Original subtitles

[♪]

Gangs rule their territories through ruthless enterprises,

fear,

and a strict code.

Deviate from this code

or challenge their power...

and retribution soon follows...

especially for the world's first narco-terrorists,

the ultra-violent Medellín Cartel.

Here are three stories

that track the organization's astronomic rise

and calamitous fall.

First, the Medellín Cartel buys a piece of land

to create a billion-dollar global drug operation...

A trafficker purchasing an island to traffic cocaine.

That was unheard of.

[Narrator] Next, the cartel goes to war

with the Colombian government...

Pablo had a belief

that he could bring the government to its knees.

[Narrator] And last, the DEA joins the fight

and helps the Colombians back Pablo Escobar into a corner.

He knew that his enemies were near.

He was on his own with nowhere to go.

[automatic gunfire]

[Narrator] These are the stories

from inside the Medellín Cartel.

This is Gangland Chronicles.

1976.

Medellín, Colombia.

What will become

one of the world's most vicious criminal organizations

is born...

the Medellín Cartel.

[gunfire]

The cartel will rise

to dominate the world's cocaine market,

killing as many as 50,000 along the way.

These are folks that have no compunction

about murdering people to get what they want.

There's no remorse.

That's business.

[Narrator] The Medellín Cartel is led by several kingpins:

the enterprising Ochoa brothers,

paramilitary expert José Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha,

and Gustavo Gaviria,

the cousin of the cartel's infamous boss of bosses,

Pablo Escobar.

Pablo Escobar could be a charismatic-type person

to get what he wanted,

but he could turn evil in a heartbeat,

and you might be dead.

[Narrator] Escobar controls Medellín's bloodthirsty hitmen,

known as sicarios.

Their targets include law enforcement

and government officials who are given a stark choice.

Very famous word established by Pablo Escobar,

" Plata o plomo ,"

bullet or money.

[gunfire]

You either accept the bribe or you get killed.

Anybody who went against Escobar would die.

He was a well-rounded bad guy,

and I think cocaine became his lifeblood

in terms of profit,

and that's the direction he went.

[Narrator] With cocaine selling for $60,000 a kilo,

$400,000 today,

by the late 1970s, the Medellín Cartel is focused

on cornering the surging American market,

and the key to the U.S.

is an associate with a checkered past,

a pilot's license, and a wild idea.

1976.

Medellín.

After serving time in an American prison,

German-Colombian pilot Carlos Lehder

is deported back to Colombia.

When Lehder meets Pablo Escobar,

they both see an opportunity.

[Murphy] Carlos was able to introduce himself to Pablo

as an accomplished pilot

who could transport large loads of cocaine

from Colombia to the United States.

They gave him some test runs, it worked out great...

[Narrator] Escobar invites Lehder into the Medellín Cartel,

and they use Lehder's small airplane

to smuggle cocaine into Florida by the ton.

[Murphy] Carlos was willing to do back-to-back trips,

probably snorting coke to stay awake.

Carlos was loving it,

just making money hand over fist.

[Narrator] But delivering the huge volume of product this way

poses new problems.

[Murphy] One of the challenges

in flying an aircraft from Colombia to South Florida

is your fuel capacity.

[Narrator] The Medellín Cartel needs a Caribbean pitstop

that is under the radar of law enforcement.

[Murphy] Lo and behold, Carlos finds a place

in the Bahamas Island chain.

[Pobutsky] Norman's Cay is perfect,

because it's not a tourist destination,

it's isolated, it's small,

it has an airstrip, a small marina,

and it's surrounded by sharks.

[Narrator] Lehder scares off the locals

and buys up the entire island.

By 1978, Norman's Cay

is the Medellín Cartel's cocaine distribution hub.

[Pobutsky] Carlos Lehder not only enlarged the airstrip,

but he also bought a fleet of small planes,

and he became an incredibly useful member for the cartel.

[Narrator] But when the island

goes from smuggling hub to party location,

the DEA takes notice.

1981, Norman's Cay, Bahamas.

With over three tons of cocaine smuggled through the island,

the Medellín Cartel is now

the world's number-one cocaine supplier,

but Carlos Lehder's distribution center

is no longer a secret.

[Murphy] Carlos Lehder installs fuel tanks,

has a couple hangers built.

The armed guards were carrying AK 47 automatic rifles.

At the same time,

he is enjoying the fruits of his labor,

and this becomes known as a real party place.

Not only the operation became much more visible,

but also the behavior of Carlos Lehder

made it more outrageous to the entire world.

Because of that attention,

the Bahamian government came in and seized the island...

and it forced Carlos to flee.

[Pobutsky] Carlos burned down

basically everything on the island.

That was the end

of the most successful route of the Medellín Cartel

for four years.

[Narrator] Carlos Lehder returns to Colombia in 1982,

but his home country is no longer a safe haven.

The Colombian National Police

get a tip of where Carlos Lehder is located

and take him down, get him back to Bogotá,

where the DEA has a plane waiting,

and they immediately extradite him to the United States.

[Narrator] After moving on from Norman's Cay,

the Medellín Cartel finds new routes and new partners

to export more cocaine than they ever have before.

Pablo is organizing his drug distribution

through all the different fronts.

Colombia, central America, the Caribbean,

and Pablo was declared

as the number-one trafficker in Colombia.

[Narrator] The Medellín kingpins are raking in $4 billion a year,

12 billion today,

and living the lifestyle that goes along with it.

[Murphy] Pablo offered to pay the national debt of Colombia

two different times, billions of dollars.

That's how wealthy this guy was.

[Narrator] But Pablo Escobar wants more than wealth.

He wants power...

and if he can't take it legally, he'll take it by force.

1982. Colombia.

Pablo Escobar wins a seat

in Colombia's Chamber of Representatives.

His goal is to use political power

to influence Colombia's laws

on extradition for drug traffickers.

He really believed at some point

he could legitimize himself

and be a national treasure in terms of business

and all the economic things he brought to the country.

[Murphy] No one in the Medellín Cartel

wanted Pablo to run for Congress.

They didn't want the additional attention

that that was going to bring.

[Narrator] But within months, Escobar is thrown out

after Attorney General Rodrigo Lara Bonilla

exposes his criminal activities.

A disgraced Escobar vows revenge.

On April 30, 1984,

Escobar sends his sicarios after the Attorney General.

His car was stopped in traffic.

A motorcycle pulls up with two riders,

the guy on the back shoots

and assassinates him in the back of his car.

[Narrator] In response to Lara Bonilla's assassination,

the Colombian government moves to extradite Escobar to America.

There is a saying, "Better die in Colombia

than rot in prison of the United States."

That's when Escobar decided to declare war on his own country.

[Narrator] Through the mid to late 1980s,

the Medellín Cartel kills

hundreds of police officers, judges, journalists...

and anyone else who gets in their way.

[Pobutsky] Escobar made his choice to use terrorism

to intimidate not just the state,

but the entire society.

[Narrator] Then Pablo Escobar

plots his most audacious terrorist act yet...

a hit on presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán.

[Murphy] Luis Carlos Galán,

his platform was pro extradition.

"Let's do something about the narcos in our country

that are causing all the murders."

He was going to be the next president of Colombia.

[Narrator] Galán knows the Medellín Cartel is after him,

but he's determined to attend a campaign rally.

As he walks out on stage in front of 10,000 people...

shots ring out.

August 18, 1989.

Soacha, Colombia.

Presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán,

enemy of Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel,

takes the stage at a campaign rally.

Pablo's sicarios were there waiting on him.

[automatic gunfire]

They shoot him there on stage.

Several other people were wounded.

They tried to get Luis Carlos Galán in the car

to get him to hospital.

He didn't make it through the night.

[Narrator] The Medellín Cartel

then targets Galán's replacement,

Cesar Gaviria,

by putting a bomb on an airplane.

Gaviria was not on board,

but the bomb kills 110 people.

This absolutely terrified the nation

and the support for Escobar, if there was any,

was really weakening

with how he was killing everybody indiscriminately.

[Narrator] Fueled by public anger,

Gaviria wins the 1990 election in a landslide,

and now the Colombian government is out for blood,

systematically going after the Medellín Cartel's leaders.

December 15, 1989.

Cartel kingpin José Rodriguez Gacha

is killed during a police operation.

A few months later,

Gustavo Gaviria is gunned down in a shootout.

The Ochoa brothers go into hiding.

With the Medellín Cartel leadership crumbling,

Pablo Escobar makes a surprising move.

[Pena] Pablo Escobar calls up the governor of Colombia

and says, "Mr. President, this is Pablo Escobar,

and I am willing to self-surrender."

[Narrator] In exchange for not being extradited,

Pablo Escobar agrees to serve five years in prison,

with certain conditions.

He will imprison himself in his own prison,

built and protected by his own people.

[Peña] It was no prison.

It was a country club atmosphere

where Pablo had his own apartment,

had his color-coordinated curtains,

giant TVs.

He was living in luxury.

The government got a political cushion

where they felt they had put a bad guy in jail,

and Pablo got the ability to continue his business,

live the way he wanted, and most importantly,

if he served his term, he was free.

[Narrator] But when Pablo Escobar

takes advantage of his light prison sentence,

the country comes after him... and the cartel.

July 22, 1992.

Envigado, Colombia.

Less than a year into his prison sentence,

Pablo Escobar savagely murders two associates

at his custom-built jail...

He thought they were stealing from him.

[screaming]

[Pobutsky] They were tortured, killed,

and cut into pieces and allegedly barbecued.

That outraged the associates from the Medellín Cartel

because they realized he now goes after everybody,

not just his enemies, but his own people.

So that shifted not only the thought process

of the Colombians and the government,

but also the world's view of what was going on down there.

[Murphy] When we found out about it,

the United States Embassy went to President Gaviria

and said, "Something's got to be done."

[Narrator] President Gaviria

orders him to be moved to a state prison,

but with the help of his sicarios,

Escobar escapes.

The Colombian government has no choice but to respond,

and this time, American DEA agents join the fight.

For the next 18 months, Javier and I live in Medellín

with the Colombian National Police.

Their only objective was to find, capture,

and or/kill Pablo Escobar.

[Narrator] But the Medellín Cartel

soon has more than the Colombian government

and the DEA after them.

1993. Medellín, Colombia.

Supported by U.S. law enforcement,

the Colombian National Police wages an all-out assault

on Pablo Escobar's Medellín Cartel.

We started raiding his money launderers in Medellín and Miami

where we were picking up financial records, accounts,

and then we started seizing all this money

in the United States and in Europe.

First time in history

where we're dismantling a whole organization,

which had never been done before.

[Narrator] At the same time,

a new enemy is giving the Medellín Cartel

a taste of its own medicine.

In early '93, a group comes along

that everybody now knows as Los Pepes,

and Pepes stands for "People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar."

[Narrator] Los Pepes, a vigilante group

made up of relatives

of the Medellín Cartel's many victims

and members of the rival Cali Cartel,

make it their mission to destroy what is left

of the Medellín's once powerful organization.

[gunfire]

[Murphy] They would administer their own form of justice,

in the form of a bullet in the head.

The accountants, the lawyers, the hitmen...

all the inner circle of Escobar was attacked.

[Narrator] With Gaviria and Gaucha dead,

and the other kingpins behind bars,

by 1993, Escobar

is all that's left of the cartel's leadership.

The Medellín Cartel was basically gone.

Pablo Escobar had to feel utterly isolated,

because he was the last man standing.

Pablo was a bad guy, a bandit,

a bandido, whatever you want to call him,

from day one.

His view of the world

was either domination, or you're going to kill me,

and that characteristic

is really what did him in in the end,

because there was nowhere for him to go.

[Narrator] December 1, 1993.

Without any money, and his cartel in shambles,

Pablo Escobar spends his 44th birthday

in a safe house hidden somewhere in Medellín.

His gift to himself

is to stay on the phone with his family...

allowing American Intelligence

to pinpoint the neighborhood where Escobar is hiding.

We're starting to intercept his phone calls.

Escobar would talk to his son every day at 5:00,

and by now, they're starting to hone in on Pablo Escobar.

[Narrator] The next day,

the Colombian police flood the neighborhood

with a full-scale ground search.

Then, in a second-floor window of a house,

they spot Escobar, virtually alone.

[Murphy] When Escobar was finally located,

we expected him to have a full army.

He was down to one.

That shocked everybody.

[Narrator] A shootout ensues

between the bodyguard and authorities.

As Escobar flees across the rooftop of his hideout...

he is shot dead by police.

[Murphy] The death of Pablo Escobar

marked the end of the Medellín Cartel,

and it's the first time

that an entire cocaine

production and distribution cartel

had been completely dismantled and eliminated.

[Narrator] But the Medellín Cartel's legacy

is a blueprint for cocaine export that many have followed.

Somebody gets arrested,

there's another person

that's willing to take over their business,

and it's still going on right now.

Colombia continues

to be associated with drug trafficking

when they would prefer

the victims to be appreciated and remembered

rather than the victimizers.

The nation, to this day,

is living through the trauma of drug trafficking

caused by Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel.