English. Camarena served in the Marines for two years, was a firefighter and police officer and deputy sheriff in California, and then joined the DEA in 1974. Wikimedia Commons1977 mugshot of Pablo Escobar. "If you do that, you deny the human side of these guys, which is what allows them to happen.". "Ive heard Jorges version of what he believes happened. I hated to see Maurices character get killed, but it was very exciting. Zavala was helping Camarena in his undercover operations, The LA Times reported. And so with Pablo Escobar dead, Javier Pea left Colombia and went on to continue his successful career with the DEA before retiring in 2014. "Its very dangerous to draw a picture of someone as inhuman," he has said. This guy got the deal of a lifetime from the government of Colombia. Then, learn about the bloody campaign that Escobar and Los Extraditables waged against Colombias extradition treaty with the United States. WebThe real-life 'Narcos' agents who helped bring down Pablo Escobar say their anger toward the notorious drug lord has not faded after 25 years - and painted a bleak picture of the 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. Season two of 'Narcos' takes place in the early 1990's, around the same time of Escobar's death. 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. "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. Mika Camarena, whose given name is Geneva Camarena, was high school sweethearts with Kiki. Pablo Escobar had a suite, Murphy later remembered. 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. ", 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. Dont get involved and stay away from this kind of life. he says. DEA agent Steve Murphy joins the war on drugs in Bogota. There were ten to fifteen car bombs on a daily basis, Pea later said. Authorities pose with Pablo Escobar just after this death. Updated at 12:51 p.m. Search Bloc targeted people close to Escobar and turned them into informants. "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. WebIn March 1985, the DEA recovered the body of Kiki Camarena, 37, who left behind Mika and three children named Enrique, Daniel, and Erik. Who was the real Kiki Camarena? Camarena opens the show in a scene that shows hes been abducted. Born in 1948, Pea was raised in Texas before joining the DEA. Will they step up to the plate on this story, given their penchant for adhering to the standard drug-war script? The Hollywood Reporter is a part of Penske Media Corporation. Javier Pea: The DEA Agent Who Hunted Down Pablo Escobar. He spent four years in Mexico tracking the countrys drug dealers (the drugs of choice were marijuana and cocaine back then.). 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. "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. When he got there it was like, 'Wow, Hes here to take care of business.' The real Steve Murphy and Javier Pena discuss what is true and what is fiction, and shed insight on Season 3. 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. "With this one, you had to pull the four or five drawers out from the built-in dresser and that would access the back door so you could swing the door open, get into it, lock it from the outside and then someone on the outside would put the drawers back in. In between, he worked in Miami against Colombian traffickers and in Washington, D.C., in the Mexico and Central America section targeting Mexican groups between 1997 and 1999. Amazingly, Gallardo was only recently sentenced in the death (hed been sentenced before but a retrial was ordered; he never left prison after 1989, though). The cracks in the lid DEA and OPR has attempted to place on this problem are getting bigger. "That really opened our eyes to the corruption that we were dealing with there.". Whats more, the police werent allowed anywhere near the prison. He was sentenced to five years in his custom-built prison, which was a resort. WebA location manager was shot and killed when scouting locations in the north of Mexico city for this last season 4. And what of the mainstream-media guardians of our liberty? Escobar died Dec. 2, 1993, in a shootout with Colombian police and American DEA agents. When a gun is held close to any part of your body and a bullet is fired, little pieces of gun powder come out. Thats where his stronghold was and given his situation, I cant imagine he would leave that area. "We never signed him up as a DEA informant, but he was at the base and I could always tell there was something weird," he says, adding that after Escobar's death, Don Berna went on to become a trafficker and is now in prison in the United States. "The Cali cartel had that vision that 'sooner or later, this corridor is going to get hot and we might need to shift focus.' There's stuff in there that's never been told. ]", Connie, whom Steve calls "one of the bravest women I've ever met," actually stayed at their home in Bogota while the agent spent most of the 18 months covered on season two hunting Escobar from Medellin. Over the next few years, Pea and the Colombian police played a cat-and-mouse game with Escobar, tapping his phones and trying to turn his criminal associates against him. During the 1980s, Pena and Murphy were sent to collaborate with the Colombian Search Bloc in its war against drug traffickers such as Pablo Escobar, often contacting the CIA and Colombian police to help in their operations. The memo further claims that, rather than being simply a few bad apples who need to be reported to their superiors, these allegedly dirty agents are being protected by an ongoing cover-up orchestrated by watchdog agencies within the Justice Department. To this day, no one is sure who fired the fatal shot. Well just send everything that we have through Mexico.' Javier had been there three years before me. ", 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.". "He wanted to ensure he could do the best job possible based on the information that he had," says the agent about the inquisitive actor, who got a crash-course from Feistl during the home visit before shooting. Pablo Escobar was surrounded in the middle of fin' nowhere. We have no reason to disbelieve them. To maintain his hold on the cocaine trade, Escobar had to make it clear that he would kill anyone who crossed him, including judges and government officials. But the truth, like water, always brings the scum to the surface. In the 1970s and 1980s, Pablo Escobar held the country of Colombia in an iron grip as he and his Medelln Cartel terrorized the nation with a wave of killings and constant bombings in support of their drug trade. You have to understand, the search for Escobar was purely revenge. And Im going to be serving my county, serving this community in a different way., Kiki Camarena spent three years in Calexico for the DEA before he was assigned to the agencys Fresno office and then to Mexico, where he worked out of its office in Guadalajara. This was obviously a big mistake on the part of the drug traffickers. He was allowed to plead guilty to one crime and be absolved of every other crime he committed. 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 US reexamines murder of federal agent featured in Such a debriefing, based on what I learned in a few hours, would take days. When we got together, it made the perfect storm," he says. What she was able to tell me was that he was a guy that just wanted to do good. One week after submitting the (information) to OPR, the money laundering investigation was shut down.. "Michael would also call me while he was down there and we would talk over certain parts of the script. I saw the bullet hole in the side of Pablos head, I saw no signs whatsoever of the powder burns on his face. 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. 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). On the show, Feistl's inner torture of catching Miguel but also keeping Salcedo's"rat" identity a secret is something that is well-captured. "We tend to say he was a Robin Hood guy because he took some of his ill-gotten gain and helped the poor, but thats all fantasy," he says. So he and his partner used Salcedo's intel to approach Pallomari's wife, Patricia, at her workplace and explain that Cali had a hit out on her husband. And thats what Ive been doing up until yesterday. The show, in both seasons 1 and 2, traces the growth of the drug trade, moving the series setting from Colombia to Guadalajara, Mexico. 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. Eric took it in good stride. 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. She lived like a queen.". 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. 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. The acrylic was then shipped to the United States and Europe where, during processing, the cocaine was extracted from the acrylic.. ", The family did ultimately leave Colombia for Argentina. (The DEA is part of the larger Justice Department. "Pablo really was a manipulator. Part of the reason it was so hard to catch Escobar was that he was willing to kill anyone who came after him. DEA "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. On the show, the character is And while the show makes Pea and Murphy out to be the heroes of the story, Pea insists that it was the Colombian police who deserve the real credit. NARCOS: MEXICO Official Trailer "Agent Kiki Camarena" (HD) Michael Pena Series, SUBSCRIBE for more TV Trailers HERE: goo.gl/TL21HZ He gave his life for his work. Ive heard him say before that getting his story out is his way of telling people that if youre confronted with a potentially bad situation, just say 'no.' "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!' 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. He was gunned down by a North Valley member. In later years, DEA agent James Kuykendall, who was Camarenas supervisor in Guadalajara, has spoken out about the CIA and the Kiki Camarena murder. We are helping law enforcement get the word out about drugs to our youth, parents and schools., Kiki Camarenas son, Enrique Camarena is now a judge in California after serving as a deputy district attorney for years. 2023 The Hollywood Reporter, LLC. WebOne mystery that still remains is the murder of the sicario Navegante (Juan Sebastian Calero) on Narcos. According to Kent, these offices which are supposed to serve as watchdog agencies that investigate corruption sabotaged investigations being carried out by the Florida DEA agents and by one of the OIGs own agents. They made startling revelations concerning DEA agents in Bogot, Kent writes. Eventually, the pressure on Escobar from authorities grew so great that he actually decided to surrender, but on a condition: He should get to build his own prison. The Hollywood Reporter is a part of Penske Media Corporation. ", Pena adds of Escobar's final days: "He was running out of money and he was running out of time. [Laughs. Javier Pea stands near a Colombian National Police helicopter. Feistl says the depiction of the death of Miguel's son, David Rodriguez (played byArturo Castro), was accurate in the show. It is the series premiere. All Rights Reserved. (The 1999 charges were dismissed, according to a BBC News report, and not much is known about her life beyond that point.). WebBest Known For: DEA agents Steve Murphy and Javier Pena were lead investigators in the manhunt for Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. 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. BOGOTA, Colombia A DEA agent has died in an apparent robbery attempt in Colombia, U.S. "I was able to get a phone number for Jorge and I called him one day and I basically said, 'Hey, I understand you might want to do the right thing and cooperate with us.' But by the 1970s, he had discovered that the real money was in cocaine. The money goes toward scholarships. Pena had a long One mystery that still remains is the murder of the sicario Navegante(Juan Sebastian Calero) on Narcos. So when you walked back in, it looked just like a dresser. Pena was called away for a daylong assignment, but Murphy was on the scene the day they caught Escobar. He had a living room, a kitchen in one room, and the other consisted of a master bedroom and an office combination. The FARC (Spanish initials for Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the largest leftist insurgent group in that countrys civil war, accused by U.S. officials of drug and arms trafficking) was supposedly interested in buying communications equipment from him. ET. How much of 'Narcos' Season 2 really happened? The Bogot agent was called on his claim and could not provide any evidence. The agent then switched tactics, arguing that the DEA could not work with the informant because the FARC might end up with the communications equipment. Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter. Newman said he did not contact the brothers about the show. Escobar had access to every comfort whilst inside. 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. Indirectly, they (the CIA) have got to take some of the blame. He alleged the CIA protected the DFS for decades, and stated, The DFS just got out of hand., Kiki Camarena Death: The Real Story of the DEA Agents Murder, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. WebJune 21, 2013 / 12:51 PM / AP. If anyone deserved to be there when they killed Escobar, it was him.. I think it was really beneficial to them to see that lay of land and see what we were working then.". Instead, as in similar past cases, they have been buried in the contorted layers of the Justice Department bureaucracy. 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. 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. The investigation continued until the informant was faxed a document that identified him as a DEA informant on the FARC. The following is from a 2004 report prepared for Congress by the Congressional Research Service: Kent contends, in the memorandum, that during the wiretap, the corrupt Bogot DEA agent discusses his involvement in laundering money for the AUC. But despite being caught on tape admitting to helping the most murderous political force in the hemisphere today to launder the money from their extensive drug trafficking operations, the agent faced no punishment. "There was a lot of corruption," says Murphy. Escobar himself quickly became one of the richest men in the world. Javier Pea and Steve Murphy sit outside of La Catedral following Pablo Escobars escape. We need to make sure we get him out.' ", As for the photographs in which he and other members of the Colombian police are smiling while posing with Escobar's dead body, Murphy says,"The reason I was smiling is because we knew, effective that moment, every citizen in Colombia was safer simply because one man died. Judy Moncada (Cristina Umana) was a major player in the alliance of enemies who formed to take down Escobar, until her own partners took her out. Given the pretense that defines the war on drugs, Kents memorandum (which basically rewrites the script of that war) is not likely to be a hot seller in Washington, D.C., anytime soonabsent pressure from a major media blitz. I explained that anything with addresses, phone numbers, bank accounts, any links to different countries or in the United States were all useful.". Trujillo, who is based on a personwhose name has been changed, is also the Colombian cop who ends up pulling the final trigger on Escobar in the season finale. The episode begins in Bogota, Colombia in 1989, it is narrated by Steve Murphy. "At that point in time, Jorge was barricaded up inside of his house with his wife and family for fear they were going to come looking for him to try to kill them," says Feistl. The book alleges that DEA officers investigating Camarenas death knew that the drug agents murder was a joint operation between the drug cartel and the DFS, an agency with intimate ties to the CIA., Kuykendall said, The CIA didnt give a damn about anything but Cuba and the Soiets. Eventually, they did and used him as an asset andPallomari, too, is now in U.S. witness protection. 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.
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