Drug Lords (2018) s01e01 Episode Script
Pablo Escobar
[Steve Murphy.]
We were doing a wiretap on one of the phones that Pablo's talking on, and Pablo's talking to his wife, Tata, on the phone.
"Hey, how are you, honey? How's the kids?" And you can hear a guy screaming.
He's being tortured.
[man screaming.]
You hear a guy shriek, like a yell.
I'll never forget that.
And so finally, Pablo says, "Hold on just a second.
" And he tries to cover the phone, and Javier hears him say, "Shut him up.
" Then, all of a sudden, it gets deathly quiet.
That's how diabolical, that's how unremorseful this guy is.
I mean, the guy thought he was invincible.
[theme music playing.]
[narrator.]
Medellín, Colombia, 1982.
Pablo Escobar is the head of the most powerful, violent and feared criminal organization in the world.
You know, he was responsible for the vast majority of cocaine coming into the United States.
These guys were smuggling 2,500 kilos of cocaine on a daily basis.
[narrator.]
The Medellín cartel is raking in over $2 billion a month.
Those Escobar can't bribe, he kills.
There are a lot of evil people, but up until that point I had never encountered anybody like that.
[narrator.]
Escobar also has an ardent following.
[in Spanish.]
For us, Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was a religion.
He was a God.
[Escobar in Spanish.]
Those who know the Robin Hood story know that he fought for and looked out for the poor.
[narrator.]
But for the DEA, he's the most wanted criminal in the world.
[Murphy.]
A lot of times, we'll start at a low level, but our goal is, we wanna climb that ladder, to get as high as we can in an organization, 'cause we wanna take out the head of the snake.
[narrator.]
Escobar wages a brutal war on his own country, and he's unafraid to fight to the death.
1949, Pablo Escobar is born into one of the world's most violent countries.
Colombia.
Plagued by civil and guerrilla war, it's a world in which the audacious Escobar thrives.
By his teens, he slips into a life of petty crime and one struggle over some stolen cash catches the eye of a young man who will become his most trusted hit man in years to come.
One day, I was on my way to school when I see a scuffle between a policeman and a gangster with a gun in his hand.
[both grunting.]
He grabs a money pouch from the policeman.
The policeman falls down and whips out his revolver and shoots.
They managed to get the gangster out on a motorbike.
The guy on the motorbike was Pablo Escobar.
[narrator.]
But street crime isn't enough for the power-hungry Escobar.
[Javier Peña.]
Pablo had that genius ingenuity about him.
He knew the street, and he also had that business savvy.
[narrator.]
A savvy that'll lead to Escobar's meteoric rise.
In the mid-'70s, he joins forces with three criminals, Carlos Lehder, Luis Ochoa and Jose Gonzalo Gacha, to start buying and selling Colombia's most lucrative product, cocaine.
The Medellín cartel is born.
The cartel sets its sights on a booming new market a thousand miles away, in Miami, where cocaine is the drug of choice for Florida's rich and famous.
[Murphy.]
The 1980s, Miami was the spot.
It was just unbelievable that there was that much cocaine honestly, in the world at one time.
[chuckles.]
If you liked those type of investigations, there was no better place to be in the 1980s than Miami.
[narrator.]
And the Medellín cartel soon devised a creative way of getting the coke into the US via the Sunshine State.
[Velásquez in Spanish.]
Carlos Lehder Rivas bought an island in the Bahamas and paid 5 million dollars a month to the country's president.
Planes arrive from Colombia to the Bahamas.
And from there, every weekend, boats and small yachts would arrive from Miami and be loaded with cocaine.
Trafficking was very easy.
[narrator.]
They referred to the Bahamas as their trampoline into the US.
While on patrol, Agent Steve Murphy gets a front-row view of the enormous scale of Escobar's operation.
We come across this aircraft that's submerged in the water.
They point it out to me.
I'm like, "My gosh! There's a plane crash.
" I'm telling the pilots, "We need to call in boats.
We need to bring in divers.
Find out if there are bodies on the plane.
" The two pilots were laughing at me.
I told 'em, "What are you guys laughing at? It's not funny.
" They said, "You don't even know what you're looking at.
Those are narcotics planes.
Those are cocaine-laden planes that the cartels in Colombia fly up into the Caribbean island chain, the boats come in, they get the load of cocaine off, they take the two pilots off and away they go, and they just leave that plane there.
" [narrator.]
The cartel's abandon reveals just how much profit their operation's raking in.
To produce a kilo of cocaine in the jungles for those guys was about $1,000.
Their transportation fees were $4,000.
So your initial investment was $5,000.
And in Miami, in the mid-'80s, that kilo of cocaine was going for about $80,000.
These guys were smuggling 2,500 kilos of cocaine on a daily basis.
So, if you do the math, your return is in the billions of dollars.
And because of that, they became the largest cocaine empire we had ever seen.
[narrator.]
By the early '80s, Medellín is the cocaine capital of the world.
And Escobar protects its profits with extreme ruthlessness.
[Hugo Martínez in Spanish.]
Escobar's rule was that those who do not pay, if they hadn't already been killed, were made to pay.
They were kidnapped and all their possessions taken away.
This is the main thing that allowed him to rise above the others.
His relentless way of enforcing the deal he had done.
He eliminated entire families.
He terrorized them.
[narrator.]
The DEA ramps up its operation to take down the murderous drug lord.
They send an undercover agent into one of Escobar's week-long parties who witnesses the brutality firsthand.
He said, "Man, you're not gonna believe what I saw.
You know, we're in the third or fourth day of this thing, people are blitzed out of their minds.
One of the sicarios comes up and says, 'Hey, Boss, ' talking to Pablo, 'Hey, Boss, one of the waiters is stealing your silverware.
'" Well, Pablo's worth $30 billion.
Does he really care that somebody's stealing a knife and a fork and a spoon? He said, "Well, let me talk to him.
" So he brings him up in front of everybody and Pablo talks to him a bit, and finally, he says to somebody, "Get me some duct tape.
" They duct taped the man's hands behind his back, they duct taped his feet together And Pablo kicks him into the swimming pool.
[people laughing.]
The entertainment for the next several minutes is watching a man drown.
Think about the message that that sends.
That, "I'm untouchable.
I will do what I want when I want.
I'm this strong, and I'm this powerful.
If you steal from me, then this is what happens to you.
" [narrator.]
With US and Colombian authorities both after him, Escobar builds a brutal army of hit men, known as sicarios, to protect him.
Jhon Jairo Velásquez, nicknamed Popeye, soon becomes one of the deadliest.
Soon after I started working for the Boss, we were all in this house.
A friend of the Boss arrives and he says, "Pablo I want to kill a bus driver who killed my mum.
" The Boss says, "Okay, I'll sort it.
" And he calls me, "Come here, Popeye.
Do you want to do this job?" [narrator.]
It will be Popeye's first killing of many.
The guy came with me and pointed him out.
Two shots to the head.
That was it.
So I'm back at work, and the Boss asks me that night, "Popeye, why haven't you collected your money?" I said, "No worries, sir.
I just want to be with you.
" He laughed and gave me $5,000.
He was a leader, and a leader always pays what he owes.
It was when I shot that bus driver that I properly entered the criminal world.
[Murphy.]
Popeye, he admits to arranging as many as 3,000 murders.
[gunshot echoes.]
He admitted to killing as many as 300 people himself.
He's a mass murderer.
[Peña.]
Pablo Escobar used to personally recruit all the sicarios.
He would hug 'em, love 'em, kiss 'em, he'd give 'em money.
However, he expected their loyalty in return, which he got.
[narrator.]
Escobar's motto is, "Plata o plomo.
" "Money or lead.
" He sends his sicarios out to corrupt a nation.
For example, there'd be a judge who had a criminal investigation on him, so the sicarios would go see the judge and they would tell the judge, "Judge, I'm being sent by Pablo Escobar.
Before you kick us out Now, is this your wife?" They would show photos of his wife.
They would show photos of his kids at school.
And then they would say, "Mr.
Escobar wants you to drop this case.
If you don't drop it, Escobar would kill them.
" A lot of people started taking the money, and you know what? I do not blame them for taking the money.
[narrator.]
By 1982, Escobar's at the top of his game.
He's the wealthiest man in Colombia.
And he lavishes his riches on a 7,000-acre estate, the notorious Hacienda Nápoles.
As an audacious touch, he mounts a replica of the plane that carried his very first shipment of coke to the US, a Piper PA-18 Super Cub, onto the front gate.
Look, the Nápoles estate was a paradise.
Literally a paradise.
[narrator.]
A paradise built on the billions earned from trafficking cocaine.
Hacienda Nápoles was a place for fun and a center for crime.
There was time for family, time for fun, and time for war.
[Murphy.]
He loves bringing people in there to entertain.
He's got all these exotic animals in his own private zoo.
It's kinda like a kids' park type thing.
So this is a place that Pablo loves to show off.
There were parties that lasted five, seven or eight days.
The Boss would have half a beer and smoke half a joint.
Pablo Escobar liked there to be fabulous-looking women at his parties.
The Boss had a strong aura.
His energy was so powerful, he'd touch a girl and she would instantly become wet.
He was very powerful.
[narrator.]
By the early '80s, the Medellín cartel is supplying four out of every five lines snorted in the United States.
Escobar thinks he's untouchable in his Colombian hideout.
But he's about to face a new unimaginable foe.
I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear [narrator.]
President Ronald Reagan makes it his mission to bring down the narcotics smugglers.
We intend to do what is necessary to end the drug menace and cripple organized crime.
[narrator.]
Reagan ratifies an extradition treaty with Colombia.
Pablo Escobar can now be tried and jailed in the United States.
It's Escobar's greatest fear made real.
I reject the extradition treaty between Colombia and the United States.
[narrator.]
So, Escobar hatches a plan.
Viva Pablo Escobar Gaviria! [crowd cheering.]
[Edgar Jimenez in Spanish.]
Pablo understands the need to link himself to politics and get into parliament in order to get parliamentary immunity.
[narrator.]
After funding numerous community projects, Escobar quickly builds up a public following, which wins him a seat in Congress.
But this isn't his only prize.
Along with his new job comes immunity from extradition.
Once again, he places himself beyond the reach of the US justice system.
But those against him are hunting for the evidence they need to kick him out.
[woman in Spanish.]
You have a lot of money, right? Well, I think that's a very personal question, very intimate.
But anyone who is interested in knowing how much money Mr.
Pablo Escobar has can find out from the National Tax Administration.
[narrator.]
One brave journalist digs deep into Escobar's past.
[Maria Duzán in Spanish.]
Guillermo Cano, the newspaper's editor, he believed that this man who is in Congress, making decisions, Pablo Escobar, had been in prison and he remembered the mug shot.
[narrator.]
The editor of El Espectador publishes the incriminating photo.
The immediate reaction of the politicians who had received him into their homes was to close their doors to him.
The accusations are without foundation [narrator.]
Escobar is thrown out of Congress.
And Justice Minister Bonilla goes after Pablo's empire.
Armed with intelligence from the DEA, Bonilla orders a raid on one of Escobar's cocaine factories.
Tranquilandia.
The remote compound has eight air strips, living quarters for 100 workers, and 19 laboratories dedicated to the manufacturing of cocaine.
The enormous scale of the Medellín operation is clear.
Over one billion dollars' worth of coke goes up in flames.
And it triggers one of the bloodiest decades in Colombian history.
[man in Spanish.]
Pablo detested the political class.
He was astonishingly cold-blooded.
And also inexhaustibly determined.
[narrator.]
First in line is the justice minister who ordered the destruction of Escobar's cocaine factory.
He pays the ultimate price.
Nothing could stop him.
[indistinct chatter on TV.]
[Velásquez.]
The Boss was such a violent man.
Violence poured from his hands.
[narrator.]
Bent on revenge, he continues his reign of terror.
[gunshots.]
On December 17th, 1986, the editor who published his mugshot, Guillermo Cano, is brutally gunned down.
Escobar finishes the job by blowing up the newspaper's offices.
Now a wanted terrorist in two nations, he goes underground.
The hunt is on.
[Peña.]
It was a priority for DEA to start going after Pablo Escobar.
We would get a lot of informants.
If 10 informants walked in the door, out of those ten, two were gonna be good.
Those informants that were reliable, we paid 'em a good sum of money.
[narrator.]
Knowing he's being watched, Escobar trusts no one.
Even those closest to him.
Wendy Chavarriaga was the Boss's girlfriend.
She was a spectacular woman, over six feet tall with thick black hair and incredible legs.
[narrator.]
When Escobar ends the affair, his mistress seeks revenge through a relationship with Popeye, who falls head over heels in love.
But that's not all Wendy does to hit back at her former lover.
[phone ringing.]
[Velásquez.]
The Boss calls me and plays a recording down the phone.
It was Wendy talking to some people from the DEA.
[narrator.]
Escobar gives Popeye a choice, love or loyalty.
So the Boss says, "Popeye, what are we going to do?" He need say no more.
I will sort it straightaway.
So I made a date at a restaurant.
I'd already told two of my boys, my best gunmen.
Told them what she looked like, the car she was driving.
I arrived and parked.
[phone ringing.]
I call the restaurant and ask to speak to Miss Wendy Chavarriaga.
And I hear the waiter call for Wendy Chavarriaga, and I hear her shoes.
[mimics footsteps.]
Honestly, it was hard.
But on my heart, I swore an oath of loyalty to Pablo Escobar.
You show Pablo Escobar loyalty through actions, not words.
The government of Colombia will do everything in its power to catch Escobar and his henchmen.
[narrator.]
So President César Gaviria plays his ace card against the drug lord, the threat of extradition to the US.
[in Spanish.]
Escobar's ability to generate violence was unlike anyone else's in our country's history.
Pablo Escobar feared extradition.
[Duzán.]
He believed that going to the United States was the worst that could happen to him or any Colombian.
[speaking Spanish.]
[in English.]
"I prefer a tomb in Colombia than a jail cell in the United States.
" [narrator.]
No one is prepared for the scale of Escobar's retaliation.
His plan, overturn the extradition laws through terror.
- [clamoring.]
- [sirens wailing.]
The world's first narco terrorist has publicly declared war on the country.
It's when he becomes a psychopath.
The body count was going higher and higher.
I'm talking thousands of innocent people.
The women, the children.
The bounties on police officers.
I remember, he would tell his sicarios, "I want body count.
" And that was his way of fighting and showing Colombia that he was gonna win.
[narrator.]
Colombia is on the brink of collapse.
President Gaviria marshals his forces, assembling a group of elite Colombian army and police personnel, now with the full weight of the DEA behind it.
They're called the Search Bloc.
Their only job was to hunt down Escobar, to catch him dead or alive.
[narrator.]
The man put in charge, Colonel Hugo Martínez.
I knew I was going on a very dangerous mission.
I could even lose my life.
[narrator.]
Martínez is barely on the job when a fellow officer comes calling.
He tells me that Escobar is offering me six million dollars and would hand it over to me wherever I wanted.
All he wanted was prior notice when we were about to try and seize him.
I thought it showed weakness on Escobar's side to come and offer me money.
[narrator.]
Martínez won't be bribed.
Once we got Colonel Martínez in place, that's when things started happening.
A lot of things were going on.
[narrator.]
And the Search Bloc gets its chance to catch the drug lord.
It all began with the interception of a phone call when Escobar asks for a girl to be delivered.
[narrator.]
The girl's destination is Escobar's jungle hideout.
Now, all they have to do is find it.
[Martínez.]
We took a farmer with us who knew the route to Medellín.
When we flew over the site he says, "That's it.
That's the house.
" [Velásquez.]
In times of war, the Boss wouldn't just sleep in his underwear.
He would wear his Newman jeans, no shirt, and with a gun in his hand.
When we were warned that a helicopter was approaching, the Boss would grab his gun in three seconds flat.
[narrator.]
Escobar has been tipped off, and the raid hits a hail of bullets.
They were firing at us from the ground and the pilot tells me we are hit.
There was a sound like popping corn as the helicopter was hit.
So we made a retreat.
That night, we were all crestfallen.
We had lost.
He had gotten away from us.
[narrator.]
Escobar escapes, then does what he always does.
Retaliates.
[man in Spanish.]
Escobar didn't just kill his enemies.
He killed anyone who he felt posed a risk.
Put yourself in the position of the president of Colombia, César Gaviria.
Can you imagine the pressure that's on him? Where you've got this criminal, the world's most wanted criminal, the world's first narco terrorist, has publicly declared war on the country.
[narrator.]
Escobar will stop at nothing to assert his power.
Going so far as to plot the assassination of Gaviria, he tasks a sicario with putting a bomb on the commercial plane he's flying on.
[explosion.]
But his intel is bad.
Gaviria never boards the plane.
One hundred and ten innocent people are blown to pieces.
It was a terrible thing.
It's the only case I know of, in the history of humanity, where a whole plane is downed just to kill one person.
At that time, our enemy was winning.
We were losing the battle against drug trafficking.
It was a difficult time.
[narrator.]
During the late '80s, Escobar's reign of terror continues to escalate.
Now Escobar plays his cards, and his cards were the kidnappings to put pressure on the government.
[narrator.]
In January 1988, the drug lord orders Popeye to snatch the attorney general, Carlos Mauro Hoyos.
Just after 6:00 a.
m.
, we ambush and kidnap him.
[narrator.]
During the kidnapping, they kill his driver and bodyguard and ferry the attorney general away to a safe house.
Army troops start to swarm the area.
More and more troops.
Because they know we have the Attorney General Mauro Hoyos in the area.
The Boss calls us on our radio.
The Boss gives me the order to go in and kill the attorney general.
Before I killed him, I told him why I was going to kill him.
"I am executing you because you allow the extradition of Colombians to the United States.
" The Medellín cartel had some memorable days.
[narrator.]
During the Search Bloc's long hunt, Escobar's sicarios kill 457 police.
But the Colombian government refuses to cave in to the terror.
Then, in 1991, Escobar makes his most unexpected move yet.
If they can guarantee he won't be extradited, he'll turn himself in for sentencing.
It was regarded as a political solution to a problem that we could not solve.
[narrator.]
But it's not long before the real motives for Escobar's surrender become clear.
He wants to make a deal.
So Pablo comes in, he says, "Okay, you know I was in a car one time when there was some cocaine in the trunk, and I didn't know it was in there, so I guess I unwittingly participated in the transportation of cocaine.
And that's what I'm pleading guilty to.
You got me.
" And the government said, "Okay.
" [narrator.]
After all his years of crime and violence, Escobar only gets five years in jail.
And he has even more demands.
He said, "The first is I'm gonna build a prison, and I'm gonna pay for it because I don't want the citizens of Colombia to have to suffer that tax burden.
" And the government of Colombia said, "Okay.
" [narrator.]
Work begins immediately to build La Catedral, the high security prison a few miles from his Medellín homeland.
Pablo even chooses his guards and inmates.
"My fellow prisoners I'm gonna handpick, and one of 'em's gonna be my brother and these others are business associates who are actually sicarios," which translates into assassins.
And the government of Colombia said, "Okay.
" [narrator.]
And finally [Murphy.]
And Pablo said, "There's one more stipulation.
The government of Colombia and the gringos, no government official can come within two miles of my prison while I'm in there, because I don't trust 'em.
" And the government of Colombia said, "Okay.
" [narrator.]
He even gets to keep his multi-billion-dollar fortune.
It's the deal of a lifetime.
But Escobar's biggest coup comes on June 19th, 1991, at the same time as the Colombian authorities fly him to his brand new personalized prison.
The Colombian Congress outlaws extradition.
We knew that Pablo Escobar had won, and the rest of the world had lost.
[narrator.]
Escobar's new residence is the perfect spot to get back to business.
It was there that the Boss began to restructure the Medellín cartel's drug trafficking.
La Catedral was a center for crime.
Here there was a wall that concealed the secret entrance down into the laundry.
Through here we kept the liquor, the cocaine that people took, and the weapons and marijuana were in there.
And in this room, we hid people who had entered illegally.
Dealers, prostitutes, anyone who shouldn't have been in the prison.
Up above of all this, there was a disco, a good sound system, we had drinks, the ladies came, there were orgies.
It was the place for sin at La Catedral.
[narrator.]
Right under the noses of the guards, Pablo creates a home away from home.
[Murphy.]
What I saw was a country club atmosphere.
We go to Pablo's cell, it's a two-room suite.
It has million-dollar paintings on the walls.
It had color-coordinated draperies and upholstery.
He had candles on his coffee table.
You go into the bedroom, he's got a custom-made bed that's bigger than any king-size bed you've ever seen.
He's got an office built into this room.
His bathroom had a Jacuzzi bathtub.
The walk-in closet had a safe hidden behind the drawers that you pull out.
This is a prison.
[narrator.]
Escobar is back in control.
Frustrated, the DEA sets up camp nearby.
The DEA had bought a property over there so they could watch us.
[narrator.]
They try tapping the prison's phone system, but That whole year that Pablo was in there, we couldn't intercept anything.
That house over there, that house belonged to Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria.
The Boss installed an intercom.
The cable went all the way to the house, and in the house was a room where important members of the Medellín cartel would come to talk to Pablo Escobar.
The DEA saw the cable, but assumed it was for electricity.
They never imagined it was an intercom cable.
The DEA never got proof that Pablo Escobar was trafficking cocaine from here, La Catedral prison.
[narrator.]
But then, Escobar makes a huge mistake that lifts the lid on the cathedral of crime.
He smuggles in two of the original cartel members, and Popeye is there waiting for them.
Underneath Roberto's cabin, there was a secret room.
We put them in there.
We cuff them.
[narrator.]
Fernando Galeano and Gerardo Moncada have stolen from their boss.
[Velásquez.]
They are very worried and want to speak to the Boss.
"Popeye, get Pablo!" When they realize they can't speak to the Boss, they know they are done for.
You could see it in their eyes.
They were done for.
They ask for water and a Bible.
We shot them in the head.
There was a chainsaw in the Catedral.
We cut them up.
We started to burn the bodies.
A huge bonfire.
The Boss sat in a plastic chair, wearing a Russian hat, just staring at the bodies.
The bodies burned all through the night.
The next morning, we broke the bones up with hammers and acid to make sure there was no trace of Galeano and Kiko.
We were burning the Medellín cartel.
[narrator.]
It's the final straw for the government, and they move in.
[Rafael Pardo in Spanish.]
The government decides to intervene and move Escobar to another prison because they have information that Escobar is committing crimes and murders.
[narrator.]
But Escobar sees them coming.
This is the route we took with Pablo Escobar in 1992 to make our escape.
Pablo Escobar was at the front leading our escape.
This was completely covered in fog, and it was 11:00 at night.
The first 200 hundred meters were treacherous as the army were flooding in.
Nine thousand men of the Colombian army came here.
The DEA and the CIA came with the general.
In these mountains, we outsmarted them all.
[narrator.]
Colombia's most notorious gangster is on the run, again.
But in an extraordinary twist, Escobar's escape plays straight into the Search Bloc's hands.
It's like we've got a second chance of getting the world's most wanted criminal.
We all hated Pablo Escobar.
We have another chance of killing Pablo Escobar.
[man speaking Spanish.]
[narrator.]
A nationwide appeal for info on Escobar goes out.
And the Search Bloc gets a crucial tip-off.
[Murphy.]
There was this house on this mountainside, and the information from the informant was that Pablo was in the house.
We heard the footsteps of the army.
[Murphy.]
We got inside that house, and what we found in there, and this was a fetish of Pablo Escobar's for whatever reason, he liked nice bathrooms, and there's this little shack with this really nice bathroom.
There's no sign of Pablo Escobar.
Incredibly, we crawled and found a sugar cane field and hid there.
[narrator.]
Escobar escapes capture, but his time is running out.
Even when his network, his militia, commanders and hit men started falling, those who did not fall gave themselves up.
Until he was left all alone.
[narrator.]
With the noose tightening, Escobar finally releases his ever-loyal sicario, Popeye, to hand himself in.
I arrive and hand him my gun.
The Boss takes it and says, "Popeye, thank you for everything.
" We look at each other and say nothing.
I knew I would never see him again.
[narrator.]
Next, the drug lord turns to getting his family out of Colombia.
They try fleeing the country, but are met by DEA Agent Peña at the Medellín airport.
[Peña.]
When we stopped them, lot of commotion, a lot of crying, a lot of yelling.
We basically tore up their visas.
This man couldn't give himself the luxury of sending his family away and continue to commit outrageous crimes.
[narrator.]
The government moves the family here, to the Tequendama Hotel in central Bogotá.
Fearing they're still in danger, Escobar calls the president.
We took the position that we would not accept any of his terms.
We would only accept an unconditional surrender.
[narrator.]
The Search Bloc wire taps the family's hotel and waits for Escobar to make his next move.
[Martínez.]
All the surveillance is left on for about 72 hours.
I am listening in from my headquarters, day and night.
[narrator.]
Then, on December 2nd, Escobar calls his son.
He's heard the family might get sanctuary in El Salvador.
Escobar comes on the line, talking at 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning.
[Pablo on recording.]
We are very grateful to the President of El Salvador.
He is treating us in a humane way.
He is not treating us like criminals.
His family effectively became his executioner.
We pin down the area where he's located.
[narrator.]
The head of the surveillance team takes a unit to the neighborhood where they've traced the calls.
Agent Steve Murphy is at the Search Bloc's headquarters, listening in on developments.
He's driving down the street, he's got his antenna out, he's looking at his meter, and his meter indicates that the signal's coming from a row house that he's driving by.
He looks up and sees Pablo Escobar looking out the window.
He says, "I've found him.
I think it's Escobar.
I saw him through the window.
" [narrator.]
The troops make their move.
[Murphy.]
They lined the door of this row house with det cord.
They blew the door off the hinges.
Pablo's on the second floor, he and his one sicario.
They go up to the third floor the sicario jumps out the window.
He takes off running across the roof.
He's shot.
Falls off the roof on the ground, dead.
Pablo comes out that window, makes a run across the roof.
[gunshot.]
He's actually shot three times.
Once in the back of the leg.
Once in the butt cheek.
Third shot was in the ear.
And that was the kill shot.
I was sitting in my office, and I felt huge relief.
[Murphy.]
The reason we're all smiling in those photographs is because every one of us knew at that very second, the very second that Pablo Escobar died, every citizen in the country of Colombia was safer, simply because one man was dead.
[camera shutter clicks.]
"Viva Colombia!" Everybody shouts, "Viva Colombia!" [music playing.]
We were doing a wiretap on one of the phones that Pablo's talking on, and Pablo's talking to his wife, Tata, on the phone.
"Hey, how are you, honey? How's the kids?" And you can hear a guy screaming.
He's being tortured.
[man screaming.]
You hear a guy shriek, like a yell.
I'll never forget that.
And so finally, Pablo says, "Hold on just a second.
" And he tries to cover the phone, and Javier hears him say, "Shut him up.
" Then, all of a sudden, it gets deathly quiet.
That's how diabolical, that's how unremorseful this guy is.
I mean, the guy thought he was invincible.
[theme music playing.]
[narrator.]
Medellín, Colombia, 1982.
Pablo Escobar is the head of the most powerful, violent and feared criminal organization in the world.
You know, he was responsible for the vast majority of cocaine coming into the United States.
These guys were smuggling 2,500 kilos of cocaine on a daily basis.
[narrator.]
The Medellín cartel is raking in over $2 billion a month.
Those Escobar can't bribe, he kills.
There are a lot of evil people, but up until that point I had never encountered anybody like that.
[narrator.]
Escobar also has an ardent following.
[in Spanish.]
For us, Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was a religion.
He was a God.
[Escobar in Spanish.]
Those who know the Robin Hood story know that he fought for and looked out for the poor.
[narrator.]
But for the DEA, he's the most wanted criminal in the world.
[Murphy.]
A lot of times, we'll start at a low level, but our goal is, we wanna climb that ladder, to get as high as we can in an organization, 'cause we wanna take out the head of the snake.
[narrator.]
Escobar wages a brutal war on his own country, and he's unafraid to fight to the death.
1949, Pablo Escobar is born into one of the world's most violent countries.
Colombia.
Plagued by civil and guerrilla war, it's a world in which the audacious Escobar thrives.
By his teens, he slips into a life of petty crime and one struggle over some stolen cash catches the eye of a young man who will become his most trusted hit man in years to come.
One day, I was on my way to school when I see a scuffle between a policeman and a gangster with a gun in his hand.
[both grunting.]
He grabs a money pouch from the policeman.
The policeman falls down and whips out his revolver and shoots.
They managed to get the gangster out on a motorbike.
The guy on the motorbike was Pablo Escobar.
[narrator.]
But street crime isn't enough for the power-hungry Escobar.
[Javier Peña.]
Pablo had that genius ingenuity about him.
He knew the street, and he also had that business savvy.
[narrator.]
A savvy that'll lead to Escobar's meteoric rise.
In the mid-'70s, he joins forces with three criminals, Carlos Lehder, Luis Ochoa and Jose Gonzalo Gacha, to start buying and selling Colombia's most lucrative product, cocaine.
The Medellín cartel is born.
The cartel sets its sights on a booming new market a thousand miles away, in Miami, where cocaine is the drug of choice for Florida's rich and famous.
[Murphy.]
The 1980s, Miami was the spot.
It was just unbelievable that there was that much cocaine honestly, in the world at one time.
[chuckles.]
If you liked those type of investigations, there was no better place to be in the 1980s than Miami.
[narrator.]
And the Medellín cartel soon devised a creative way of getting the coke into the US via the Sunshine State.
[Velásquez in Spanish.]
Carlos Lehder Rivas bought an island in the Bahamas and paid 5 million dollars a month to the country's president.
Planes arrive from Colombia to the Bahamas.
And from there, every weekend, boats and small yachts would arrive from Miami and be loaded with cocaine.
Trafficking was very easy.
[narrator.]
They referred to the Bahamas as their trampoline into the US.
While on patrol, Agent Steve Murphy gets a front-row view of the enormous scale of Escobar's operation.
We come across this aircraft that's submerged in the water.
They point it out to me.
I'm like, "My gosh! There's a plane crash.
" I'm telling the pilots, "We need to call in boats.
We need to bring in divers.
Find out if there are bodies on the plane.
" The two pilots were laughing at me.
I told 'em, "What are you guys laughing at? It's not funny.
" They said, "You don't even know what you're looking at.
Those are narcotics planes.
Those are cocaine-laden planes that the cartels in Colombia fly up into the Caribbean island chain, the boats come in, they get the load of cocaine off, they take the two pilots off and away they go, and they just leave that plane there.
" [narrator.]
The cartel's abandon reveals just how much profit their operation's raking in.
To produce a kilo of cocaine in the jungles for those guys was about $1,000.
Their transportation fees were $4,000.
So your initial investment was $5,000.
And in Miami, in the mid-'80s, that kilo of cocaine was going for about $80,000.
These guys were smuggling 2,500 kilos of cocaine on a daily basis.
So, if you do the math, your return is in the billions of dollars.
And because of that, they became the largest cocaine empire we had ever seen.
[narrator.]
By the early '80s, Medellín is the cocaine capital of the world.
And Escobar protects its profits with extreme ruthlessness.
[Hugo Martínez in Spanish.]
Escobar's rule was that those who do not pay, if they hadn't already been killed, were made to pay.
They were kidnapped and all their possessions taken away.
This is the main thing that allowed him to rise above the others.
His relentless way of enforcing the deal he had done.
He eliminated entire families.
He terrorized them.
[narrator.]
The DEA ramps up its operation to take down the murderous drug lord.
They send an undercover agent into one of Escobar's week-long parties who witnesses the brutality firsthand.
He said, "Man, you're not gonna believe what I saw.
You know, we're in the third or fourth day of this thing, people are blitzed out of their minds.
One of the sicarios comes up and says, 'Hey, Boss, ' talking to Pablo, 'Hey, Boss, one of the waiters is stealing your silverware.
'" Well, Pablo's worth $30 billion.
Does he really care that somebody's stealing a knife and a fork and a spoon? He said, "Well, let me talk to him.
" So he brings him up in front of everybody and Pablo talks to him a bit, and finally, he says to somebody, "Get me some duct tape.
" They duct taped the man's hands behind his back, they duct taped his feet together And Pablo kicks him into the swimming pool.
[people laughing.]
The entertainment for the next several minutes is watching a man drown.
Think about the message that that sends.
That, "I'm untouchable.
I will do what I want when I want.
I'm this strong, and I'm this powerful.
If you steal from me, then this is what happens to you.
" [narrator.]
With US and Colombian authorities both after him, Escobar builds a brutal army of hit men, known as sicarios, to protect him.
Jhon Jairo Velásquez, nicknamed Popeye, soon becomes one of the deadliest.
Soon after I started working for the Boss, we were all in this house.
A friend of the Boss arrives and he says, "Pablo I want to kill a bus driver who killed my mum.
" The Boss says, "Okay, I'll sort it.
" And he calls me, "Come here, Popeye.
Do you want to do this job?" [narrator.]
It will be Popeye's first killing of many.
The guy came with me and pointed him out.
Two shots to the head.
That was it.
So I'm back at work, and the Boss asks me that night, "Popeye, why haven't you collected your money?" I said, "No worries, sir.
I just want to be with you.
" He laughed and gave me $5,000.
He was a leader, and a leader always pays what he owes.
It was when I shot that bus driver that I properly entered the criminal world.
[Murphy.]
Popeye, he admits to arranging as many as 3,000 murders.
[gunshot echoes.]
He admitted to killing as many as 300 people himself.
He's a mass murderer.
[Peña.]
Pablo Escobar used to personally recruit all the sicarios.
He would hug 'em, love 'em, kiss 'em, he'd give 'em money.
However, he expected their loyalty in return, which he got.
[narrator.]
Escobar's motto is, "Plata o plomo.
" "Money or lead.
" He sends his sicarios out to corrupt a nation.
For example, there'd be a judge who had a criminal investigation on him, so the sicarios would go see the judge and they would tell the judge, "Judge, I'm being sent by Pablo Escobar.
Before you kick us out Now, is this your wife?" They would show photos of his wife.
They would show photos of his kids at school.
And then they would say, "Mr.
Escobar wants you to drop this case.
If you don't drop it, Escobar would kill them.
" A lot of people started taking the money, and you know what? I do not blame them for taking the money.
[narrator.]
By 1982, Escobar's at the top of his game.
He's the wealthiest man in Colombia.
And he lavishes his riches on a 7,000-acre estate, the notorious Hacienda Nápoles.
As an audacious touch, he mounts a replica of the plane that carried his very first shipment of coke to the US, a Piper PA-18 Super Cub, onto the front gate.
Look, the Nápoles estate was a paradise.
Literally a paradise.
[narrator.]
A paradise built on the billions earned from trafficking cocaine.
Hacienda Nápoles was a place for fun and a center for crime.
There was time for family, time for fun, and time for war.
[Murphy.]
He loves bringing people in there to entertain.
He's got all these exotic animals in his own private zoo.
It's kinda like a kids' park type thing.
So this is a place that Pablo loves to show off.
There were parties that lasted five, seven or eight days.
The Boss would have half a beer and smoke half a joint.
Pablo Escobar liked there to be fabulous-looking women at his parties.
The Boss had a strong aura.
His energy was so powerful, he'd touch a girl and she would instantly become wet.
He was very powerful.
[narrator.]
By the early '80s, the Medellín cartel is supplying four out of every five lines snorted in the United States.
Escobar thinks he's untouchable in his Colombian hideout.
But he's about to face a new unimaginable foe.
I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear [narrator.]
President Ronald Reagan makes it his mission to bring down the narcotics smugglers.
We intend to do what is necessary to end the drug menace and cripple organized crime.
[narrator.]
Reagan ratifies an extradition treaty with Colombia.
Pablo Escobar can now be tried and jailed in the United States.
It's Escobar's greatest fear made real.
I reject the extradition treaty between Colombia and the United States.
[narrator.]
So, Escobar hatches a plan.
Viva Pablo Escobar Gaviria! [crowd cheering.]
[Edgar Jimenez in Spanish.]
Pablo understands the need to link himself to politics and get into parliament in order to get parliamentary immunity.
[narrator.]
After funding numerous community projects, Escobar quickly builds up a public following, which wins him a seat in Congress.
But this isn't his only prize.
Along with his new job comes immunity from extradition.
Once again, he places himself beyond the reach of the US justice system.
But those against him are hunting for the evidence they need to kick him out.
[woman in Spanish.]
You have a lot of money, right? Well, I think that's a very personal question, very intimate.
But anyone who is interested in knowing how much money Mr.
Pablo Escobar has can find out from the National Tax Administration.
[narrator.]
One brave journalist digs deep into Escobar's past.
[Maria Duzán in Spanish.]
Guillermo Cano, the newspaper's editor, he believed that this man who is in Congress, making decisions, Pablo Escobar, had been in prison and he remembered the mug shot.
[narrator.]
The editor of El Espectador publishes the incriminating photo.
The immediate reaction of the politicians who had received him into their homes was to close their doors to him.
The accusations are without foundation [narrator.]
Escobar is thrown out of Congress.
And Justice Minister Bonilla goes after Pablo's empire.
Armed with intelligence from the DEA, Bonilla orders a raid on one of Escobar's cocaine factories.
Tranquilandia.
The remote compound has eight air strips, living quarters for 100 workers, and 19 laboratories dedicated to the manufacturing of cocaine.
The enormous scale of the Medellín operation is clear.
Over one billion dollars' worth of coke goes up in flames.
And it triggers one of the bloodiest decades in Colombian history.
[man in Spanish.]
Pablo detested the political class.
He was astonishingly cold-blooded.
And also inexhaustibly determined.
[narrator.]
First in line is the justice minister who ordered the destruction of Escobar's cocaine factory.
He pays the ultimate price.
Nothing could stop him.
[indistinct chatter on TV.]
[Velásquez.]
The Boss was such a violent man.
Violence poured from his hands.
[narrator.]
Bent on revenge, he continues his reign of terror.
[gunshots.]
On December 17th, 1986, the editor who published his mugshot, Guillermo Cano, is brutally gunned down.
Escobar finishes the job by blowing up the newspaper's offices.
Now a wanted terrorist in two nations, he goes underground.
The hunt is on.
[Peña.]
It was a priority for DEA to start going after Pablo Escobar.
We would get a lot of informants.
If 10 informants walked in the door, out of those ten, two were gonna be good.
Those informants that were reliable, we paid 'em a good sum of money.
[narrator.]
Knowing he's being watched, Escobar trusts no one.
Even those closest to him.
Wendy Chavarriaga was the Boss's girlfriend.
She was a spectacular woman, over six feet tall with thick black hair and incredible legs.
[narrator.]
When Escobar ends the affair, his mistress seeks revenge through a relationship with Popeye, who falls head over heels in love.
But that's not all Wendy does to hit back at her former lover.
[phone ringing.]
[Velásquez.]
The Boss calls me and plays a recording down the phone.
It was Wendy talking to some people from the DEA.
[narrator.]
Escobar gives Popeye a choice, love or loyalty.
So the Boss says, "Popeye, what are we going to do?" He need say no more.
I will sort it straightaway.
So I made a date at a restaurant.
I'd already told two of my boys, my best gunmen.
Told them what she looked like, the car she was driving.
I arrived and parked.
[phone ringing.]
I call the restaurant and ask to speak to Miss Wendy Chavarriaga.
And I hear the waiter call for Wendy Chavarriaga, and I hear her shoes.
[mimics footsteps.]
Honestly, it was hard.
But on my heart, I swore an oath of loyalty to Pablo Escobar.
You show Pablo Escobar loyalty through actions, not words.
The government of Colombia will do everything in its power to catch Escobar and his henchmen.
[narrator.]
So President César Gaviria plays his ace card against the drug lord, the threat of extradition to the US.
[in Spanish.]
Escobar's ability to generate violence was unlike anyone else's in our country's history.
Pablo Escobar feared extradition.
[Duzán.]
He believed that going to the United States was the worst that could happen to him or any Colombian.
[speaking Spanish.]
[in English.]
"I prefer a tomb in Colombia than a jail cell in the United States.
" [narrator.]
No one is prepared for the scale of Escobar's retaliation.
His plan, overturn the extradition laws through terror.
- [clamoring.]
- [sirens wailing.]
The world's first narco terrorist has publicly declared war on the country.
It's when he becomes a psychopath.
The body count was going higher and higher.
I'm talking thousands of innocent people.
The women, the children.
The bounties on police officers.
I remember, he would tell his sicarios, "I want body count.
" And that was his way of fighting and showing Colombia that he was gonna win.
[narrator.]
Colombia is on the brink of collapse.
President Gaviria marshals his forces, assembling a group of elite Colombian army and police personnel, now with the full weight of the DEA behind it.
They're called the Search Bloc.
Their only job was to hunt down Escobar, to catch him dead or alive.
[narrator.]
The man put in charge, Colonel Hugo Martínez.
I knew I was going on a very dangerous mission.
I could even lose my life.
[narrator.]
Martínez is barely on the job when a fellow officer comes calling.
He tells me that Escobar is offering me six million dollars and would hand it over to me wherever I wanted.
All he wanted was prior notice when we were about to try and seize him.
I thought it showed weakness on Escobar's side to come and offer me money.
[narrator.]
Martínez won't be bribed.
Once we got Colonel Martínez in place, that's when things started happening.
A lot of things were going on.
[narrator.]
And the Search Bloc gets its chance to catch the drug lord.
It all began with the interception of a phone call when Escobar asks for a girl to be delivered.
[narrator.]
The girl's destination is Escobar's jungle hideout.
Now, all they have to do is find it.
[Martínez.]
We took a farmer with us who knew the route to Medellín.
When we flew over the site he says, "That's it.
That's the house.
" [Velásquez.]
In times of war, the Boss wouldn't just sleep in his underwear.
He would wear his Newman jeans, no shirt, and with a gun in his hand.
When we were warned that a helicopter was approaching, the Boss would grab his gun in three seconds flat.
[narrator.]
Escobar has been tipped off, and the raid hits a hail of bullets.
They were firing at us from the ground and the pilot tells me we are hit.
There was a sound like popping corn as the helicopter was hit.
So we made a retreat.
That night, we were all crestfallen.
We had lost.
He had gotten away from us.
[narrator.]
Escobar escapes, then does what he always does.
Retaliates.
[man in Spanish.]
Escobar didn't just kill his enemies.
He killed anyone who he felt posed a risk.
Put yourself in the position of the president of Colombia, César Gaviria.
Can you imagine the pressure that's on him? Where you've got this criminal, the world's most wanted criminal, the world's first narco terrorist, has publicly declared war on the country.
[narrator.]
Escobar will stop at nothing to assert his power.
Going so far as to plot the assassination of Gaviria, he tasks a sicario with putting a bomb on the commercial plane he's flying on.
[explosion.]
But his intel is bad.
Gaviria never boards the plane.
One hundred and ten innocent people are blown to pieces.
It was a terrible thing.
It's the only case I know of, in the history of humanity, where a whole plane is downed just to kill one person.
At that time, our enemy was winning.
We were losing the battle against drug trafficking.
It was a difficult time.
[narrator.]
During the late '80s, Escobar's reign of terror continues to escalate.
Now Escobar plays his cards, and his cards were the kidnappings to put pressure on the government.
[narrator.]
In January 1988, the drug lord orders Popeye to snatch the attorney general, Carlos Mauro Hoyos.
Just after 6:00 a.
m.
, we ambush and kidnap him.
[narrator.]
During the kidnapping, they kill his driver and bodyguard and ferry the attorney general away to a safe house.
Army troops start to swarm the area.
More and more troops.
Because they know we have the Attorney General Mauro Hoyos in the area.
The Boss calls us on our radio.
The Boss gives me the order to go in and kill the attorney general.
Before I killed him, I told him why I was going to kill him.
"I am executing you because you allow the extradition of Colombians to the United States.
" The Medellín cartel had some memorable days.
[narrator.]
During the Search Bloc's long hunt, Escobar's sicarios kill 457 police.
But the Colombian government refuses to cave in to the terror.
Then, in 1991, Escobar makes his most unexpected move yet.
If they can guarantee he won't be extradited, he'll turn himself in for sentencing.
It was regarded as a political solution to a problem that we could not solve.
[narrator.]
But it's not long before the real motives for Escobar's surrender become clear.
He wants to make a deal.
So Pablo comes in, he says, "Okay, you know I was in a car one time when there was some cocaine in the trunk, and I didn't know it was in there, so I guess I unwittingly participated in the transportation of cocaine.
And that's what I'm pleading guilty to.
You got me.
" And the government said, "Okay.
" [narrator.]
After all his years of crime and violence, Escobar only gets five years in jail.
And he has even more demands.
He said, "The first is I'm gonna build a prison, and I'm gonna pay for it because I don't want the citizens of Colombia to have to suffer that tax burden.
" And the government of Colombia said, "Okay.
" [narrator.]
Work begins immediately to build La Catedral, the high security prison a few miles from his Medellín homeland.
Pablo even chooses his guards and inmates.
"My fellow prisoners I'm gonna handpick, and one of 'em's gonna be my brother and these others are business associates who are actually sicarios," which translates into assassins.
And the government of Colombia said, "Okay.
" [narrator.]
And finally [Murphy.]
And Pablo said, "There's one more stipulation.
The government of Colombia and the gringos, no government official can come within two miles of my prison while I'm in there, because I don't trust 'em.
" And the government of Colombia said, "Okay.
" [narrator.]
He even gets to keep his multi-billion-dollar fortune.
It's the deal of a lifetime.
But Escobar's biggest coup comes on June 19th, 1991, at the same time as the Colombian authorities fly him to his brand new personalized prison.
The Colombian Congress outlaws extradition.
We knew that Pablo Escobar had won, and the rest of the world had lost.
[narrator.]
Escobar's new residence is the perfect spot to get back to business.
It was there that the Boss began to restructure the Medellín cartel's drug trafficking.
La Catedral was a center for crime.
Here there was a wall that concealed the secret entrance down into the laundry.
Through here we kept the liquor, the cocaine that people took, and the weapons and marijuana were in there.
And in this room, we hid people who had entered illegally.
Dealers, prostitutes, anyone who shouldn't have been in the prison.
Up above of all this, there was a disco, a good sound system, we had drinks, the ladies came, there were orgies.
It was the place for sin at La Catedral.
[narrator.]
Right under the noses of the guards, Pablo creates a home away from home.
[Murphy.]
What I saw was a country club atmosphere.
We go to Pablo's cell, it's a two-room suite.
It has million-dollar paintings on the walls.
It had color-coordinated draperies and upholstery.
He had candles on his coffee table.
You go into the bedroom, he's got a custom-made bed that's bigger than any king-size bed you've ever seen.
He's got an office built into this room.
His bathroom had a Jacuzzi bathtub.
The walk-in closet had a safe hidden behind the drawers that you pull out.
This is a prison.
[narrator.]
Escobar is back in control.
Frustrated, the DEA sets up camp nearby.
The DEA had bought a property over there so they could watch us.
[narrator.]
They try tapping the prison's phone system, but That whole year that Pablo was in there, we couldn't intercept anything.
That house over there, that house belonged to Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria.
The Boss installed an intercom.
The cable went all the way to the house, and in the house was a room where important members of the Medellín cartel would come to talk to Pablo Escobar.
The DEA saw the cable, but assumed it was for electricity.
They never imagined it was an intercom cable.
The DEA never got proof that Pablo Escobar was trafficking cocaine from here, La Catedral prison.
[narrator.]
But then, Escobar makes a huge mistake that lifts the lid on the cathedral of crime.
He smuggles in two of the original cartel members, and Popeye is there waiting for them.
Underneath Roberto's cabin, there was a secret room.
We put them in there.
We cuff them.
[narrator.]
Fernando Galeano and Gerardo Moncada have stolen from their boss.
[Velásquez.]
They are very worried and want to speak to the Boss.
"Popeye, get Pablo!" When they realize they can't speak to the Boss, they know they are done for.
You could see it in their eyes.
They were done for.
They ask for water and a Bible.
We shot them in the head.
There was a chainsaw in the Catedral.
We cut them up.
We started to burn the bodies.
A huge bonfire.
The Boss sat in a plastic chair, wearing a Russian hat, just staring at the bodies.
The bodies burned all through the night.
The next morning, we broke the bones up with hammers and acid to make sure there was no trace of Galeano and Kiko.
We were burning the Medellín cartel.
[narrator.]
It's the final straw for the government, and they move in.
[Rafael Pardo in Spanish.]
The government decides to intervene and move Escobar to another prison because they have information that Escobar is committing crimes and murders.
[narrator.]
But Escobar sees them coming.
This is the route we took with Pablo Escobar in 1992 to make our escape.
Pablo Escobar was at the front leading our escape.
This was completely covered in fog, and it was 11:00 at night.
The first 200 hundred meters were treacherous as the army were flooding in.
Nine thousand men of the Colombian army came here.
The DEA and the CIA came with the general.
In these mountains, we outsmarted them all.
[narrator.]
Colombia's most notorious gangster is on the run, again.
But in an extraordinary twist, Escobar's escape plays straight into the Search Bloc's hands.
It's like we've got a second chance of getting the world's most wanted criminal.
We all hated Pablo Escobar.
We have another chance of killing Pablo Escobar.
[man speaking Spanish.]
[narrator.]
A nationwide appeal for info on Escobar goes out.
And the Search Bloc gets a crucial tip-off.
[Murphy.]
There was this house on this mountainside, and the information from the informant was that Pablo was in the house.
We heard the footsteps of the army.
[Murphy.]
We got inside that house, and what we found in there, and this was a fetish of Pablo Escobar's for whatever reason, he liked nice bathrooms, and there's this little shack with this really nice bathroom.
There's no sign of Pablo Escobar.
Incredibly, we crawled and found a sugar cane field and hid there.
[narrator.]
Escobar escapes capture, but his time is running out.
Even when his network, his militia, commanders and hit men started falling, those who did not fall gave themselves up.
Until he was left all alone.
[narrator.]
With the noose tightening, Escobar finally releases his ever-loyal sicario, Popeye, to hand himself in.
I arrive and hand him my gun.
The Boss takes it and says, "Popeye, thank you for everything.
" We look at each other and say nothing.
I knew I would never see him again.
[narrator.]
Next, the drug lord turns to getting his family out of Colombia.
They try fleeing the country, but are met by DEA Agent Peña at the Medellín airport.
[Peña.]
When we stopped them, lot of commotion, a lot of crying, a lot of yelling.
We basically tore up their visas.
This man couldn't give himself the luxury of sending his family away and continue to commit outrageous crimes.
[narrator.]
The government moves the family here, to the Tequendama Hotel in central Bogotá.
Fearing they're still in danger, Escobar calls the president.
We took the position that we would not accept any of his terms.
We would only accept an unconditional surrender.
[narrator.]
The Search Bloc wire taps the family's hotel and waits for Escobar to make his next move.
[Martínez.]
All the surveillance is left on for about 72 hours.
I am listening in from my headquarters, day and night.
[narrator.]
Then, on December 2nd, Escobar calls his son.
He's heard the family might get sanctuary in El Salvador.
Escobar comes on the line, talking at 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning.
[Pablo on recording.]
We are very grateful to the President of El Salvador.
He is treating us in a humane way.
He is not treating us like criminals.
His family effectively became his executioner.
We pin down the area where he's located.
[narrator.]
The head of the surveillance team takes a unit to the neighborhood where they've traced the calls.
Agent Steve Murphy is at the Search Bloc's headquarters, listening in on developments.
He's driving down the street, he's got his antenna out, he's looking at his meter, and his meter indicates that the signal's coming from a row house that he's driving by.
He looks up and sees Pablo Escobar looking out the window.
He says, "I've found him.
I think it's Escobar.
I saw him through the window.
" [narrator.]
The troops make their move.
[Murphy.]
They lined the door of this row house with det cord.
They blew the door off the hinges.
Pablo's on the second floor, he and his one sicario.
They go up to the third floor the sicario jumps out the window.
He takes off running across the roof.
He's shot.
Falls off the roof on the ground, dead.
Pablo comes out that window, makes a run across the roof.
[gunshot.]
He's actually shot three times.
Once in the back of the leg.
Once in the butt cheek.
Third shot was in the ear.
And that was the kill shot.
I was sitting in my office, and I felt huge relief.
[Murphy.]
The reason we're all smiling in those photographs is because every one of us knew at that very second, the very second that Pablo Escobar died, every citizen in the country of Colombia was safer, simply because one man was dead.
[camera shutter clicks.]
"Viva Colombia!" Everybody shouts, "Viva Colombia!" [music playing.]