Meet the DEA agents who captured Pablo Escobar

Steve Murphy and Javier Peña on what it took to hunt down one of the world's most dangerous criminal masterminds - and the day the Colombia National Police "took their country back"

Pablo Escobar may have been one of the world's most wanted criminals who died more than 25 years ago in 1993 - but the legends surrounding his life and reign over a multi-billion-dollar drug empire continue to capture and fire up the imagination today. Not least because of the hugely popular Netflix show Narcos, that has, for the last two years, fleshed out his story in dramatic detail. And the legends are many. How he once torched two million dollars in cash to keep his daughter warm. How he 'served time' at his own luxury, custom-built jail, then walked out of it with his henchmen when he caught wind of a plan to move him to an army barracks jail. How he was responsible for 80 per cent of the cocaine that found its way to the US in those days.
Escobar's real-life story culminated in a high-octane chase and shootout across rooftops in Medellín, Colombia, which ended with his death and the complete, subsequent collapse of his cartel in the weeks that followed. Keeping that sensational story current are Steve Murphy and Javier Peña, the two ex-DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) operatives who led the manhunt for the drug lord - and who will be 'retelling history' at their talk 'Capturing Pablo' in Dubai next week. WKND caught up with the affable duo, who seem quite keen to direct the narrative of 'how it all went down'. Excerpts from the interview:

Pablo Escobar was viewed by different people in different ways: the poor respected him, the government vilified him, his enemies hated him. After studying him for so long, what is your understanding of the man who became known as 'The King of Cocaine'?
Javier: It's true that people viewed him in different ways. For example, you're going to hear that he was a Robin Hood. We don't agree. Yes, he gave money to the poor, built homes, but he always expected something in return.
Steve: We're hesitant to give him credit for anything positive, but he did display somewhat of a charismatic personality. This image of Pablo Escobar as some kind of Robin Hood, however, is absolutely not true, because all those people he helped out, he expected them to step forward and pay back - even if it meant killing other people or dying for him. Some people looked up to him as a god or saviour - but he was just a master manipulator.

How did someone so heavily hunted manage to evade capture for almost 18 months? That must have been really frustrating.
J: It was frustrating. Pablo Escobar was really good at hiding. There were several times we were extremely close. many times when the coffee was still hot, and there was still food at the table where he'd sat down to eat - but, remember, he had a lot of help. People used to hide him, tip him off if they saw something suspicious. If we used a chopper, you could obviously hear it coming in from five minutes away; he had lookouts who would tell him there was a convoy coming for him. He was protected by ordinary citizens.

Do you remember the day Pablo was killed and where both of you were at the time?
J: I was not there at the time. The ambassador had sent me to go talk to an informant in Miami, USA. I tried to argue, because we knew we were very close to [capturing] him, but I was ordered to go anyway. The informant was the one who told me that he'd just been killed.
S: I was in Medellín that day. The show Narcos portrays me as being on the rooftop at the time he was killed, but that's not true. I was at the police base and, after he was killed, I rode out to the site with Colonel Hugo Martínez. So, that's a little literary licence that the writers used in Narcos.

Did you know December 2, 1993, was the day you'd close in or did the news take you by surprise?
S: We didn't know that. The person who found Pablo Escobar was actually Col. Martínez's son, Lt. Martínez. That's the day Pablo was calling his son, Juan, with instructions to call the government and the press, because he was ready to declare war against the government for the third time. That day, he stayed on the phone too long. Lt. Martínez was very proficient at using the equipment that helped locate Pablo's phone, so he's the one who found Pablo that day.

Did either of you have regrets about not being present during the takedown, considering this was the biggest case of both your lives, and how much you'd invested in it over the years?
J: Yeah, well, obviously, we'd have liked to have been there. Nevertheless, it was a victory for the government of Colombia and justice had been served.
S: It actually worked out for the best. We were there at the invitation of the government of Colombia. We had no jurisdiction in that country; we were only there to support them. The Colombia National Police, who conducted that final operation, are the true heroes. I think Javier's character says it very well in the show; he says: "The Colombia National Police took their country back."

One of the things you made clear in agreeing to work on Narcos was that, in no way, could the show be allowed to 'glorify' Pablo Escobar. Why were you so insistent on this clause?
S: There are people out there who look up to criminals as heroes. Over the course of our investigation, we attributed about 10,000 to 15,000 murders of innocent people to Pablo Escobar. There are other estimates that peg the number even higher: at over 50,000. We certainly didn't want anyone to make this guy a hero, when he's nothing more than a mass murderer. Unless you count that he was also the world's most wanted criminal, the inventor of narcoterrorism (we'd never even heard of such a thing before him), and a paedophile (he met his wife when she was 13 and they got married shortly after). His list of crimes goes on and on. He's certainly no one anybody should look up to as a hero.

Yet, so many fans of the show can't help but come away with some sort of admiration for one of the biggest drug lords of all time. What would you say to that?
S: You know, we've been asked that before, but we attribute that to the actor who portrays Pablo in the show. Wagner Moura is a phenomenal actor. In fact, when I was watching Season 2, even I felt a bit sorry for Pablo! But it's not because of the way the show's been written. It's because of how Wagner portrayed his role. He was able to bring that emotion [of sympathy] out in people.

Director Eric Newman has, in the past, spoken of his reluctance to "draw a picture of someone as inhuman" on screen - even villains like Pablo. Did you, at any point in your investigation, feel some sort of empathy for the human side of Pablo - or was he always a monster to you?
J: There's always a human side. He had a family and was always looking out for them; we respected that. But, at the same time, how can you be a family man and set off bombs, where you're killing innocent women and children? There's the difference right there.

What do you think about [Pablo's brother] Roberto Escobar's current rhetoric, threatening Narcos' producers and demanding a $1 billion payout for "for unauthorised usage of content"?
[Both laugh] J: Well, that's on him. He can do whatever he wants, but we would encourage people to come to the shows in Dubai, where we will talk about history, and what actually happened.
S: Absolutely, we can't wait to get there.

Which version do you believe?
As can only be expected from an operation as large-scale and sensational as the capture of Pablo Escobar, there is more than one version of events doing the rounds. While the official version steadfastly maintains that the Colombia National Police took the drug kingpin down, it's worth looking into what Pablo's son, Juan Pablo (pictured above with his books), has to say on the matter. In his book, Pablo Escobar, My Father - and subsequent interviews - Juan (who now goes by the name Sebastián Marroquín) insists his father "wanted to be found" and that he was "trying to commit suicide" that day in order to finally give his family some measure of safety and security. Juan asserts that his father always taught them not to use telephones, because they were "death". It's why he's certain that when Pablo insisted on calling him more than seven times on the day he died, that he wanted to be found. He also claims his father taught him to commit suicide by a gunshot to the right ear - so they could avoid torture at the hands of the police or their enemies. Pablo Escobar went down in a hail of bullets on December 2, 1993. The fatal shot that was said to have killed him was one to the right ear.

The agents are coming to town!
Javier Peña and Steve Murphy will be hosting a two-day show, titled 'Capturing Pablo', at The Auditorium, Dubai College, on October 5 and 6. The limited-seating show will "reveal exclusive insights and untold truths that fans have never heard before", followed by a Q&A session with the audience. Platinum Seating tickets are priced at Dh350 and Gold Seating tickets at Dh275, available on www.117live.com.
karen@khaleejtimes.com