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Pablo Escobar has built himself up from the boy on the street to multi-million dollar cocaine trafficker and criminal mastermind. Tonight, he's throwing a lavish party to reward his loyal henchman. And there's one special guest, Carlos Lader.
In the early days of the Medellin Cartel, Leder is one of Pablo's closest allies. At the same age, they've come up together. Now it's his job to fly Escobar's cocaine out of Colombia, across the Gulf of Mexico, and into the United States. But tonight isn't about work. The drinks are flowing at Pablo's Hacienda Napoles mansion. Escobar is hosting a party for his loyal soldiers. At the height of the war with the government, it's a chance to unwind.
Carlos later is the heart and soul of the party. He's coked out of his mind. Pablo has a party one evening for his closest men and workers. Sean Atwood is the author of the book, Pablo Escobar's Story.
And at this party, Carlos Leda shows up with a woman, they've got lots of cocaine. Carlos showed up that night looking like Rambo. He's got a hunting knife, his belt with all of his weapons and bullets attached to it. He's got a gun. He's so loco that some of Pablo's men are convinced he caught cerebral malaria in the jungle. He recently stopped bathing and he stinks.
One of Pablo's hitmen is asking him and the woman for cocaine throughout the night. Carlos is getting increasingly aggravated. Finally, at 2 in the morning, Lader goes to bed. A few stragglers continue the party downstairs. Rolo is one of Escobar's favorite bodyguards. His youthful good looks have caught the attention of one of the prostitutes hired for the night. The one Lader's been flirting with. She wants more coke, so Rolo hammers on Lader's bedroom door, demanding drugs.
The door opens for a split second and later chucks out a big bag, just to shut Rollo up. But then it happens again and again and Carlos later now, his fuse is all but gone. So he just grabs his gum, he walks downstairs. He's got a pistol in his hand and two ammunition belts strapped over his chest. He picks his way through the detritus, through the snoring bodies sprawled over the beds and couches. At the other side of the house, someone's in the shower.
later extends a snakeskin leather boot and eases open the door. Escobar wakes up to find his favorite bodyguard dead. Rollo is not a pretty picture. His shoulder has been blown to smithereens. Another bullet has split his head in two. They have to tape his skull back together before chucking out the body. Pablo's trusted lieutenant, Popeye, finds Lader in a dark corner of the house. He knows he's screwed up. His holster is unbuckled. He's ready for a fight.
But Escobar insists Lader shouldn't worry about it. Rollo was in the bad books anyways. He was a dead man walking. Perhaps it would be a good idea, though, for Lader to take some time out. He's more than welcome to use a safe house. With Pablo's blessing, Lader leaves. But in private, Escobar is furious. He loves his henchmen. They put their bodies on the line to protect him. Their loyalty is invaluable.
By murdering Rolo, Lader has insulted the godfather and become a liability to his business associates. In any other case, Pablo would pay him out in lead. But he decides to make an example. In hiding, deep in the countryside, Lader receives an unexpected visit from the Colombian police. Lader had gone into hiding in the llanos, which are the lowlands of southern Colombia.
because he knew that the government was after him to extradite him on a warrant issued by the United States. He came up to the town of Rio Negro near Medellin, bought himself a place and was staked out there when word of his presence sort of leaked into Medellin and the cops found out about it. They surrounded the place, a firefight started,
They invaded this house and caught him as he was coming out. And that was it. He tried to bribe the cop who arrested him, but it didn't work. And within that same day, he was on a plane in the United States. The precise circumstances of Lader's capture remain shrouded in mystery. Popeye will later claim Escobar himself betrayed Lader's whereabouts to the cops. In any case, the game is up for Carlos Lader.
In 1987, he leaves Columbia for good. Back at stateside, the DEA send Agent Mike Vigil to interrogate him. They put him in Marion, Illinois, which is a maximum security penitentiary. As a matter of fact, the prison where he was at replaced Alcatraz. I was surprised how much he had aged in the short time that he had been in prison.
And he's very much a con artist. He has that con artist personality. When he talks to you, you want to hang on to your wallet because, you know, he's the type of individual that's going to talk you out of it.
Lader still thinks he can get out of trouble. He suggests Vigil send him back to Colombia so that he can help the Colombian police bring down Escobar. I said, sure, I'm going to do that, Carlos. I'm going to send you back to Colombia. I said, you're never going to step out of these four walls here.
And that was it. His whole focus was, "I can do Pablo Escobar for you." And I think that he knew that Pablo Escobar had set him up and provided the information that led to his capture. Pablo has got his wish. Later, the ticking time bomb is out of the picture. But if he can be extradited to the U.S., then so can Pablo Escobar. What that proved to the traffickers was that extradition was going to happen.
and that they believed, and this was subsequently proved true, that if you got extradited to the United States, you disappeared into the federal prison system and that was it. And that's exactly what happened later. He's still in the federal prison system today. And so that was an object lesson or the, again, the proof of concept that extradition worked. After the assassination of Justice Minister Rodrigo Larrabonilla in 1984,
The stakes couldn't be higher for both sides. For the rule of law to survive, the government needs victory over the cartel. For Pablo Escobar and his allies, defeat means death or life in an American prison. Escobar has been on the DEA's radar since the early 1980s, but only an ironclad case will guarantee his extradition to the US. Now he uses his muscle and money to derail the investigation.
On the front line, DEA agent Mike Vigil is forced out of the game. I finally had to leave the Medellin office because of threats from a subversive organization that had been contracted by the Medellin cartel to kidnap me. Now there were two independent sources of information. One belonged to the CIA, the other to the Colombian National Police.
And they knew where I would have lunch, where I would go on weekends. So it was very obvious that they were tracking me. And at that time, the ambassador, Louis Thames, decided that I should close the office there and take over the office in Barranquilla, which is on the Colombian north coast. Time to ring the changes at the top. In 1988, Joe Toft arrives in Bogota.
He will serve as the special agent in charge, the DEA's country attache in Colombia until 1994. Toft is old school, an experienced professional. He's been heading up the DEA office in San Antonio, Texas, but now he fancies a new challenge. He's also recently divorced, making him an ideal special agent in a country too dangerous for wives and kids. Medellin is so volatile that initially Toft's bosses won't allow him to visit the city.
He visits anyway. Medellin was off limits for a time period, but I was dying to go to Medellin because I wanted to see the places that I had read about, that I had learned about. And so one weekend, I got together with three DAS people, the Colombian FBI people. One of them had served in Medellin for a number of years and knew Medellin quite well.
So we snuck out. We didn't tell the ambassador, we didn't tell anybody. We drove up there and we spent a weekend in Medellin. And they gave me a tour of the whole area and was very, very helpful in trying to understand what was going on up there. When I first arrived in Colombia, I thought it was going to be a pretty typical targeting of a trafficker and use
You know, we normally do the same type of operations that we would use in the United States. But it became clear that the corruption factor, the intimidation factor, made all of the normal police work that we would do out there pretty unlikely to succeed. The DEA aren't the only ones who want Escobar extradited. August 1989.
Colombia is in the middle of a fiercely contested presidential election. Candidate Luis Galan makes it clear if he is elected, Escobar will be on the first plane out of Colombia. But Escobar strikes first. On the campaign trail in Medellin, Galan narrowly escapes after a cartel hitman fires at him with an RPG.
Weeks later, the mayor of Medellin and the commander of the Colombian National Police in Antioquia are both murdered. By this point, Galán is effectively a fugitive from the cartel, but also weeks from becoming the next president. He insists his campaign go on. In the town of Soacha, 20 miles south of Bogotá, the 46-year-old Galán walks on stage to address a rally of supporters. 10,000 people stand in the crowd.
Amidst the jubilant spectators waving their arms in the air, one man has his hands down by his sides. He squeezes through the bodies to a spot in front of the stage, meters away from Galan as he steps up to the microphone. Galan takes several fatal shots through the chest. Police later discover drug traffickers offered $500,000 for the hit.
The man who replaces the murdered Golan is the Liberal Party's presidential candidate, Cesar Gaviria, who Escobar targets when he blows up Avianca Flight 203, killing 110 civilians. For watching reporters like Guy Gugliotta, Escobar's ruthlessness takes the breath away. He was the most important, probably the most significant terrorist of his time because he attacked the government and...
I had never seen that happen before. I was working and worked all over Latin America in some really nasty places, but I had never ever seen organized crime try to take down a sovereign government the way he did. Unprecedented. Hasn't occurred since. Things that we used to say, we used to say that you could do anything once, and he was sort of living proof of that. You wanted to kidnap the Supreme Court? You could do that once. He did it.
You want to kill a sitting cabinet minister? You could do that once and get away with it. He did it. You want to blow up the Colombian FBI headquarters in Bogota? You could do it once. He did that. You want to blow up an airliner, try to kill the leading presidential candidate? You could do that once, get away with it. He did it. He did all these things. And he did it without a second thought. In the space of three months in 1989, Escobar has had one would-be president shot dead,
and has taken down a commercial jet in an effort to kill another. Escobar is not just a drug trafficker, but an international terrorist. It's going to be a war to the death. By the time of the Avianca Airlines bombing in 1989, Escobar has become a fearsome celebrity, the most powerful figure in Colombian society. He is one of the world's most wanted men, with a vast empire built on cocaine trafficking.
The DEA are focusing all their efforts on taking Escobar down. Special Agent in Charge Joe Toft leads the hunt. If anyone can get Escobar, it's Toft. Agent Ken McGee worked under him. Joe Toft was a man who demanded excellence. He demanded results. And if you didn't perform, he would let you know. Without question, Joe Toft 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. He made sure that his agents were working hard. He pushed and pushed and pushed. The DEA has no authority to arrest Escobar in Colombia, so cooperation with the Colombian police is essential.
But Joe Toft has doubts over their integrity. The government in Colombia was infiltrated and so consequently you have to be very careful with that. And I remember at one time we used to do a lot of flying on the raids and operations with using police helicopters and airplanes. And there were a couple of instances where sand had been put in with the gasoline of the planes.
It had to be done by police officers, you know? So it was a cat and mouse game all the time. You know, you just, you have to find the people you could work with. And even then, you're not 100% sure because they have to delegate a lot of their, you know, their authority to others and you don't know who the others are. - Since 1986, Bloque de Busqueda, or Search Block, has recruited only the least corruptible officers.
The DEA worked hand in hand with this elite unit and its hard-nosed leader, Colonel Hugo Martinez. Martinez has a personal score to settle. In 1989, Escobar's men murdered his best friend. The Bloque de Busquera.
was led by Colonel Hugo Martinez, who was a true hero. And there were concerns about different police officers that possibly were assigned there that might be susceptible to bribes, might be susceptible to concerns about violence for their families. And some of those were weeded out, and some of those were ultimately arrested for whatever reasons. But predominantly,
The man that was in charge, Colonel Hugo Martinez, would handpick who he wanted on his team. He had the final decision. These men were driven. The men assigned to the DA office at Columbia were led by Joe Toth, the country attache. He was also very driven. Together, when you have two leaders who are extremely driven towards the same common goal, that work together and work very well together, and
Joe Toft was also very close with generals in the Columbia National Police. That created a synergy to get the job done. That synergy and that energy worked its way down to the troops. The leadership has to be from a person that's completely committed to the cause. He's got to be brave, courageous, because he's going to know that his family's going to be threatened. He's going to know that Pablo Escobar is going to try and hurt them through his family. He can protect himself, but can he protect his family?
There were times when Martinez wanted out. And I don't think Martinez likes me very much because I prevented him from leaving because I would go to the superiors and say, you cannot let this man go. We need this man. Despite the joint efforts of Colonel Martinez and the DEA, Escobar is tipped off by his sources and the police again and again. A change of approach is needed.
Using informants, wiretaps, and surveillance, the DEA built a complete picture of Escobar's network. If they can't get him, they can get what he owns. 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, to get money.
in your possession, seizing the monies, seizing the properties that you can prove were drug proceeds. That's number one. We started emphasizing a lot on targeting his assets. So we had a program where we were trying to identify his ranches that he had purchased under strong names.
And we started getting the government to seize that. We started seizing money of his everywhere we could, including the United States. Starting with his lavish prestige ranch, all Escobar's property is taken over by the government. Then it's his cash and his cocaine. We had, I mean, record seizures of cocaine. Before I went to Bogota, I was the agent in charge of the office in San Antonio, Texas.
And the record seizure for cocaine in San Antonio was five kilos of cocaine. And that was a big case for San Antonio at the time. In Colombia, we're seizing hundreds, if not thousands, every week. And on one particular case, we seized 10,000 kilos. We just stumbled into it. We were looking for a police officer that had disappeared with an informant who
was killed by the traffickers. So there was a big operation in the area where he disappeared. And the cops just happened to find a, what they call them, a "collecta," a bunker, where there are 10,000 kilos of coke, you know, 22,000 pounds of cocaine. The Escobar produced hundreds of thousands of kilos a year. We seized 10, 15, 20 percent. The United States managed to sell
electronic equipment along with acetone to drug traffickers. They built a big lab in the middle of the jungle, the Columbian jungle.
And the DEA was able to pinpoint where it was. And then so the Colombian cops went down and destroyed the lab in 1983. And actually, I think flushed tons and tons, 19 tons of cocaine down the river. There was tremendous cooperation between the DEA and the head of the narcotics police. 60,000 kilos of coke and dozens of Escobar's top men are grabbed by the police.
Not to be outdone, the drug lord's retaliation is swift and lethal. Pablo Escobar put a $700 bounty 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.
where people were just being killed. There was slaughter on the streets and Medellin became a battleground between the drug traffickers and civil authorities. In a very small period of time, I would say three, four, five months, there were about 300 cops who were assassinated and it was horrible.
I mean, they were being killed on the streets, they were being killed at parks when they were their kids. They were just being assassinated in cold blood. And it was a really, really tough time for the police. Escobar's thugs killed 30 search block officers in just 15 days. By 1991, a total of 457 police are gunned down in Medellin. The police officers that we trusted out there, that we worked with,
were incredible. I mean, they put their lives, their families' lives on the line every day. You know, I have tried to put myself in their shoes. You know, would I like to ask for a transfer? Would I stop doing this or what? I don't know. Now, there are some real heroes in Colombia. One of the worst parts was the number of funerals that I attended from people that were working with us, you know.
In essence, they're doing our dirty work. We're giving them the intelligence, we're giving them support, and they're going out there and they're getting killed by the cops. Yeah, I mean, the funerals were... I mean, I remember one particular funeral. They always sat me in the front row with the head of the Colombian National Police, the Director General, and so I was right close to the casket and the stench because they don't use embalming out there.
and they have this incense that they're constantly using to kill the smell out there. And I saw this poor woman who was pregnant, probably eight months pregnant, hanging onto the casket as they brought the casket and crying. It was the wife with a little baby, you know, that she's dragging with the other hand. I mean, I went home and cried. Just, you know, it was horrible.
And there were times where I had to excuse myself because I was going to throw up because of the stench. You know, it was, ah, those, you know, I mean, those are, you know, the thing about it, I was brought up Catholic. And all my life I went to church because it was the thing to do. And in a way I was Catholic, but I was a little bit of an agnostic too. So I mean, I went through the motions, you might say. But when I was in Columbia,
And you start living this, and you start living the atrocities that are happening out there, the killings, the bombings, cool kids getting killed because there's a bomb on the street. For the first time, I started understanding what faith meant, and I actually started going to church and started praying. ♪
He had threatened previous DEA heads before. And allegedly, while I was in Colombia, and I say allegedly because based on intelligence, there were two occasions where he put a price tag on my head. DEA wanted to pull me out of the country. The ambassador said, you're done here. They wanted to get me out. And I fought it.
I felt comfortable in my security, but the main reason was here I was working with the Colombians. I was asked them to do this. I was providing them intelligence, and they're getting killed. And then there's a threat on my life, and I'm going to leave Colombia. I mean, that was my argument, and I was, thankfully, I was able to convince Washington and the ambassador that they would leave me there. They gave me added security. They did all, they gave me a, you know, they were...
They increased my security significantly for a while, but it would have been the wrong thing for me to leave. Escobar has always been able to kill or threaten his way out of trouble. But the blood flowing in the streets of Medellin turns the tide against him. The more the DEA turn the screw, the more Pablo lashes out. The eyes of the world are watching. Escobar is simply too big to ignore. The greater the casualty rate, the greater the will to bring him down.
For agents on the ground, being pursued by Pablo is one hell of a trip. In some ways, it's a badge of honor. You know, I must be doing something right. Now, of course, nobody wants to get shot at. Don't misunderstand me. That's all Hollywood. Agents get into shootouts. Sometimes it happens. There's no doubt about it.
but we are not the Hollywood version. On the other hand, cops are cops no matter where you are in the world. If you're being threatened, you know you must be doing something right. And it's been my experience that only hardens the steel, if you will, to go after these people. - In "Joe Toft," Escobar has a relentless enemy. The DEA chief has the bit between his teeth and can feel the chase approaching to a crescendo. - Seeing and living what was happening in Colombia
It became an obsession for me to get Escobar and that's why I kept extending. I initially went there for three years. I didn't want to leave Columbia without Escobar being either in jail or dead. So, yeah, it became an obsession. And at the same time, you know, it was the greatest job I had with the EA. I mean, the most, I don't want to, I guess satisfying too, but the most exciting, the most challenging, the most
In every way, it's the best job I've ever had with the DEA. The DEA and search bloc step up the pressure. But then, Escobar blindsides them with a move no one expected. On June 19, 1991, he hands himself over to the Colombian authorities on the condition they deny U.S. extradition requests. It's a masterstroke.
Escobar guarantees an immediate end to the violence in return for a Colombian jail over an American one. For the Colombian government, it's too good an offer to refuse. A helicopter flies Escobar clean out of the DEA's reach to a private prison. Joe Toft and his agents are distraught. We were extremely disappointed because we felt that we were really getting close to him. It was just a matter of time. And so...
It was not a day of celebration. I mean, everything was just, I mean, smell awful. I mean, it was just, it was a complete capitulation by the government, again, because of fear. Under the narco traffickers' influence, the new Colombian constitution of 1991 takes the option of sending criminals to the USA off the table. Extraditing Escobar is now impossible. Pablo is sentenced to just eight years on a minor drugs charge.
This surrender has been coordinated by the regional attorney general, a relative of Escobar. For the authorities, priority is getting Escobar behind bars, even if galling compromises are necessary. Although DEA did not approve and we did not like the way that went down,
You have to understand that the government of Colombia 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, randomly destroying neighborhoods by placing explosive devices, doing so many different things.
that what were they going to do? They were searching for a solution. The problem that DEA had in his surrender is that it was orchestrated by Pablo Escobar. He set the guidelines, he set the parameters, and some of the parameters that were included in his agreement to surrender were not just somewhat advantageous to Pablo Escobar, they were all in Pablo Escobar's favor.
Supposedly, Escobar has surrendered and laid down his arms. But there's a catch. Pablo is going to build his own prison. He buys a plot of land in Envigado, his hometown, on the outskirts of Medellin. The guards at La Catedral, or the Cathedral as the jail is known, are on his payroll. No police are allowed within 12 miles. From day one of his jail time, it's obvious that Escobar isn't going to suffer. There's prison, and then there's prison.
It was quite a facility. I mean, it certainly did not look like a jail or a prison. His bedroom was first-class hotel type. He had a jacuzzi. He had all the amenities you'd want. Actually, it was more than a bedroom. He had a suite with a bar, a desk, an office area. Outside of the bedroom, there was a small little house for her daughter to play in, like a child's playhouse.
They had a discotheque in the, a small discotheque in the place with, you know, all the amenities, the mirrors, the bar, the lights, you name it. Soccer field with lights, big TVs, best stereo sets you could come up with. Part of the complex, there were some little cabins that went up the hill, little separate cabins, and the caverns, I think, were used to
to entertain prostitutes or, you know, girlfriends or whatever that came up there. There was a truck there that had a double back where Escobar and anybody that wanted to leave the prison could go out of, leave the prison, and go into town and go and participate in parties and attend clubs. It's almost as swanky as the Haciendanopoles, Escobar's luxury mansion. Since he had basically built the facility himself,
There were double walls that contained weapons, money, drugs. I mean, large quantities of weapons. When I went out there, they had broken the walls and they had the displays on some tables up there. They had an incredible collection of sex toys. You name it. I mean, it was not a prison. It was not a jail.
Country club living, basically. At least Escobar is safely out of the way behind bars. Not quite. In the next episode of Real Narcos, Agent Ken McGee finds himself undercover on a plane bound for Frankfurt, Germany with Pablo Escobar's wife. The billionaire drug baron becomes a fugitive in the city he once claimed to own, and Escobar's teenage son makes an unexpected appearance at the office of DEA Special Agent in Charge Joe Toft.
Real Narcos is a Noiser podcast and World Media Rights co-production, hosted by me, John Cuban. The series is created by Pascal Hughes, produced by Joel Duddle. It's been edited by James Tindall, music by Oliver Baines from Fly Per Game. The sound mixer is Tom Pink. And this is Noiser's first ever podcast, so we would love to know what you think. If you have a moment, please leave us a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. ♪