Episode 59: The Investigation that took down Pablo Escobar with Steve Murphy and Javier Pena of DEA Narcos
The Investigation Game is back! In this episode, Leah talks with Retired DEA Special Agents Steve Murphy and Javier Pena, whose real-life story inspired the hit Netflix series NARCOS.
Retired DEA Special Agents Steve Murphy and Javier Pena were at the center of the largest, most complex, multi-national, high-profile investigation of its time. Working with an elite Colombian Task Force, Murphy and Pena were responsible for the downfall and capture of the world’s first narco-terrorist, the infamous drug cartel leader, Pablo Escobar, following his brutal reign as head of the Medellin Cartel in the 1980s and early 1990s. Living and working alongside their Colombian national police counterparts in Columbia and with the elite US military units, their efforts resulted in the dismantlement of the largest and most violent international drug trafficking organization of its time. US and international law enforcement continue to utilize many of the strategies and innovative ideas created and implemented by Steve and Javier.
In addition to their individual efforts, Steve and Javier are the founders of DEA Narcos, LLC and Co-host the Game of Crimes Podcast.
Connect with Steve and Javier
Website: www.deanarcos.com
Instagram: @deanarcos
Podcast: www.gameofcrimespodcast.com
Connect with Workman Forensics
Youtube: @WorkmanForensics
Facebook: @wforensics
Twitter: @wforensics
Instagram: @wforensics
LinkedIn: @workmanforensics
Subscribe and listen to this and more episodes of The Investigation Game on Apple Podcasts, Android, or anywhere you listen.
Transcript
Intro:
Welcome to The Investigation Game podcast, brought to you by Workman Forensics.
Leah Wietholter:
Welcome to The Investigation Game podcast. I'm Leah Wietholter, CEO of Workman Forensics in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Joining me today are Steven Murphy and Javier Peña. As a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA, Steve Murphy and his partner, Javier Peña, led US efforts in Colombia to target the world's first narco-terrorist and the world's most wanted criminal, Pablo Escobar. Living and working alongside their Colombian National Police counterparts in Colombia, as well as with the elite US Military units, their efforts resulted in the dismantlement of the largest and most violent drug trafficking organization of its time. US and international law enforcement continue to utilize many of the strategies and innovative ideas that were created and implemented by Steve and Javier.
Leah Wietholter:
Steve began his law enforcement career in 1975 as a police officer in the city of Bluefield, West Virginia. In 1987, Steve became a special agent with the DEA. His agent assignments included Miami, Florida, Bogotá, Colombia, and Greensboro, North Carolina. Earning progressive promotions and leadership roles, Steve served two tours in Atlanta, Georgia where he was assigned to the high intensity drug trafficking area office and led the mobile enforcement team program. He created and directed the Atlanta organized crime drug enforcement task force. In 2001, Steve was assigned to the special operations division in Washington D.C. serving as an assistant special agent in charge and as the executive assistant to the director. In 2009, Steve was promoted to the senior executive service ranks as deputy assistant administrator over DEA's office of special intelligence in Washington D.C. and later as the special agent in charge or director of the Department of Justice [OCDETF 00:01:44] Fusion Center, where he remained until his retirement in 2013 after over 37 years in law enforcement.
Leah Wietholter:
Javier Peña retired from the DEA as a special agent in charge in January 2014 after 30 years of service. His career was highlighted by his volunteering for assignment to the DEA office in Bogotá, Colombia in 1988 where then special agent Peña and his partner, then special agent Steve Murphy, set out to bring down the notorious Medellín drug cartel, led by Pablo Escobar. Mr. Peña is regarded as a subject matter expert on the Medellín cartel and has delivered more than 100 presentations on the cartel, including numerous rare photos of original events during the rise and fall of the cartel. His presentations feature the details of his years spent trying to bring Escobar to justice and stop the carnage of the Medellín cartel. Pena has also appeared in television documentaries and on national news programs, as well as in the Latin media.
Leah Wietholter:
Following retirement, Steve started Murphy Consultants LLC. He specializes in keynote speaking and training. Steve and Javier also started a second company, DEA Narcos LLC, which focuses on name brand marketing and merchandise sales associated with DEA Narcos. Thank you for joining me today Steve and Javier.
Steve Murphy:
Glad to be here. Thank you, Leah.
Javier Peña:
Yep. Me, too. Thank you.
Leah Wietholter:
Obviously, we cannot have the two of you on the show and not talk about Pablo Escobar.
Javier Peña:
Who?
Leah Wietholter:
But before we dive into that... Who? Is that what you just said?
Javier Peña:
Yeah.
Leah Wietholter:
Right. I mean, we definitely have to talk about that, we have to talk about the show Narcos, but before we dive into that, I'd like to learn a little more about how the two of you became investigators and if it was something you always planned to do or kind of stumbled into it. So we can start with you, Steve.
Steve Murphy:
Oh, thank you, Leah. In 1975, I started as a small town uniform police officer in a little town called Bluefield, West Virginia. Worked uniform for six years, then transferred over to become a railroad police officer in Norfolk, Virginia, which the company now is Norfolk Southern Railway, and quite honestly did that for the money, because it paid much better than a small town police department paid. Did that for five and a half years, but realized that there wasn't a lot of investigating there. There are some great investigators in the railroad police, but it just wasn't me and a friend of mine that was a railroad police officer introduced me to the DEA. He had worked on the DEA Taskforce out of Roanoke, Virginia for a while and I just really got interested in that and I applied for DEA. It took me two years tor get the job.
Steve Murphy:
First post was Miami, Florida in 1987. Talk about a fish out of water and being very naïve. I was. And an interesting story, before I went to DEA, the most powder cocaine I'd ever seen at one time was two ounces, just a little baggie and the first case I got to work on undercover with DEA in Miami, we went to the Turks and Caicos islands and picked up 440 kilograms of cocaine.
Leah Wietholter:
Oh my god.
Steve Murphy:
So I went from two ounces to 280 pounds of coke and I like to tell people, I became addicted to coke at that point, just in a different way.
Leah Wietholter:
Oh my gosh.
Steve Murphy:
Yeah.
Leah Wietholter:
So did you always think you would be in law enforcement though, before you started off as a police officer?
Steve Murphy:
Since I was about 10 years old, I really never wanted to do anything else other than being a cop. And I have to say, I enjoyed being a uniform cop. I would not enjoy it today, but DEA turned out to be a place, it was like a dream come true. You get to travel the world, you get to work high-level cases. The case that Javier and I got to work together has developed into a partnership that started in 1991 and here we are in 2021 and we're still partners today.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah, so cool. So cool. So what about you Javier?
Javier Peña:
Yeah, I became a sheriff's deputy in Laredo, Texas, which is on the border in 1977. And with me, it's all been luck and timing and accidents. I was doing an internship at the prison unit. I was in college and got interested and then all of a sudden sheriff's department in Laredo was hiring and I applied, got accepted, and it was the best of both worlds. I was living with my grandparents, which, as you know, I had it made. Home cooked meals, and I worked at the sheriff's office, I had the night shift and I'd got off of work at 7:00 a.m., go shower, and hit the classes again till about noon. I know a lot of people out there have done that, right? Work and go to school. So I was at the sheriff's office for about seven years and, for me, I just wanted to see the world. I wanted to get out of Laredo. It's a small town. I'd come from a place called Hebbronville, 5,000 population. It's also close to Laredo.
Javier Peña:
Anyway, my experience, and then when I got selected to DEA, I got sent to Austin, Texas and you know a little bit about Austin, right? It's a great town and it was the beginning of the music industry. I mean, I was seeing all sorts of great bands in Austin. I was lucky I got Austin. And then, I just wanted to go see how the big traffickers work, and I put in for Mexico, I did not put in for Colombia, so there was a mistake in the paperwork and then I got selected to go to Bogotá, not wanting to go there, but I didn't fight it. My boss said, "You want to fight it, Javier?" I said, "No, let me go to Bogotá." So I got to Bogotá in 1988, and then later on I met Steve and, like Steve said, we were assigned the Pablo Escobar case, which I'm sure we'll talk about, right? In a little bit?
Leah Wietholter:
Yes, yes. Definitely, we have to. Well, that's really cool. I love finding out how... some people kind of stumble into investigation. It sounds like I'm kind of like you guys. From the time I was 12 years old, I was pretty decided that I was going to be an investigator. I didn't know what that would look like, but now that's what I do, too. So on this podcast, we like to talk about investigations as a whole. We talk about more than just fraud or forensic accounting, although we talk about that, too. So I like to ask people about their investigative processes, techniques, tools. And so, I'm curious, what are some of the investigative skills you feel you learned, especially from the DEA, that you used most often in your investigations, that you'd rely on maybe every case or a lot of your cases?
Steve Murphy:
Well, for me, I had never really worked a lot with informants as a uniform police officer or as a railroad police officer. You did have snitches on the street that would give you information and things like that, but nothing like the level that you do working with DEA, not to mention the amount of money that you were able to pay informants. You could actually pay them money and not pull $20 out of your pocket like you do as a street cop. And we got an introduction to intercepting telephone communications. I did not do that in Miami. We were so busy with importation cases. My gosh, it was the late 1980s and if couldn't make a drug case in South Florida, you need to find a different occupation.
Leah Wietholter:
Oh gosh.
Steve Murphy:
It was literally falling out of the sky and washing up on the beaches. So I guess those were the two big things, but you also come very adept at surveillance, because you're on the street every day. If you're making cases, you're out on the street every day doing surveillance, either on the bad guys or trying to follow up on information and, you know what? If you had a down day, sometimes you'd go do surveillance on your informants, to find out what they were up to, because you needed their credibility to get them into court. So I'll be honest with you, I was like a kid in a candy store when I joined DEA. I loved it. I did it for 26 years, never looked back, wouldn't trade it for anything.
Leah Wietholter:
So I have a question about informants. Is there a primary motivation or is kind of all across the board what would motivate an informant?
Steve Murphy:
It's across the board and that's one of the first things you have to determine when you're talking to a potential informant. What is his motivation? Is he doing it to work off a beef, a charge against him? Is he doing it to make money? Is he doing it to take the competition out? Is he doing it to get revenge at somebody? There's a variety of different reasons and that's one of the first things you really have to establish and you need to do a little bit of investigative work on that, just so you can corroborate, because it helps you know, it sounds a little strange, but it helps you to know how far you can push that informant to get what you need. If he's working off charges, you can push a lot harder. If you know he's working just strictly for money, like a mercenary, well there's other ways that you handle that. So each situation could be rather unique.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah, interesting. In fraud investigations, I feel like the informants are typically whistleblowers and there's kind of a primary motivation I've seen and it's usually that they've been cut out of a deal, so that's why I ask that question.
Steve Murphy:
Avenge.
Leah Wietholter:
When they've been cut out of the scheme, that's when they decide, "You know, I think I'm going to report this to the owner."
Steve Murphy:
Yep, yep.
Leah Wietholter:
What about you Javier? Whenever you were working cases, are there are any skills, techniques, tools that you relied on in a lot of your cases?
Javier Peña:
Yeah, and I'm going to echo what Steve said, and just to further with informants, because we do work a lot with informants. You have to corroborate the information. You have to go out there and make sure, the first thing is the guy lying or the guy or girl, are they lying? So once you can establish that that person is telling the truth and knows what's going on, then it's a different ball game. I like to use sometimes, out of 10 possible informants, three are going to be good, the rest are not. And in Colombia the experience we gathered with informants was, wow, it was just an eye-opener. A lot would read the paper, then they'd come in and they'd tell you what's in the newspaper. But then, you know what? The person that's working for money and a lot of it is that motivation that you all have been talking about. What's the motivation of that informant? Is it revenge? Is it I got cut out of a deal? The money, working off a beef?
Javier Peña:
But the main thing you have to remember is that informants will work for you and they'll work against you. They may be giving you information, "Hey, there's a load coming in through this side of the country while they're running their own loads through the other side." And then, the other one is when they get caught it's like, "Hey, I'm working for Javier Peña." Oh, that's a big one. It was not-
Leah Wietholter:
Oh, man.
Javier Peña:
... righteous and we would see that a lot. You just got to be careful, but you need that information and you need to corroborate. And like Steve mentioned, the Title III, the telephone intercepts, I mean, we used to say, you know what? Informants lie, telephones do not. So it's just corroborate as much as you can.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah, it's interesting whenever we're working a fraud case we might have somebody informing, like a whistleblower, but then one of the things my team and I do is we are always looking for what's the best data source. And so, it's kind of equivalent to what you're talking about, those wire taps. If you can get that, I mean, that's an excellent data source to corroborate. I am curious, Javier, what would you be looking for if you do surveillance on your informants?
Javier Peña:
You know what? You're looking to see and make sure they're telling you the truth, that's the main thing. You may be surveilling them and he's meeting with other traffickers, they're working out their own deal and you do not know anything about it, so that's a red flag there. And also, I'm glad you brought up, you know what? One of the parts that we rely on a lot, which people do not sometimes get is the use of analytical information, the analysis. You know what I'm talking about, right? I mean there's all sorts of sources where you can analyze. With us, Steve and I had it made because we had analysts assigned to us, intelligence analysts and you give them a phone number and they're going to do the background on that phone number, it's like, "Wow, look at all this information on that person, on the associates." So that's one of the things. I know there's some investigators out there, but use all the analytical means possible in verifying and furthering that information.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah, for sure. I'm a big fan of analytics, but then also talking to people. And so, that's kind of what I feel like you're describing.
Javier Peña:
Right, the main thing.
Leah Wietholter:
You can't just use data, but you can't also just rely on what people are saying to build a great case.
Javier Peña:
Right, right.
Steve Murphy:
That's one of the best partnerships we've ever seen, is when you get an agent and an analyst that can get along, that they'll complement each other. It's hard to beat that team, it's like they say, they've got the brains, we've got the brawn.
Leah Wietholter:
There you go, there you go. Throughout your career whenever you would tell people that you were working for the DEA or even now when you tell your story, what do you think is a misconception about DEA, DEA investigations, that maybe the general public or even victims that have been involved might have about the DEA?
Steve Murphy:
Well, for me, it's a lot of people don't understand what DEA does. They think that we're out trying to chase people that are smoking weed and that's probably the biggest misconception that I've seen is that's never been DEA's mission. We don't go after the users, we go after the manufacturers and the distributors and the gatekeepers and the money launderers and all facets of a criminal organization. Quite honestly, I don't care if you smoke weed or not, that's up to you. I guess that's the biggest misconception I can think of. But DEA's mission is to go after the biggest narcotics traffickers in the world that have a detrimental affect on the United States.
Steve Murphy:
People say, "Well, are you having a positive impact?" Well, we're not having a negative impact. Are drugs still available? Of course they are. But you can't ignore the violence and the threat that goes along with narcotics trafficking. Just think if DEA wasn't there and if the other law enforcement agents weren't addressing the narcotics issues, look how much additional violence there would be here in the United States because of that.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah, interesting. What about you, Javier?
Javier Peña:
Yeah. And sometimes you get that from other people, that image that we're cowboys out there like in the movies, deep undercover, you're snorting dope, you're using all sorts of illegal methods, beating up people. You know what? We're not about that, that's just a small percentage of our investigation is the undercover world. I mean, yes, we do it, but we have a lot of safeguards. For example, if I'm negotiating with a trafficker at a bar, then I'm going to have 10 other agents there with me, watching out for me, we don't test it like in the movies, "All right, let me put it up my nose and let me put it in my tongue," right? Like you see in the movies? We don't do that stuff.
Javier Peña:
So there's a lot of people that's funny they think and they think we go the fancy cars, we're living in high dollar penthouses, partying with the traffickers. That's not the case. So like Steve said, we go after the organization. Our job is to dismantle, I call it, the biggest and baddest traffickers out there and we try to dismantle from top to bottom, bottom to top.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah. That's awesome. So when you two were assigned to Bogotá, was that a temporary duty assignment type thing? How are US federal agents able to go and work a case in Colombia?
Steve Murphy:
Well, we call it a permanent change of station, a PCS move, so it's really not a TDY, but depending on where you're going, if it's a danger post, like Bogotá was back then or most of the offices in Mexico and South American were, it was a two year assignment. Other places it's a three year assignment, so most places when it's a three year assignment you can move your family, your wife, your children, if you're a female, your husband. For us, we weren't allowed to have dependents. We could take a spouse, but we couldn't take children. But, on the other side of that coin, is you got danger pay, you got hazard duty pay, you got increased post differential. It was very lucrative from a law enforcement standpoint, because you don't go into law enforcement for the money.
Leah Wietholter:
Right.
Steve Murphy:
You don't get rich as a cop, not an honest cop anyway. But here in the United States with DEA, you could be transferred anywhere in the United States, but to be transferred overseas, you had to volunteer, you had to raise your hand, they just won't arbitrarily send you somewhere, although they might like to sometimes, they won't.
Leah Wietholter:
Javier, maybe a question for you, did they have a relationship with Colombian law enforcement to have you guys there? Is that how that works?
Javier Peña:
Yes, of course. And you know what? We're there as liaison. You know what? We do not have any authority. We don't have arrest authorities like we do in the US. So you're there as [inaudible 00:19:13]. So when we get to Colombia in the first search, we call it, we had an informal task force, not like the one that Steve and I participated in after Pablo Escobar's escape. So we had a group of guys that had been handpicked from Bogotá. They had been living in Medellín, and I remember I would go at this time for two nights, that's all I was allowed to stay, because the car bombs, the assassinations. So I'd meet, we'd exchange information.
Javier Peña:
I mean, and there was a lot of information coming in from the US, at this time, against Pablo Escobar, so we would exchange great information and we started working knowing who Pablo Escobar was, because we were weak when we first started working against him. We did not know that much about him. And if you look at the history, Pablo Escobar, in the early '80s was coming into the US. Nobody knew who that powerful position was, but he had a house in Miami. And it's not until, should I call it the mid to late '80s when really we started learning who Pablo Escobar was, because of the violence. Back to the question, we were working with our local counterparts, which were great cops in Colombia and we'll talk about this in a little bit, but they did a great job and we established great friendship with them, so it was basically they trusted us and we trusted them.
Leah Wietholter:
Well, before we jump into the big story of the podcast, let's just take a quick break and we'll be right back.
Leah Wietholter:
Hi everyone. I'm happy to Matt Molchany and Matt Killam from the ACFE South Florida and Twin Cities Chapters. They are joining me today to tell us more about an event that's happening on November 4th. So Matt, can you please tell us about the event.
Matt Molchany:
Leah, I would love to. Our chapters are hosting an online event with speakers Steven Murphy and Javier Peña on how they took down Pablo Escobar. Also, Michael Bret Hood will be opening for them with a presentation on advanced money laundering.
Leah Wietholter:
Well, that's sounds like an amazing event. Matt, could you tell us some more details.
Matt Killam:
The event will take place on November 4th, from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. The cost of the event is $90 for ACFE members and $105 for non-members. Attendees will receive five CPEs for attending the event.
Leah Wietholter:
I got to tell you, after talking to these guys, preparing this podcast episode, this is going to be an exceptional event and I plan to attend myself. So Matt, how can people register?
Matt Molchany:
Yep, everyone can register on our South Florida website. Please go to acfesouthflorida.org and look for the event for November 4th.
Leah Wietholter:
Welcome back to my conversation with Steve and Javier. So okay, we have to jump into the story. And so, I don't know which one of you might want to just give an overview of the case, as well, but I'm really curious about how do you even start an investigation into something like this case with Pablo Escobar?
Javier Peña:
Pablo Escobar, as we all know, you mentioned how to describe Pablo Escobar, we call him the inventor of narco-terrorism. He was responsible for 80% of the cocaine that was reaching the world. And one thing we try to tell our audiences is that we had never encountered an organization, a person like Pablo Escobar, like that before and it was because of the violence that he was using. We weren't used to this. Then we saw the emergence of the famous or deadly, I should say, the deadly car bombs that Pablo Escobar was placing, 10 to 15 on a daily basis. So we saw a lot of innocent people get killed.
Javier Peña:
And like I said earlier, then we started realizing that Pablo Escobar had an empire that we had never seen. 80% of the cocaine reaching the world was sent by Pablo Escobar. Miami was his base. There's a lot of money that was being spent in Miami. We like to equate Miami... remember the Scarface movie, I mean, when we say Scarface a lot of people watched it, that's what was going on in Miami at this time, the violence, the money. But it was a battle, it was a fight, it was a search for Pablo Escobar, but we never realized how major, how violent, and how, like I said, the terrorism that he had. That was our obstacle, trying to overcome that terrorism from Pablo Escobar.
Leah Wietholter:
So with this violence, was he using it to keep his organization working, kind of like the Mafia would, or was he targeting people outside of his organization, as well? What made his violence, I guess, so extreme?
Steve Murphy:
Well, it was against anybody, primarily his competition. Believe it or not, at one point, Pablo got along with the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers in Cali, but it's kind of like the Hatfield-McCoy myths here, the feud here in the United States. There's several different reasons that people say led to the disconnect between the two organizations. But Pablo is the kind of guy that, and his is what Javier and I believe, is that his power and his wealth kind of went to his head and he felt invincible, and so he got to the point where he was used to telling you, "Leah, this is what I want you to do. This is what you're going to do," and then when you don't do it, they kill you. Well, that message gets out, and it's all about him. It's not about anything else. It's about he wanted to run... well, he did run for Congress, actually got elected as an alternate and then that guy stepped down and he took his place, didn't last very long. He got booted out because the minister of justice down there who paid for it with his life, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla.
Steve Murphy:
The other thing is he wanted to run for president. And in his mind, it certainly seems like he thought he was the God of Colombia and that everybody adored him. His ego was completely out of control. Once Javier and I got in his prison and started looking at some of the letters that people were writing him from around the world, you could tell. There's a lot of sick people that look at that and think that's something to look up to. We even see it on our social media sites. We get some really nasty messages from some people. Some people want to kill us, some people want to see us die. Some people just want to tout the praises of Pablo Escobar and I'm just thinking, could you think of anything stupider to say than that. Do a little research and find out, this guy is nothing but a mass murderer. Like Javier said, he's the world's first narco-terrorist. He wasn't a narcotics trafficker, he was a terrorist.
Javier Peña:
He came up with a term called plata or plomo, you want a bullet or you want some money? And basically, how that worked, and I saw it when it was first initiated, a couple of sicarios, assassins walked into the judge's office in Medellín and said, "Judge, we're being sent by Mr. Pablo Escobar and in this briefcase, sir, there's $100,000 judge, all you have to do is drop the charges against our boss, Pablo Escobar, the money is yours." The judge kicked them out. Well, the next day they killed the judge, his wife, and his kids, so that was the attitude from Pablo Escobar. Very famous saying, "Plata or plomo?" Bullet or you want some money? And then, like I said, I don't know, just the car bombs, I always say, assassinations, the kidnappings. Then he had bounties on police officers. Have you ever heard of putting bounties on police officers?
Javier Peña:
So all the assassins, and that's another thing when we talk to people, we missed is we did not know how to handle the sicarios, assassins. Escobar, at his height, had about 500 assassins, sicarios working for him and their allegiance was to kill or die for Pablo Escobar. So how do you combat this? So we learned a lot, obviously, we weren't used to this type of a war, but you have to adapt and learn and try to stay on top of it.
Leah Wietholter:
How did he get so out of control? Was it kind of a slow rise? I mean, how did it get to the point where Colombian officials, law enforcement... I mean, it just sounds like it got completely out of control?
Steve Murphy:
Well, if you look at the history of Colombia, it's one of the most beautiful places in the world, Javier and I love the place, I mean we really do. We always give it credit. We give credit to the Colombian National Police for what went on down there, how they addressed the situation. But if you go back and look at their history, it has an extremely violent history. There's even one part of their history they call La Violencia, the violent times. And if you read some of the books and you believe them about Escobar and how he grew up, his family saw the violence where these band of marauders, vigilantes, whatever you call them, would come through with machetes and kick your door open in the middle of the night and kill people, and he saw that.
Steve Murphy:
But at a young age, I think he also saw that he had an opportunity to make some money in cocaine. He started out as a petty thief. He was stealing hubcaps off of cars, he was stealing gravestones out of the cemeteries. Really admirable occupation there. But he got involved in a small cocaine deal and realized how much money he could make off of it, so he went and killed the guy and took his spot. So it's, I think, probably when he saw that there was no retribution for murder, it just continued from there.
Leah Wietholter:
Sure.
Steve Murphy:
It really is a different world down there. I went down very naïve and thank the good lord I have Javier there to look out for me when I first got started, but it's very, very different down there.
Javier Peña:
And, to that point, you mentioned how the government... I mean, you know what? And this is history, when Pablo Escobar is killing as many people as possible, the car bombs, assassination, I mean, if you talk to anybody who lived in this time in Colombia, they'll tell you, I mean, it was just indiscriminate use of bombs, killings. So it got to the point when Pablo Escobar's famous surrender, because we got to ask, "What? How did he work out that surrender?" We call it the deal of a lifetime.
Javier Peña:
Well, Colombia was tired of all the killings, of all the bombs. It was people couldn't go out on weekends, mothers with their kids come straight home, it was just out of control. So that violence is what triggered Pablo Escobar when he surrendered was the deal of a lifetime. Called up the government and said, "Basically, I'm willing to stop my bombing campaign and willing to self-surrender." If you're part of the government what are you going to say, "Of course," right? I mean, "Wow, this guy's going to surrender. The killings will stop." And he surrendered that the killings did stop. The bombing stopped it was peaceful. So obviously we could talk about hours on this, but it's part of history, what we call it. The surrender.
Leah Wietholter:
So I have to ask, when he, because I think listeners, if they don't know the story, are going to want to know, what kind of deal was he trying to work with surrender? Because it doesn't sound like a guy who doesn't do anything if there's not something in it for himself.
Steve Murphy:
Well, there were some stipulations to his surrender. Because the government was elated when he agreed to surrender. And so, here's the stipulations. He came in he said, "First of all, I will build my own prison, because I don't want the citizens of Colombia to have to bear that tax burden." And the government said, "Okay." And then he said, "Well, I'm going to hire my own guards up there, because again, I can afford to pay them and don't want the citizens to have to bear that burden, as well." And the government said, "Okay." And then he said, "Well, I'm going to hand-pick my fellow prisoners. There's only going to be 13 and me," and his brother was one of those. It was his most trusted associates, people he felt that would protect him, that were willing to die for him, and that's exactly what he got in there. The government said, "Okay." Then he said, "Well, you know what? I don't want any good guys, the gringos, the Colombian national police, the Colombian military cannot come within two miles of the perimeter of our prison, because I'm worried about them trying to kidnap me and extradite me to the United States and I have this deal with you, the government of Colombia." And the government said, "Okay."
Steve Murphy:
And part of that deal was he only got five years in prison. Now, for pleading guilty to one crime, that he got to select, I think it was unwittingly participating in the transportation of 300 kilos of coke or some crap like that. All other crimes, including murder, he was absolved of. And then, lastly, there were no stipulations to take any of his assets. So Forbes magazine rated him as the sixth, seventh richest man in the world several years in a row with an estimated wealth between eight and $30 billion.
Steve Murphy:
So what we found out later when we got into prison, Javier and I were up there the very next day after he escaped, what we saw was a country club. It wasn't a prison, it was a joke's what it was. We also learned he was coming and going from that prison as he pleased. He would go spend the night with his wife and children. He'd go to restaurants, he'd go to soccer games. He just went wherever he wanted to. And those kind of conditions and then you get to keep the $30 billion, I think I probably could've stood on my head for maybe five years and be a free man. It's outrageously ridiculous.
Leah Wietholter:
And during those five years, did all the killing and car bombing and all of that, did it stop?
Javier Peña:
Yep. It stopped. Oh yeah, no more car bombs, people were coming out again. But what happened is, and real quick, while he was in prison he was still doing his drug distribution. Then he killed two important members of his organization inside the prison, which is what prompted the government of Colombia to say, "Hey, no more. We're going to move him," and that's the famous escape and when Steve talked about we were there the very next day. Like Steve said, it was a farce, it was a country club environment inside. However, that escape led us to another chance of getting Pablo Escobar. Steve and I moved in. We had full-time bases, into Medellín at the police station, we formed a search block, we were there 24 hours a day and it took us 18 months, but you know what? We were happy, to be honest, when he escaped, why? Because it was giving us another chance to get him.
Steve Murphy:
And Leah, I'd like to point out just one thing, there's actually one of us here on this podcast that spent the night sleeping in Pablo Escobar's bed at the prison and it wasn't me.
Javier Peña:
And really quickly, it was a bed for the colonel for the national police. They were making fun of me. Of course, I changed the sheets. And you know what? It's funny, but on a serious note, I'll never forget he had the statue of the Virgin Mary on the ceiling of his bedroom. So I'm killing people and I'm still... anyway, but that was Pablo Escobar.
Leah Wietholter:
Interesting, interesting. Yeah, so then his escape, I guess, gave you the opportunity, catch him and to make sure he wasn't able to create another country club just to escape out of, right?
Javier Peña:
Yeah, no. And like I said, we've written a book on this, but the second part of the search is very interesting and exciting and we talk about our different techniques that we use. We even came up with a reward for Pablo Escobar, from the US, it was $5 million, which was helping a lot. So it's a lot of different techniques, but one of the main techniques or what I like to tell people, the law enforcement especially, we were taking down his organization in the United States, in Europe and in Colombia, so it was simultaneous, going after everybody and anybody that worked for Pablo Escobar, which is one of the strategies that was working. So we employed that method.
Leah Wietholter:
Gosh. We could keep talking forever. I'm like reigning in some questions right now, so that I can ask about this, too. Because I want to talk about, how did the show Narcos on Netflix come about?
Steve Murphy:
Well, Javier lives in Texas and, well, at the time he was the [SAC 00:36:37] in Houston and I was the SAC at the OCDETF Fusion Center in DC. And a friend of mine up here, I still live in northern Virginia, a friend of mine is an award winning producer on a small scale and he introduced me to two producers that seemed like they were interested in doing something with the Escobar story. And in the government, you can't make money on the side, so if you're working as an agent, you can't have a second income. But I went and talked to both producers and they both had personal agendas. It wasn't about telling a true story at all. One guy wanted to take our story and make a right-wing political statement out of it, and that's not what we were about. And so, Javier and I discussed it and we said, "You know what? Nobody really cares about this story. It's been too long. That's way in the past."
Steve Murphy:
Well then, one day in 2013 I get a phone call, February of '13, from a retired Marine that Javier and I used to work with down in Colombia, hadn't talked to the guy in over 20 years and he told us, "Well, there's a producer in Hollywood that wants to talk to you guys." And so, I said, "Look, thanks but no thanks. We're not interested." And he kind of tuned me up on the phone. I don't know if you know any retired Marines, but they can be colorful with their language at times. And finally I'm like, "Okay, okay, okay." I'll call the guy. And Javier and I are doing this together and a called this guy named Eric Newman, he's the created of Narcos and he gave his little spiel on the phone. I turned him down. And I know he about fell out of his chair, because nobody out there turns down anything in Hollywood, Javier and I saw how people would sell their souls out there to be on a show.
Steve Murphy:
So anyway, to make a real long story short, he flew to Washington with two writers, I met him for dinner, we had some fun and our personalities kind of clicked. And as we're leaving the restaurant, he asked me, he said, "Why are you and Javier so hesitant to tell your story?" And we said, "The last thing we want is that anybody would ever glorify a mass murderer like Pablo Escobar." And he promised us that night, "I'll never do that." He's lived up to his word, all these years later. So I had that dinner in March and Javier and I are both on board. In May, we signed contracts, not knowing it was Netflix, but we signed contracts with a production company. At the end of June, I retired from DEA after almost 38 years as a police officer. And in July, Javier and I were sitting in Hollywood in a writer's room, starting to write Narcos. That's how it came about.
Leah Wietholter:
Wow, that's awesome. So you actually sat down with the writers and told them the story and then they [crosstalk 00:39:12]-
Javier Peña:
Yep. It was funny, because we're not Hollywood people, so we were telling them the facts, right? Just the facts. Tell them the truth and then all of a sudden, so they would send you the script, so after an episode. So we would see the script, I'd call Steve. Steve? What the hell is this? This didn't happen." So we don't know Hollywood, so we called and the producer very politely says, "Yeah, well we're using artistic license," so artistic license means a lot, basically they change the story however they want to change it. But, you know what? When it came out, I didn't think people were going to watch it. In fact, Steve and I had a conversation, we called each other, I think, after the first show, "Wow, no one's going to watch this." Wow, we were surprised after a while. The story had a worldwide appeal. Everybody was watching it. We never expected it. So then, all of a sudden, another series comes out, Pablo Escobar was done in what? 20 shows? Right, Steve?
Leah Wietholter:
Yep, 20 episodes.
Javier Peña:
Yeah, and 10 are one season. So they signed it up and Steve has a good anecdote. You want to mention that, Steve, the number two guy?
Steve Murphy:
Which one?
Javier Peña:
The number two guy about the ratings?
Steve Murphy:
Oh yeah. So the premiere of season two they invited Javier and I and our spouses out to Hollywood for the premiere and neither one of us had ever been through that. We're small town country boys and it was real exciting and they're paying all your airfare and your hotel and pick you up in a limos and all that kind of stuff and it was really exciting to go. So afterwards there's a party, and so we go over there and the actors that played us are there and the actor that played Escobar and a lot of the actors from the series are there and they are such nice people. I mean we were shocked. I mean, you would think they might be a little snotty because of who they are, but Pedro Pascal's probably the best known actor of the Narcos series and just was so personable.
Steve Murphy:
But anyway, so we're there and I don't drink alcohol, but I still go to parties and I hang out at bars with the guys and we're in there and I walked up to the number two guy at Netflix and I said, "Hey, so..." and he was being very nice and I said, "Tell us the truth, now how successful is Narcos?" "Oh, everything's a secret with Narcos. We don't discuss that openly, but I'll just tell you it's a good show." So I gave them another 30 minutes and he'd had several more drinks and I walked up to him and I said, "So can you tell me anything about Narcos?" He said, "All right, don't pass this along," he said, "You ever heard of that show we do called..." I just forgot it?
Javier Peña:
House of Cards
Steve Murphy:
House of Cards. Everybody's heard of House of Cards. He said, "That's our number one show, Narcos is knocking on the door."
Leah Wietholter:
That's awesome.
Steve Murphy:
And I think last year I saw an article or maybe earlier this year where Narcos is the fourth all-time most viewed original content series that Netflix put out. That's pretty good.
Leah Wietholter:
Wow, that's awesome.
Javier Peña:
And for the listeners out there, I drink for Steve. So when we go out drinking, I got to drink his share.
Leah Wietholter:
Oh, good, good. Just making sure. [crosstalk 00:42:27] Just keeping it even. Yeah.
Steve Murphy:
I'm the designated driver. I get him home.
Leah Wietholter:
Y'all are a great team, right? [crosstalk 00:42:34] Y'all are a great team. Okay, so clearly the show did take some artistic liberties or licenses, whatever, with the story, but if somebody wants to know the facts, you guys have at least one book, right? A couple books?
Steve Murphy:
Yeah, we wrote a book, Manhunters: How We Took Down Pablo Escobar it is absolute truth. There's another book out there that's very popular, it came out several years before ours did that the first part of the book, historically, is accurate, the second part is a lot of suppositions were made in the writing of the book and I don't want to talk bad about the author. He was a friend of ours, but I mean the book also covers our careers, how we grew up, how we got into law enforcement, some other cases we worked on. Javier will tell you about having a gun stuck in his ear working undercover. Again, we didn't think that would be very popular either, but I think we're in 18 or 19 different countries now.
Leah Wietholter:
Wow.
Steve Murphy:
The book. And that led to our world speaking tour, so pre-COVID, the first four years, we were averaging 75 shows a year around the world. We've done two UK tours. We did a northern European tour. We've been to Australia and New Zealand twice. We've been on every continent in the world except for Africa and Antarctica. And we were scheduled to go to Africa the first year of COVID, of course we all know what happened there. But it's slowly starting to pick up and never in a million years did we think we'd be doing something like this in retirement.
Leah Wietholter:
Well, I mean, Javier, you said you wanted to see the world, so did you think it would be this way?
Javier Peña:
I sure did. Another thing about the book, it's based on truth and it's based on history. What really occurred out there and, like you said, we always, at all our shows, is the real heroes in all of this were the Colombian National Police, they took their country back from Pablo Escobar, who killed thousands and thousands of innocent people. And also, Steve mentioned earlier, Colombia's a great country. Visit. It's great people, it's just a beautiful country and it's safe right now. But it's part of history and it really happened.
Leah Wietholter:
So we're going to make sure to link to your website where people can download all different kinds of merchandise and your book. But then, you've also started a podcast recently.
Steve Murphy:
We have. End of June we started Game of Crimes. Kind of sounds like Game of Thrones, doesn't it.
Leah Wietholter:
Yep, yep.
Steve Murphy:
And our throne, which is made out of weapons, might look like the throne out of Game of Thrones. It's a long-form podcast, so our episodes can go into two parts that we release the same week. I think the shortest one we've had so far is an hour and a half, and hour and 45 minutes. But every show we host a guest. So what we do is we bring in the actually investigators who participated in some of the biggest crimes committed not just in the United States, but around the world. In addition to that, it's not only good people, we actually bring on some bad people. So if you remember, if you ever saw the movie Blow with Johnny Depp, Johnny Depp portrayed a guy named George Jung. Our second episode that came out with George Jung, who passed away this past May, rest in peace. So we think we go the last interview with George.
Steve Murphy:
We've got a former money launderer lined up for an interview. We've got a Cuban-American who spent 25 years moving cocaine for all the cartels in Colombia, got caught with 9,000 kilos coming out of Venezuela, he'll be on the show. We've got a man who was a lieutenant with Arellano Félix organization in Tijuana. We're trying to get, I'm not going to mention his name, but if we do get this guy, he was an original member of the Medellín cartel. He's out of prison now, he has cancer, and he's dying, so we're trying to respect his wishes, but at the same time, we're negotiating with his attorney to try to get him on the show.
Steve Murphy:
So it's fun. We're going to have Ed Davis, who was commissioner of the Boston Police during the Boston Marathon bombing. Dave Reichert who was the lead investigator in the Green River serial murder case. I mean, it just keeps going on and on. It's amazing. And the whole point is to show the world the truth about what goes on in law enforcement. It's not one of these cases where people read a little history about a crime and then get on there and report it. So we bring the real people on there.
Leah Wietholter:
Yeah, wow. This is coming firsthand from the investigators. So cool. We'll make sure to link to that podcast, as well, because I know that our listeners are really going to be interested in that. A really unique take. I mean, there's a lot of true crime fans, but to listener to the investigator who investigated I think is so valuable. I mean, I always learn something even just asking these questions like, "Oh, I hadn't thought about during surveillance to check this and this." So you've already given me ideas just in talking about this, and I don't investigate drug deals, so it's just always a pleasure. And it's been such a pleasure talking to both of you and I really appreciate your time to talk to me and to talk to our listeners and we'll make sure to link to everything. Thank you so much.
Steve Murphy:
Very good. It was a pleasure being on here. Thanks for having us on the show, Leah.
Javier Peña:
Likewise. Thank you, Leah. Appreciate it.
Outro:
Thank you for listening to The Investigation Game. For more information on any of the topics brought up on this show, visit workmanforensics.com. If you enjoyed our show, be sure to subscribe and leave a review. You can also connect with us on any social media platform by searching Workman Forensics. If you have any questions or topic ideas, please email us at podcast@workmanforensics.com. Thank you.