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. She dedicates her time to promoting drug awareness in schools and communities nationwide.. Toft played a key role in Colombia's successful hunt last year for Pablo Escobar, the Medellin cartel chief killed in a rooftop Agent Javier Pea of Texas was assigned by the DEA to join in the hunt for Pablo Escobar. The tape recordings that revealed this damning information were turned over to both the Office of Professional Responsibility and the Office of the Inspector General, Kent states in the memorandum. Furthermore, being in prison gave Escobar protection from his enemies and allowed him to avoid a much-feared extradition to the U.S. The third season introducedAmado Carrillo Fuentes, aka the Lord of the Skies, of the Juarez Cartel and Newman pointed outthat if and when the show goes to Mexico, the show will focus on the war moving closer to U.S. shores. Narcoscontinues to walk the fine line between presenting its villains as characters who are addictive to watch, but who are not glorified. The narco-traffickers, crooked cops, and thieving politicians in the drug war are always over there, in Latin America, and elsewhere, and U.S. law enforcers and government officials are always the good guys battling these forces of evil. On Narcos, Pena continued to "smack into walls" while he tried to bring down the cartel, eventually realizing that Cali had bought the presidency by placing Ernesto Samper in office and that the CIA and the Ambassador, his boss, knew about the high levels of corruption. Real-life 'Narcos' agents Murphy and Pena who brought They were able to provide me with some of the highlights, but certainly not all of the information that is sitting at OPR and OIG. Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter. he recalls. In this document, Department of Justice attorney Thomas M. Kent claims that federal agents with the Drug Enforcement Administrations office in Bogot, Colombia, are the corrupt players in the war on drugs. As he lay dying, a cartel doctor was ordered to keep him alert by administering drugs.. We sell bronze life-size busts of Kiki that are unveiled in schools and libraries throughout the country, not just in San Diego. WebIn the acclaimed series Narcos, DEA Agent Steve Murphy (Boyd Holbrook) narrates how he and his partner, Javier Pea (Pedro Pascal) waged a years-long campaign against The Bogot agent then claimed that he had no idea the Florida agents had given the informants permission to transport the cocaine. Agents I know were able to vouch for my credibility and several individuals close to the prior investigations that uncovered corruption agreed to speak with me. Theyre well-versed, it was pretty neat working with them.". Kent details three further cases of extreme corruption in his memo, all involving Bogot DEA agents persecuting or conspiring to kill Colombian informants who threatened to bring down their activities. If they are true, there will be no brushing them aside at pre-scripted press conferences; everyone who becomes aware of these allegations will be forced to consider where we go from here in that so-called war. The investigation was halted. "It was so well-constructed and so well hidden, that had he gotten into it, we would still be looking for that caleta," he says of the "phenomenally well-made" closet built into the closet in the master bedroom. And although the charges raised by Kent in his 2004 memorandum have now passed before many eyes, they have still not been addressed in the light of day. The cracks in the lid DEA and OPR has attempted to place on this problem are getting bigger. ELN members and associates charged He was raised in California, graduating from Calexico High School in Calexico, California in 1966. The accurate depiction of the capturing of the Rodriguez brothers Gilberto (Damian Alcazar) and Miguel (Francisco Denis), who are currently serving life prison sentences after being extradited to the United States was also something Feistlrecounted in specific detail for the Narcos team. Though he wasn't on the rooftop until after Escobar was gunned down (a photo of Murphy posing with Escobar's corpse is easily searchable), he was the only one with a camera before the media arrived. But when the Florida agents arrived in Colombia, another Bogot DEA agent told them that the informant was going to stay in prison. Narcos viewers know Chris Feistl as the hungry DEA agent who helped dismantle the season-three villains, the Cali cartel. More From Oprah Daily The next installment of Narcos: Mexico picks up in 1985, after Camarena's death has changed everything for the DEA agents in Mexico, for the Guadalajara Cartel, and for the show itself. Though Narcos is a fictionalized version of events,showrunner Eric Newman has always said the chronology is on point. They changed their names but shortly after, their identities were discovered and Tata was arrested on suspicion of money laundering. But the OPR mysteriously ordered the polygrapher not to report on the test: He was instructed (to say) that the test never took place.. Kent says his claims are supported by a number of DEA agents in Florida who the agency muzzled and retaliated against after they tried to expose the corruption. Javier Pea: The DEA Agent Who Hunted Down Pablo Escobar. Thats how the North Valley tried to defeat, in their minds, extradition. The streamer has yet to comment on the status of Holbrook's Murphy, however, and both Murphy and Pena couldn't comment on their future involvement with the series when speaking to THR. Murphy (played by Boyd Holbrook) and Pena (played by Pedro Pascal) are the two agents responsible for taking down Pablo Escobar. 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", He continues, "One of the majors that we worked with, who we literally put our lives in his hands for an extended period of time, we later found out that he was collaborating with Los Pepes. They basically had anything that you could ever dream of. ", 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. A separate DEA group, also based in Florida, ran into trouble with the same DEA office in Bogot while investigating another Colombian narco-trafficking operation. "She actually talked to Eric [Newman] about it and said: 'Ive just got one bone to pick with you, I would have never left my husband there!' But we all know, thats not what he chose to do. "But we felt that he was still in Medellin or in the immediate area. 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. 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. Similar tales of corruption involving overseas DEA agents have surfaced in the past. Industries Crime and Terrorism There were no stipulations that he had to turn over any of his assets: He could have walked away a free man and never have had to work again. Instead, as in similar past cases, they have been buried in the contorted layers of the Justice Department bureaucracy. Eventually, the informant was released from prison and tried to start working with the Florida agents again, but an agent from the Bogot office traveled to Washington, D.C., and managed to convince DEA brass to derail the investigation. I thanked him numerous times for what he did, but I also told him that I dont know that I could have done what he did in that capacity. Updated at 12:51 p.m. Javier Pea is a DEA agent who worked alongside Steve Murphy during their hunt for Pablo Escobar. The episode begins in Bogota, Colombia in 1989, it is narrated by Steve Murphy. These charges blow away the smoke concealing the pretense of the war on drugs. Kiki was surrounded by five armed men who threw him into a car and sped away. Feistl explains that they were looking for one of the few insiders who had precise intelligence about the Cali godfathers and their whereabouts, and Salcedo saw the writing on the wall and was looking to get his family to safety. Fed up with the danger, she took the pair's adopted daughter and abruptly flew back to the United States. Sources told Narco News that these corruption allegations involve cases launched in 1999 or 2000, but which resulted in investigations that carried on for months or years. Each year we issue six scholarships to high school seniors throughout the nation. Whats the true story? Web"Descenso" is the first episode of Season 1 of Narcos and the first episode overall. Agents contacted the Bogot Country Office to discuss the informants planned travel and their bringing cocaine out of Colombia infused in acrylic, writes Kent. Netflixs hit series Narcos started out by following the story of infamous drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. They only travel a short distance, a few feet, but it strikes the body and leaves whats called powder burns. In addition to phone calls, where he says he mainly fielded questions to help solidify the timeline and accuracy of events,Stahl-David visited him at his home for several days. In real life, his name was Cesar Yusti. WebMurder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena was dark moment in 1980s drug war Killed by a cartel. "Ive heard Jorges version of what he believes happened. According to The Los Angeles Times, Camarenas murder led to the fall of Gallardo and his close associates and the fracturing of their cartel. To find out that he could have taken us out at any time he wanted to, we kind of attribute it to the grace of God. ), After Escobar's death on Dec. 2, 1993, Murphy and Pena were approached to bring their story to Hollywood. WebThats especially true when he and his partner go to take down Cockroach, only to have one of Escobars hitmen take him out first, killing another DEA agent in the process. WebSeven Colombian men are en route to the United States to face charges in the killing of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent in Bogota last year, federal officials have "Let me break it down for you: 4,000 soldiers, a 250-man team of Colombia's elite forces, tens of thousands of rounds fired, seven dogs and four fing helicopters. The previous seasons focused on the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar and the Cali Cartel. He was allowed to plead guilty to one crime and be absolved of every other crime he committed. The first season spanned more than a decade as it detailed the rise of Escobar, but the second focused on the 18 months between his escape from La Catedral prison and his eventual death. After this look at Javier Pea, find out why Escobars cousin Gustavo Gaviria may have been the real brains behind the cartel. "The only stipulation Javier and I have is: Whoever we do this with cannot in any way glorify Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel," Murphy recalls telling showrunner Eric Newman during a dinner in Washington, D.C. "We just hit it off. The Times noted that the bodies appeared to have been tortured and were found near a ranch in Michoacan state. Feistl says the depiction of the death of Miguel's son, David Rodriguez (played byArturo Castro), was accurate in the show. When we got together, it made the perfect storm," he says. When Pachoeventually surrendered in 1997, that's when Feistlleft Colombia. "Its very dangerous to draw a picture of someone as inhuman," he has said. In fact, says Kent, the agent was essentially promoted: That call has been documented by the DEA and that agent is now in charge of numerous narcotics and money laundering investigations., Kent, in the memorandum, also alleges that DOJ officials shut down a money laundering investigation because they discovered that it was linked to the alleged DEA corruption in Bogot. 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. During that 18 month period, there were 143 Colombian National Police Officers killed as a direct result of the manhunt for Escobar. "Juan Pablo writes that they were trumped-up charges and says they were dismissed." How much of 'Narcos' Season 2 really happened? Hes been in custody since 1989, however. Gallardo was sentenced to 37 years in 2017 for the death of Camarena by a Mexican court (as well as the murder of Alfredo Zavala, a Mexican pilot), according to The Times. 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. After news of Narcos' two-season renewal, Newman said the third season will focus on Escobar's successor, the Cali Cartel. Was he really abducted? A DEA agent in Bogot, it turns out, had told Colombian officials to lock them (the informants) up and throw away the key, according to Kent. "We had always heard that Tata sent Juan Pablo to Cali to talk to the Rodriguez brothers and say, 'Hey, its over, were sorry, can we live here without fear?'"