As the informant left that meeting, he was murdered, Kent states. Once the targets were identified as being part of the drug ring, they began to cooperate with the Florida-based agents. The implosion of Guadalajara led to the rise of the Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, who is now in U.S. custody. Chris ultimately becomes the DEA contact for informant Jorge Salcedo (Matias Varela), the head of security for the Cali cartel who risks his life to help the agents capture and fry their biggest fish, Miguel Rodriguez (Francisco Denis). "That really opened our eyes to the corruption that we were dealing with there.". DEA As the show explains, the Rodriguez brothers are serving out life sentences in North and South Carolina prisons,Pacho Herrera was murdered in his Palmira prison and Chepe Santacruz Londono (Pepe Rapazote) was killed shortly after escaping his Bogota cell by paramilitary groups. In the beginning of season two, Connie Murphy (played by Joanna Christie) left Steve Murphy behind in Colombia. I saw the bullet hole in the side of Pablos head, I saw no signs whatsoever of the powder burns on his face. "If you do that, you deny the human side of these guys, which is what allows them to happen.". [Warning: This story contains spoilers from the entire third season of Netflix's Narcos.]. In real life, Camarenas wife was indeed named Mika, and she is the mother of his three children. WebJune 21, 2013 / 12:51 PM / AP. "I gave them a tour of the city, showed them where actual houses and events took place, where the bloque of the Colombian national police actually was and where we did surveillances from. The cracks in the lid DEA and OPR has attempted to place on this problem are getting bigger. As the season progresses, more than one of the "good guys" reveal themselves to be in cahoots with Los Pepes, the death squad led by right-wing vigilantes theCastano brothers. Worst of all, he continued to run his operation. "Both those guys said I would be a good resource to speak to, and also because of William Rempels book At the Devil's Table: The Untold Story of the Insider Who Brought Down Cali." But we all know, thats not what he chose to do. We worked primarily with the police, and they were the guys that we trusted with our lives. I explained that anything with addresses, phone numbers, bank accounts, any links to different countries or in the United States were all useful.". Their attempts to do so led to retaliation. "It was a good day for not only DEA but also for the Colombian government, but it was short-lived because we realized at that point we still had a lot of work to do," he says. On the Netflix drug cartel series, the agent (played byMichael Stahl-David) pushes his boss Javier Pena (Pedro Pascal) to let him leave Bogota, Colombia so he and his partner (Matt Whelan) can hunt the four Cali godfathers on the ground. Now those people all of a sudden became 100 percent loyal to Pablo, willing to give their lives to protect him and work for him. ", As for the Narcos storyline that shows Pena having a relationship with Don Berna, the agent says he was fine with the drama: "We never crossed that line, but that's what makes the show exciting and interesting.". Warning: Because the real story so closely tracks the fictional one, this article will contain spoilers for Narcos: Mexico. Everybody was willing to hide him. ", The real leader of the Search Bloc, Hugo Martinez, is still alive today. He was the kind of guy who just wanted to keep the streets safe. The finale of the second season re-created the kingpin's final moments during a rooftop shootout in Medellin, Colombia. So the North Valley cartel thought, 'Hey, I can avoid extradition. JESUS ABAD-EL COLOMBIANO/AFP/Getty Images. During the failed attempt, when Miguel was breathing through an oxygen tank behind one of the bathroom walls and got nicked with a driller, Fesitl says they were thisclose to capturing the boss. The writers just really astound me. Law enforcement sources tell Narco News that a number of other high-level officials within Justice and the DEA soon received copies of the same memo. "They were accountants, professional money-launderers. (Remember that all of these allegations come strictly from the Kent memo, though law enforcement sources have corroborated much of this information on condition of anonymity.). But the DEA had nothing to do with killing Yusti. There is much more to that phone conversation as to where and how we meet. Steve Murphy/Texas MonthlyJavier Pea at the Colombian National Police Headquarters following a seizure of some of Pablo Escobars money, gold, and a .45 caliber gold-plated pistol. His misrepresentations were backed by another agent in Bogot, Kent states. We never crossed that line, but thats what makes the show exciting and interesting, Pea said. On the show, the character is shot by Salcedo as the DEA agents are approaching Pallomari(Javier Camara) to transport him to the U.S. I think he felt that he was involved in something and was a part of and belonged to something.". ), Connie's departure, however, worked well for the drama. ", Though Fesitl balks at their self-described label of being "gentlemen," he does admit that it is rare for a group of cartel bosses to not betray each other. According to The San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper. Though Murphy says he has no respect for Juan Pablo ("Hes trying to save face for his family and create a better legacy than his father left behind"), he admits that his side of what the family had faced after Pablo's death was interesting. However, he would make a fatal mistake, and season 2 deals with the aftermath of it: The murder of Camarena, and how the DEA responded to it. In season 2, an enraged DEA jacks up its efforts to dismantle the cartel and get cartel figures to prosecution, even going so far as abducting a doctor accused of being affiliated with the cartel and assisting in Camarenas death. But the OPR mysteriously ordered the polygrapher not to report on the test: He was instructed (to say) that the test never took place.. Pena tells THR the realMoncadawas a "major force behind Los Pepes" and that they were told Don Bernawas an informant working with the Search Bloc, authorized by the then-Attorney General. He says they had to give up everything. "We kept on getting disappointed and it wasn't worth the grief., So the pair blew off forthcoming offers, until they met with those who would become the creators of Narcos. She took full advantage of her husbands business, his station in life and certainly all the assets and benefits that having that much money brings. What she was able to tell me was that he was a guy that just wanted to do good. 33 Ancient History Facts You Definitely Didn't Learn In School, Nurse Reunites With Doctor She Cared For As A Premature Baby In That Same Hospital 28 Years Ago, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch, Actor Pedro Pascal (left), who portrays Javier Pea (right) in the Netflix hit. Thats the only thing that kept us alive.". When confronted with the actual tape that confirmed the informants story, the agents in Bogot complained that what the informant and DEA group from Florida had done was illegal and they would be unable to obtain the informants release (from prison).. That's not a dedicated family man. Since that day, theories have proliferated as to who fired the fatal shot; Newman has shot down every single one, including Juan Pablo's claim that his father turned his gun on himself. (Netflix confirmed the return of Pascal as Pena, while Holbrook's Murphy remainsup in the air. Camarena opens the show in a scene that shows hes been abducted. Among other things, it was alleged that the informant (the narco-trafficker) had several agents on his payroll who provided him with classified information. Check out our most popular TV PLAYLISTS: LATEST TV SHOW TRAILERS: goo.gl/rvKCPb SUPERHERO/COMIC BOOK TV TRAILERS: goo.gl/r8eLH6 NETFLIX TV TRAILERS: goo.gl/dbO463 HBO. Feistl says the depiction of the death of Miguel's son, David Rodriguez (played byArturo Castro), was accurate in the show. In the show, Pea is also involved in several extra-judicial killings and other breaches of professional ethics, which is pure drama for the show. "One of the main things, going back to Pablo, was that a lot of that cocaine traffic was going up that Caribbean corridor into Florida," explains Feistl. To assist in producing the exhibition, the Mob Museum enlisted former DEA agents whose work in Colombia and Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s is dramatized in the Narcos series. They alleged that they were assisted in their narcotics activities by the [Bogot] agents. To this day, no one is sure who fired the fatal shot. Narcos viewers know Chris Feistl as the hungry DEA agent who helped dismantle the season-three villains, the Cali cartel. In February 1985 Camarena was There's stuff in there that's never been told. Working with the Colombian national police and navy forces, Feistl and the DEA stormed the 10th floor of Miguel's apartment hideout and arrested him just as he was getting into a celeta to hide. One of the informants was kidnapped and murdered in Bogot where he had gone into hiding.. Kiki Camarena was born Enrique (Kiki) S. Camarena on July 26, 1947, in Mexicali, Mexico. He claims that the nail in that coffin was driven in by OPR after it discovered that an OIG agent was investigating the Bogot corruption and related money laundering operation, In June 2004, OPR and DEA, the two agencies embarrassed by the prior allegations (involving the Bogot agents) and likely to come under tremendous scrutiny for their own actions in response, demanded that my case agent turn all of the (investigation) information over to OPR, Kent states in the memorandum. It was his end, and his new cartels end, and it was El Chapos beginning (the eventual drug lord is first seen in the beginning of Narcos: Mexico in all his humble beginnings as a driver for a Sinaloan drug lord). Whats more, the police werent allowed anywhere near the prison. "A lot of people didnt know about the Cali cartel. In the end, Javier Pea and his team tracked Escobar down in his hometown of Medelln in 1993 through use of technology that allowed them to trace his phone calls. Other informants who also worked with the DEA group in Florida were also murdered. Soon, he graduated to stealing cars and sanding down tombstones from the local cemetery to resell them. The Times noted that the bodies appeared to have been tortured and were found near a ranch in Michoacan state. A look at the nature of the alleged corruption may give us some clues. "We dont binge-watch TV, but we binge-watched season two," Murphy told The Hollywood Reporter about blowing through the second season of the cartel drama with his wife in two days. As he recalled: I got to Colombia in 88, at the height of the Escobar search. A document obtained recently by Narco News makes those questions more than hypothetical queries. What do Glenn Fine, the head of the DOJs OIG, and Rogelio E. Guevara, who currently oversees the DEAs OPR, know about Kents charges, which were brought forth in his memo more than a year ago? The prison itself contained its own discotheque, its own bar.. "[My partner] and I were looking for a way into the cartel and Jorge was looking for a way out of the cartel. His standing offer was plata o plomo, which means, silver or lead. You could take Escobars money and work for him, or you could choose to stand up to him and die. The first two seasons of Narcos depict the timeline chronicled by DEA special agents Steve Murphy and Javier Pena in their 2019 book Manhunters: How We "But we felt that he was still in Medellin or in the immediate area. Zavala was helping Camarena in his undercover operations, The LA Times reported. On the series, Gilberto agrees, as long as she hands over all of her assets. As promised, I am providing you with further information on the allegations and evidence that is already in files at OPR and OIG. Narcos also introduced a handful of other casualties left behind in the wake of the Cali godfathers. "We went back and forth for a couple of minutes and I said we were here on the ground in Cali and would like to meet as soon as possible. He deserves a lot of credit for that. Kiki Camarena is the DEA agent who pays the ultimate price for trying to hunt Gallardo down. "It had a big impact and resonated," he says. Of course, with that kind of money came problems. Pena was called away for a daylong assignment, but Murphy was on the scene the day they caught Escobar. The Florida agents kept trying to revive the investigation, but Bogot agents continued to thwart it one way or another. WebWatson, a 43-year-old Louisiana native, was killed after being dragged out of a taxi on his way home from a Bogot restaurant late last Thursday night after watching the NBA Though some mystery remains around the deaths of the latter two (Chepe was believed to have been killed in a police shootout until a memoir detailed otherwise) the show shared its interpretations of the truth in its depictions. WebThe Bolivian-born Toft has retired from the DEA. ", Murphy arrived on the scene with Colonel Hugo Martinez, head of the Search Bloc, and says the Colombian national police are the true heroes: "They were the guys that we worked with who would keep us alive and theyre the ones who told us what happened. Pablo Escobar is then shown in the wilderness, where a group of Colombian police who are frozen with fear simply let him pass. A few days before Escobar surrendered, DEA Agent Steve Murphy arrived in Colombia to help with the hunt for the slippery drug lord.

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