By the time I left Miami,
Americans were doing a couple hundred tons of cocaine every year.
To satisfy American noses, the narcos ramped up their operations.
- Here, honey. - Ah, thank you.
- Hey, is that the Bahamas? - Hm?
Oh... Yeah.
That's beautiful.
They were flying so many planes,
they needed a refueling stop between Colombia and Miami.
So Carlos Lehder bought an island in the Bahamas
as a transshipment point for the drugs and money.
Turns out... it was a damn good place to party.
It was modern day Sodom and Gomorrah, with the three things Carlos liked most:
- sex, drugs, and Nazi sympathizers. - Whoo-hoo-hoo!
The problem was no longer demand... it was supply.
We should be over the Amazon by now.
From 10,000 feet, Colombia was a paradise of untouched rainforest.
But things were different on the ground.
Pablo and his partners built superlabs the size of small cities.
From leaf to paste to powder, they produced 10,000 kilos a week.
At 50 grand a kilo, that's five billion dollars a year.
These guys weren't fuckin' around.
Pablo's cousin Gustavo flew chemists in from Germany to liquefy the cocaine.
They added it to liquor, to coffee, and just to be funny...
they put it back in Coca-Cola.
Patrón?
Looks good?
Cocaine was no longer hidden alongside products.
It was the product.
The narcos even had their own drug-sniffing dogs.
Gacha bet Pablo that not even a German scientist could fool his dog.
And that's what they tried first.
On paper, Pablo had the most profitable taxi company ever.
He only had three cars,
but he was pulling in more than five million dollars a week.
And Gacha had the most successful emerald mine of all time.
He would inject bad stones with oil to make them shiny,
then have his friends in Miami buy the emeralds with drug money
and give them as gifts to hookers in town.
Everybody was happy.
But no matter what they did, they couldn't hide all that money.
It just kept coming in.
And that's what they did.
They buried it in fields...
they hid it in caletas, hiding places in walls and ceilings.
They even stuck a million dollars in Pablo's mother's couch.
Pablo called this accountant "Blackbeard,"
not because he looked like a pirate,
but because his job was to map out where the treasure was hidden.
But not even the pirate did the trick.
The problem was Colombia itself.
It was too small a country for a fortune that big.
It was inevitable... someone, somewhere would try to snatch the narcos' treasure.
I know what you're thinking.
No one's crazy enough to kidnap drug dealers, right?
But if you're thinking that, it's because you're not familiar with M-19.
M-19 was a communist guerrilla group
made up of college students and intellectuals
who read too much Karl Marx for their own good.
Their leader was Ivan "the Terrible" Torres...
a history professor who knew nothing about guerilla warfare,
but understood the power of symbols.
He broke into the Quinta de Bolívar Museum
with his buddy Alejandro and Alejandro's girlfriend, Elisa,
and stole a national treasure... the sword of Simón Bolívar,
the mythic general who led Colombia to independence from the Spanish empire.
These jokers even left a note:
"Bolívar, your sword returns to the battlefield."
It was a stroke of genius... a marketing stunt way ahead of its time.
And it made them famous overnight.
And I guess it went to their heads.
March 13th, 1981, the day they kidnapped Marta Ochoa,
was also the day the Lion completed 100 trips to Miami.
Hola.
Does the cat have any papers?
- Sí. - Please.
Thank you.
Mm.
Excuse me a second, please.
Well, I guess he's talking about Puff.
My boss is not having a good day.
I think his wife left him.
Yeah, well, he's a little bit cranky, so... how important is this cat to you?
Excuse me?
OK.
Come with me, please.
So... wait here, please.
And my boss will ask you for this paper later.
How long is it gonna be?
I don't know.
Pablo! Pablo!
While I was trying to get into Bogotá,
Pablo was trying to get into politics.
When he said he was going to be president of Colombia, he meant it.
Where is this guy? We've been waiting for hours now.
Maybe he's at "terapia de pareja."
What's that?
Couples counseling.
Right.
What're you doing?
Oh, I'm practicing my Spanish.
Yeah, you heard that right.
She just compared Pablo Escobar to fucking Robin Hood.
And in a way, she was right.
When you've run out of ways to hide your money,
that's when you give it to the poor.
But I don't want to get ahead of myself.
Connie, you know who that is?
Bet he could get our cat into the country.
I can't believe it.
They don't even know he's a fucking drug dealer.
At the time, Pablo was just a blip on my radar.
I didn't know I was about to be a blip on his.
Well, we've been waiting for hours. Thanks for coming out.
Uh, my wife's a little exhausted, so here is the cat's vaccination--
Your passport.
I'm sorry?
Your passport, please.
What do you do at the United States Embassy, Mr. Murphy?
I am in, uh, janitorial services.
Janitorial services.
Another one.
Your embassy must be very clean.
Oh, yeah. You bet your ass it is.
Your cat's cleared.
Enjoy Colombia.
And just like that, the narcos had me on file the very first day.
As for Valeria Velez,
the journalist who first interviewed Pablo... watch out.
She was as dangerous as M-19.
You gotta give it to her.
She saw Pablo coming a mile away.
And she got herself in just the right place to take full advantage of him.
Not unlike my partner Javier Peña,
who figured the best way to get inside narco information
was to hang out with the same women they did.
Oh, God! What was that?
That was like a .38.
- About four blocks away. - Oh...
Welcome to Bogotá.
Should we do it under the bed?
First day at the American Embassy.
- I met my partner... - Javier?
...who introduced me to the DEA.
Murphy, this is Weaver and Wisnicki.
These guys are R.I.P. "Retired in Place."
- Eat me, Peña. - Paid vacation's over, fellas.
Murphy and I are going to Medellín.
We'll telex the T-3 reports. They go straight to Washington.
We are going to Medellín?
- Then the Mil Group. - Jarheads... this is Murphy.
Murphy, this is Mil Group.
They advise Colombian military on communist threats in the countryside.
Hey, those are classified.
- Now they're declassified. - That's the ambassador's call.
No problem.
And the last stop... the ambassador's office.
Why do you need this intel?
There's an unusual number of prostitutes headed to Medellín this weekend.
Every high-end girl in Bogotá.
First class airfare, five-star hotels.
The narcos are having a meeting and then a party.
What does the M-19 have to do with this?
Somebody kidnapped Marta Ochoa. Intel suggests it was M-19.
I need access to the M-19 files to confirm.
If I find out one single dollar of American taxpayer money
went to any of those hookers, it'll be your ass.
OK, thank you. One last thing, Ambassador.
Yes, Agent Peña?
I'm filing a visa request for my informant. I need your signature.
You're bothering me.
She sure likes you.
Is your informant really a prostitute?
Everybody works for somebody.
The very next day, I was flying with Peña to Medellín,
Pablo's home turf.
First stop: Carlos Holguín School, Colonel Carrillo's base of operations.
I want you to meet our new DEA, Steve Murphy.
Then we went straight to a fancy hotel where the narcos were about to meet.
The pictures I took that day helped to ID guys for months to come.
There was Carlos Lehder...
...the Ochoa brothers...
Fernando Galeano, "the Wolfman"...
Is that Gacha?
I've never seen him with other traffickers.
And last but not least... Gustavo and Pablo.
Get pictures of that fucker.
They were all under one roof and Peña got us there to document it all.
What we didn't know was that we were witnessing the formation
of the famed Medellín cartel.
Pablo took advantage of the kidnapping of Marta Ochoa
to bring all the narcos together for the very first time.
And then he proclaimed himself their leader.
We knew the meeting was over when the hookers came to play.
Peña had finally gotten one of his informants
right into the heart of the action.
She should be here by now.
You think she slipped?
Nah, she's no dummy.
Maybe she's getting pretty for you.
Yeah.
Aah...
Helena wanted a US visa so bad,
she was willing to do anything to help our cause.
And that was a problem.
They're telling me the girl left a long time ago.
- She's already dead. - No, they wouldn't kill her at the hotel.
Then they killed her somewhere else.
She knew the risks.
If we're going back, we go back now.
Gonna stick around here and see if she shows up, OK?
- Yeah, and where are you going? - We're gonna go look for her.
Any news on the radio?
Hey, gringo. Carrillo is calling. Come on.
No habla inglés, huh?
¡Vamos!
Where the fuck's Peña? ¿Dónde está Peña?
- How is she? - Sedated.
- Is she gonna be OK? - Physically, yeah.
Mentally, I haven't got a fucking clue.
- You left me behind on purpose. - Look, man--
If we're gonna be partners, I don't get left behind.
I didn't come all the way down here, Peña, to sit on the fucking sidelines.
Whatever's going on here... I'm in all the way.
Is that understood?
Understood.
I hope you know what that means.
Pablo's message to the kidnappers was simple.
He was going to kill them, one by one, until he got Marta Ochoa back.
Ivan "the Terrible" thought he could hide in the jungle and wait it out.
Sooner or later, he figured the narcos would cave in.
Big mistake.
M-19 didn't stand a chance.
Needless to say, Marta Ochoa was released unharmed.
And the killing didn't stop.
Pablo had tasted blood, and he liked it.
Sending the photos of the hanging M-19 to the newspapers
gave Pablo an image of invincibility.
If he could do this to the feared communists,
he could do it to anyone.
Ivan "the Terrible" was quick to realize...
there was only one thing he could do.
Welcome to the Medellín cartel.
The narcos had their army, but me and Peña had ours, too.
Many Colombians like Major Horacio Carrillo
were so invested in the future of their country
that they were ready to do whatever it took to fix it.
This was a war that would shake an entire country to its foundations.
And in the carnage... mine would be shaken as well.
Even my wife, Connie, wanted to help.
She got a job as a nurse in a local comuna.
She wanted to make a difference.
I guess she forgot we were in Colombia.
Look, our escolta will drive me there and back every day.
- Yeah. - He'll wait outside all day.
You know the last time you were in church is when we got married.
Well, I'm letting the Lord back into my life.
Hey, stop right here.
Praise God.
Perdón.
I want that escolta watching every inch of you at that comuna now.
Hey, did we leave the door open?
Oh, my God, Steve!
Get back.
You stay right there and don't move.