with what he most wants to
cut a deal with the DEA. He offers to hand
over drug trafficking routes. In return, he wants the US
to drop its request to extradite him and try him
in the States.

Speaker 14 (01:07:00):
He says, you let me handle Mexico in my time
in Mexico, I can handle that here. My biggest fear
is having to go to the United States and get extradited.

Speaker 1 (01:07:10):
Chapo's millions buy him every luxury in a Mexican prison,
but he knows maximum security in a US jail would
be a very different experience. The agents make no promises,
but agree to talk to their superiors, but the DEA
has no intention of playing ball. He's wanted in too

(01:07:35):
many places.

Speaker 14 (01:07:38):
He wasn't just going to respond to one charge in Arizona.
He needed to respond charges in New Mexico, California, New York, Chicago, Atlanta.
All these places had charges against you.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
El Chapo never hears from the DEA again, So with
the threat of extra tradition still hanging over his head,
El Chapo starts to plan his riskiest move yet. On

(01:08:16):
the evening of January nineteenth, two thousand and one, a
guard makes his usual rounds through the corridors of Pointe Grande.
As he approaches El Chapo's cell, he notices the door
is open and the prisoner is gone. Inside the prison

(01:08:42):
chaos inmates and guards are rounded up and interrogated as
the police frantically search every cell room and closet in
towns near the prison. The Mexican Army rate houses, ranch
and government buildings looking for the kingpin, but El Chapo

(01:09:06):
has vanished. Just a few hours earlier, at around nine
forty five pm Francisco Rivera, a prison administrator opened the
cell and the kingpin jumped into a laundry cart, passing

(01:09:31):
through several security doors before escaping in a waiting truck.
After eight years behind bars, El Chapo is now a
free man. Over the following days, prison guards are detained

(01:09:52):
again to find out how he got out. All accounts
are rife with holes and contradictions, but one brave guard
reveals that l Chapo had carefully masterminded his escape plan,
wielding influence over almost everyone in the prison.

Speaker 13 (01:10:15):
Sources have said from prison that Topo Good Money paid
almost two million dollars to factuate that escape.

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
The prison guard claims that by the time al Chapo escaped,
he controlled Puente Grande so thoroughly that there was no
need for subterfuge.

Speaker 13 (01:10:36):
One source tells us that he did not escape in
laundry carte, but rather he walked out the front door.
When the time came and everybody was paid off, the
door was opened and he walked out.

Speaker 1 (01:10:50):
The prison guard who talked is found dead several weeks later.
Making up for lost time, the drug lord immediately tackles
unfinished business. He takes the cartel wars to a whole

(01:11:16):
new level, exacting revenge on an unprecedented scale.

Speaker 14 (01:11:23):
Now that he was actually out of jail, crime increased
against the Ariyano and the chapel was myn organization of killings.
They were killing each other.

Speaker 3 (01:11:36):
It was okay, well you're gonna kill him of my people,
I'm gonna go and behead fifty of yours, and then
I'm gonna pile them up on the outskirts of a town.

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
Out of prison, El Chapo is now fair game to
his cartel rivals, but they aren't the only ones gunning
for him. The DEA also take up the chase with
renewed determination. Thanks to local informants. Agents believe the drug

(01:12:10):
lord is hiding out somewhere on his home turf, the
mountains of Sinelore.

Speaker 3 (01:12:18):
It's a very ustere, hostile environment, but he knew it
like the back of his hand.

Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
For three years, there are almost no sightings of the
drug lord, now aged forty seven. Meanwhile, hundreds of tons
of cocaine keep flooding into the US. Then, out of
the blue, a reliable informant delivers the first strong lead.

(01:12:48):
El Chapo is hold up at a rach in Latuna
Barrere Juato, sixty miles from Kulia Khan. This time the
Mexican authorities take on the chase. Two hundred Mexican soldiers
are sent to the Sineloa ranch, but El Chapo's henchmen

(01:13:16):
spot the helicopters coming miles away.

Speaker 15 (01:13:20):
He had a lot of resources wokout scouts.

Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
As usual, El Chapo has a cunning escape plan in
place for just such an emergency.

Speaker 3 (01:13:33):
When they approached, there were about fifty individuals that jumped
on these four wheeler vehicles and they scattered like cockroaches
throughout the countryside. Well, the military didn't know which four
wheeler chopoose Mon was in, so they all escaped.

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
For another three years, el Chapo lays very low, but
his obsession with beautiful women will soon lure him out
of the shadows again. In November two thousand and seven,
El Chapo gets married for a fourth time to Emma Coronel.

(01:14:20):
She's an eighteen year old beauty queen, the daughter of
one of his deputies. The Mexican Army get winged of
the happy news and crash the party, but they're too late.
Their prey has slipped away yet again.

Speaker 3 (01:14:39):
It's like having a serial killer in your clutches, and
then he escapes, only to kill more people.

Speaker 1 (01:14:53):
Safe in the valleys of the Sierra Madre, El Chapo
finds he can distribute a new drug that will make
him even more more money than cocaine. It's called methamphetamine,
produced by mixing amphetamine with chemicals from common over the
counter drugs. It's cheaper to produce than cocaine and more addictive.

(01:15:20):
That makes it the ideal illegal substance, and El Chapo
goes all in.

Speaker 3 (01:15:27):
He started to go into the methamphetamine business, and he
was buying kilos of the precursor, which is a veteran
for sixty five dollars a kilo, and then once he
converted it into metham betamine. Now all of a sudden,
he takes an initial investment of sixty five dollars a
kilo and he sells it for eighteen thousand or higher

(01:15:51):
on US streets.

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
Cocaine is made from coca plants, but don't grow. For
the first time, crystal meth gives Mexican drug lords a
viable product they can produce and distribute themselves.

Speaker 3 (01:16:09):
They already had the existing infrastructure and they had the
existing pipelines to take that meth amphetamine and then funnel
it right into the US consumer market.

Speaker 1 (01:16:21):
In four years, El Chapo becomes the biggest meth producer
in the world. His Sineloa cartel is rumored to supply
eighty percent of the US meth trade. His fortune is
worth billions, and his glamorous young wife, Emma Coronel, doesn't

(01:16:45):
understand why they can't enjoy that fortune.

Speaker 3 (01:16:49):
He was a billionaire and then he had a young
beauty queen as a wife, and here he is living
like a popper up in this rugged, mountainous area. He
had no creature comforts, so he wanted to enjoy the
fruits of his labors.

Speaker 1 (01:17:11):
Despite the risks, El Chapo moves to Kulia Khan and
visits the swanky beach resorts on the Sinaloa coast. For
the first time in years, the drug baron is within
earshot of sophisticated surveillance.

Speaker 3 (01:17:29):
He was now in an urban area, which made it
easy to track him and find them. Now he had
entered into the den of the Tiger.

Speaker 1 (01:17:56):
In December twenty eleven, the DEA combined fores with Homeland
Security to hunt down the drug lord. In twenty twelve,
a routine wiareter unexpectedly leads to a phone linked to
one of Chapo's henchmen.

Speaker 3 (01:18:19):
As with most wired tap investigations, they lead to additional numbers,
and eventually they started to identify calls and phone numbers
that belonged to Chapouzman in his organization.

Speaker 1 (01:18:42):
Agents soon tracked down El Chapo's personal mobile number. As
they monitor his communications, they come to know their target intimately.

Speaker 12 (01:18:58):
You like popsicles, you liked. He's very much connected to
electronics in terms of every safe house that he has,
he has a television.

Speaker 4 (01:19:07):
Screen where he's monitoring.

Speaker 12 (01:19:09):
He's very careful in terms of what he eat that
he got to the point where he had people tasting
his food before he would.

Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
But his major weakness is still his love of women.

Speaker 13 (01:19:24):
The juggle aw these relationships with girlfriends, the wives, and
the ex wives. Having to focus at the same time
also on the business. Maybe I locked him a little
open and careless at times.

Speaker 1 (01:19:36):
He's spending more time on the coast with his trophy wife,
ex girlfriends and prostitutes, making him more exposed than ever.
But El Chapo still feels safe inside his ring of
steel hideouts and safe houses rigged with the latest high

(01:19:58):
tech security systems.

Speaker 3 (01:20:02):
He could go through the draining system from one house
to the other. He would not have to go out
on the street, and then he had underlings that would
go out buy food or whatever he needed.

Speaker 1 (01:20:15):
As an added security protection, El Chapo changes the way
he communicates.

Speaker 15 (01:20:24):
Remember, he's on the run. He can't just throw down
his phone. He still needs water, food, beverages. He needs
to be able to commune with somebody, right, So he
met change devices, but somehow, someway, He's got to communicate
with somebody.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
To make tracking calls harder. Messages to the boss are
now relayed through two subordinates who spend the day traveling
between wireless hotspots across the city. But the Kingpin's clever
plan gives agents a new strategy, targeting his inner circle

(01:21:01):
to get to the man himself.

Speaker 15 (01:21:04):
So rather than look at the Cinelo cartels organizational structure
and try to get to them that way, we looked
at his inner circle.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
After two years, Homeland Security has mapped out those closest
to the crime boss.

Speaker 15 (01:21:24):
We built out an entire organizational network of Al Chapo
and his inner circle, from his people cooking for him
to cleaning the house, from his bodyguards to his communication
and command structure.

Speaker 1 (01:21:39):
The agencies then approach Mexican authorities for support.

Speaker 12 (01:21:44):
You just can't recruit a couple of local police officers
from a small town in Mexico go in and do it.
It has to be a group of untouchables, but on
law enforcement side, that would go in and conduct and
affect the rescue, and this group the Marines.

Speaker 1 (01:22:05):
In mid January, a special forces unit of commandos from
SEMMA the Mexican Marines, assemble at a forward operating base
near the resort town of Los Cabos. The Marines, the
Mexican equivalent of Navy Seals, are joined by a select
group of DEA agents. Their objective to capture L Chapo's

(01:22:30):
top lieutenants, but with Chapo's extensive network of informants, agents
keep details of each operation close to their chests.

Speaker 15 (01:22:46):
They did not know until the last minute and who
they were actually going to capture and arrest.

Speaker 11 (01:22:55):
In.

Speaker 15 (01:22:55):
The Mexican military and SAMARI unit kept need a no
base because they wanted to maximize success of this operation.

Speaker 1 (01:23:12):
After weeks of surveillance, the Marines move in to round
up L. Chapo's henchmen and their mobile.

Speaker 13 (01:23:19):
Phones whenever rates occur. Among the things authorities often find
besides the weapons and the ammunition and the all of
proof bests, are the telephones.

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
With each phone seized, a new set of numbers is
gathered allowing agents to map out El Chapo's entire in
a circle. Several of l Chapo's bodyguards are arrested.

Speaker 3 (01:23:51):
They were taken into custody by the Mexican Marines, who
then engage in scientific interrogation. If you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:24:02):
Under intense pressure, El Chapo's bodyguards blow the lid off
their bosses. Location a two story house on Rio Humaya Street,
a middle class neighborhood in Kulia Khan. Just before dawn,

(01:24:27):
the Marines arrive at the safe house. They surround the building.
They've now got al Chapel cornered. The Marines ready their
weapons and produce a battering ram.

Speaker 15 (01:24:53):
They came across a very heavily fortified residence, still plated
doors that were engineered to prevent the Mexican military law
enforcement forever getting in there.

Speaker 1 (01:25:12):
Ten minutes later, they finally break in and reached the bathroom.
The bathtub has been raised with hydraulic lifts, and.

Speaker 3 (01:25:25):
Chappo Guzman within the first twenty seconds, had already lifted
the bathtub, climbed down the stairs and fled. They discovered
the tunnel and they went into the draining system, and
they could hear the splash coming from Chappo Wuzman.

Speaker 1 (01:25:50):
The soldiers raced down into a lubyrince of interlocking tunnels
beneath the city streets.

Speaker 3 (01:25:58):
Obviously, it's very narrow, so that, you know, just a
spray of bullets would have killed quite a few of
the marines.

Speaker 1 (01:26:06):
El Chapo and his only remaining bodyguard have a ten
minute head start on the Marines. Meanwhile, above ground, dozens
of troops positioned themselves ready to jump on the drug
lord as soon as he surfaces. A covert US drone

(01:26:27):
is deployed to monitor the city's streets. Meanwhile, Chapo calls
one of his henchmen to pick him and his bodyguard.

Speaker 12 (01:26:39):
Up enforcers who were organizers in Guiagana. They picked him up,
took him down the highway, and then they switched vehicles
and he's gone.

Speaker 1 (01:26:53):
When the commandos emerge at a storm drain by the
banks of a muddy river, there's no sign of their
target anywhere. It's a crushing disappointment, but it turns out
to be short lived. Two days later, El Chapo's bodyguard

(01:27:15):
is sending a text that will lead them straight to
the Kingpin's new lair. The next morning, at dawn, forty
marines assemble at a beachfront apartment complex.

Speaker 3 (01:27:41):
They were able to pinpoint his location at the Mermar Condominiums,
which was right on the water.

Speaker 11 (01:27:49):
There in bus at line.

Speaker 1 (01:27:52):
The marines circle the building.

Speaker 3 (01:28:00):
So they checked with workers there at the condominium complex
and they found out that only two parties had checked
in the previous day.

Speaker 1 (01:28:15):
Chapo could be in one of them. Marines climbed to
the sixth floor and ready their weapons.

Speaker 15 (01:28:27):
Here, now you are a doorway away from the most
wanted man in the world. You're not expecting him to
go down without a fight.

Speaker 3 (01:28:39):
They went to the first apartment and they basically kicked
down the door and there was an American couple in
there and they were absolutely in shock.

Speaker 1 (01:28:55):
Commando secure the apartment and radio their colleagues. No sight
of their target yet.

Speaker 3 (01:29:05):
They knew that they had to now move very quickly,
so they went down to the fourth floor. They immediately
subdued one of his bodyguards that was in there.

Speaker 1 (01:29:31):
Infrared and thermal imaging pinpoints the locations of everyone inside
the condo. They burst through the door el Chapo's young wife,

(01:29:54):
Emma Coronel, is terrified. A marine makes his way to
the bathroom door. That's somebody behind it. The Marines shout
for the person to reveal himself.

Speaker 3 (01:30:11):
He had an AK forty seven, but he knew it
was suicide by police. If he try to go for it.

Speaker 13 (01:30:18):
The wife is still screaming, don't kill him, don't kill him,
don't do anything to him. He's the father of my children.

Speaker 3 (01:30:31):
The Mexican Marines take no prisoners. Had they then provoked
and Chapu's mind just made any slight movement towards that weapon,
he would have not been able to fit in a
casket with all the lead that would have been pumped
into his body.

Speaker 1 (01:30:54):
In less than three minutes, the Mexican Marines have taken
down the world's biggest drug kingpin.

Speaker 3 (01:31:03):
So he was taken into custody, didn't make any comments,
was very solemn, very quiet.

Speaker 12 (01:31:13):
You know they were saying, cut with your pants down.
It was he was basically cut with his pants down.

Speaker 1 (01:31:20):
A fingerprint and a DNA swab confirmed the captured man
is indeed Joaquin Guzman Luguera.

Speaker 15 (01:31:35):
We knew at that time that the Cinelot cartel and
their leadership had just suffered the biggest blow that they'd
ever had in the history of that cartel.

Speaker 1 (01:31:46):
El Chapo is sentenced to twenty years and nine months
in prison on charges of drug trafficking, criminal association, and bribery.
The criminal mastermind is locked up at Altiplano, Mexico's Super
maximum security prison. Mexican authorities vow he will never escape again.

(01:32:20):
A security camera monitors l Chapo in his cell twenty
four to seven. At eight fifty two pm, he walks
over to the bathroom area and disappears once again. He's
made his escape in a tunnel, this time a mile

(01:32:40):
long passage dug beneath his shower, equipped with a custom
built motorcycle on rails. At its end a half finished
house on a deserted road, built specifically for his escape.
An international manhunt is currently under way to capture him.