Thematically and narratively, having Murphy right there when Escobar is finally eliminated makes perfect sense. Most of Narcos' poetic license is used to make real events more interesting, but not this time. In 2010, the DEA and the International Association of Chiefs of Police released a report providing key arguments against drug legalization. Local DEA officials could not recall any Los Angeles-based agent ever having been killed. He fled the cab but collapsed a short distance away. During the search, Task Force Officer Arnold was shot multiple times and rushed to a hospital. He had family connections to the darker sides of Colombia's military, connections that saw him spearhead an attempt in the late 1980s to assassinate FARC's leadership. How to Become a DEA Agent The DEA's hiring process can take up to 12 months, so aspiring DEA agents should be on the lookout for job announcements on the agency's official website. And in such an evolving industry, tomorrow is always today. But the real Murphy at least felt she was a willing part of the narco lifestyle, telling The Hollywood Reporter, "She knew, just like his mother, what he was doing. A locked padlock In one passage, first highlighted by the Republic Report, the report set out to combat what it called the "myth" that "prohibition didnt work in the 20s and it doesnt work now." Working as a federal narcotics agent has always been dangerous, but never more so as in recent years, DEA officials said Friday. In both cases, officials claimed the suspects were armed and refusing to surrender, but the episodes nonetheless underscored emerging concerns about the DEA's respect for Honduran sovereignty. Part of HuffPost Politics. HuffPost's top politics stories, straight to your inbox. Rather than doing so under Escobar's orders, M19 attacked the Palace of Justice after President Betancur violated a ceasefire agreement with the group. But there is one area where TV Pablo is shown to have something like morals: his family. As showrunner Eric Newman admitted: "Did she consider trying to get him to surrender? Lock The DEA is also actively involved with law enforcement agencies at the state and local level. He dies then and there, lamented by no one. Even if you're an actual Spanish person from Spain, you may have only clocked that the accents sound a little iffy. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. It may not be as narratively satisfying as having their characters go back to the simple life, but it's probably more lucrative. As played by Wagner Moura, Narcos' Escobar is a guy who wants power, pleasure and money, and will go to horrific lengths to obtain them. When they started out, they were practically brothers. Like Cali, they knew where to hit to make Escobar squeal. In reality, Navegante was a guy called Cesar Yusti, and he was probably as violent as his fictional version. Secure .gov websites use HTTPSA lock ( Read more >, On November 19, 2008, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Samuel S. Hicks was tragically shot and killed during a joint DEA, FBI, and Pittsburgh Police Department operation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It's a way for Narcos to explore two different types of drug dealers, and it helps explain the animosity between the two cartels. Secure .gov websites use HTTPSA lock ( United States. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Police. Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Terry Watson was murdered on June 21, 2013, during a robbery attempt in Bogota, Colombia. Murphy's presence isn't the only thing off with Narcos' portrayal of Escobar's death. She was released in 2004 and deported to Colombia. DEA agents may organize counter-drug operations in concert with federal law enforcement agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement, FBI, or the Food and Drug Administration. Before Friday, the last DEA member to die was Arthur L. Cash, 39, special agent in charge of the DEAs office in Sierra Vista, Ariz. Cashs car was hit head-on by a truck in August, 1987, as he transported three prisoners from Bisbee to Tucson. Drug poisoning killed more than 70,000 Americans in 2017, which is steep . His men gunned down, Carrillo is finally shot through the head personally by Pablo Escobar. An official website of the United States government. Base Salary. We challenge each other, collaborate and come together, just as a family does; winning as a team and celebrating as one too. U.S. officials say they've identified and infiltrated the Mexican drug organization that's largely responsible for the fentanyl crisis killing tens of thousands of . From Colombia to Afghanistan and from Los Angeles to New York, DEA agents, investigators, analysts, chemists, lawyers, and support staff all work . The two only drifted when Escobar started attacking the Colombian state, something Cali worried would spark a confrontation they couldn't win. [20] This wasn't to protect them. , On August 6, 2015, Washington State Patrol Detective and Drug Enforcement Administration Task Force Officer Brent L. Hanger was participating in a joint WSP and DEA marijuana eradication effort on public lands outside of Yakima, Washington. Admitting that it is, in fact, less harmful could have been especially awkward for Leonhart, considering the DEA at the time was in the midst of an aggressive crackdown on medical marijuana facilities. But Connie stayed in Bogota even in the last, desperate 18 months that Search Bloc was tracking Escobar through the slums of Medellin. An official website of the United States government. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. In April 1990, the Medellin cartel blew up the Martinez family apartment. We have the war on drugs to thank for these. But the real Pablo was way less of a family man than Netflix makes out. The family later filed a lawsuit claiming the DEA's actions constituted "intentional infliction of emotional distress.". Murphy worked in Miami for four years, much of it undercover, before the DEA transferred him to Bogota, Colombia. Eww. In Narcos, Murphy simply leaves Colombia and is never heard from again. Unsurprisingly given the series' genre, that relationship is a classic informer/informant one, with Don Berna slowly feeding Pena information that benefits both the DEA, and psychopathic paramilitary group Los Pepes. The number of people they kill in grotesque ways as part of Los Pepes is up there with any old school slasher movie. As you've probably guessed, though, there's no evidence that Tata was anything but totally onboard with what Pablo was doing. DEA corruption was particularly rampant in the late 1980s. This is part one of a two-part series. Tanks blasted the palace with shells. It also banned agents from using force, except where lives were threatened. So the showrunners compromised. Narcos is clear that Pablo Escobar is one bad dude. This disgusting habit infected Escobar's home life, too. Read more >, On August 28, 2008, while attending the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, Special Agent Thomas J. Byrne was severely beaten and mugged while walking to his hotel. When the Mexican cartel offers Pacho the chance to turn on his old employers, Pacho turns them down, saying the Cali godfathers never ostracized him for his sexuality. Domestic Cannabis Suppression / Eradication Program, Red Ribbon Toolkit - Resources For Your Community, DEA National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, Intelligence Research Specialist Job Announcements, Schedule A Hiring Authority: Intelligence Research Specialist, Privacy Impact Assessment and Management Information Systems, Victim Witness Assistance Program Resources. Open Tuesday - Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Every month DEA remembers those who made the ultimate sacrifice for drug law enforcement and the nation. DEA Special Agent Mike Garbo in an undated photo. Read part two here. When his children saw news reports about horrific bomb attacks, Escobar would openly tell them, "I planted that bomb." With the Cali cartel falling apart at the seams, mole Jorge Salcedo is forced to return to the city where everyone wants him dead. The age of consent in Colombia is 14, but still. Luis Guzman, who played Jos Gonzalo Rodrguez Gacha in season one, just stuck with his Puerto Rican accent. Read more >, Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Rickie C. Finley was killed on May 20, 1989, in a plane crash as he was returning from a jungle operation to a base camp in Lima, Peru. He said law enforcement is a dangerous profession, investigating the most serious violent offenders, but as of late its been more dangerous. He was the only person prosecuted as a result of the failed sting. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. In 2012, 24-year-old Daniel Chong was detained by DEA agents in San Diego after his friend's house was targeted by a drug raid. Despite once being the biggest rebel group in Colombia, FARC is curiously absent from Narcos. Nearly a month later, their bodies, showing evidence of extreme torture, were found in Zamora, Mexico. ) or https:// means youve safely connected to the .gov website. At A+E Networks EMEA, we share stories that matter. Last Updated September 2, 2017, 6:30 AM. After transporting drug evidence seized by the Kansas City District Office to the DEA Laboratory in Chicago, Illinois, he was en route to St. Louis, Missouri, to return the DEA aircraft. Another case from two decades ago suggests that DEA corruption hasn't always been so blatant. On October 4, 2021, Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Michael G. Garbo, investigators from DEAs Phoenix Field Division, and Tucson Police Department officers were conducting interdiction operations on an Amtrak train in Tucson, Arizona. And its with just as much passion that we strive to gain new audiences with our creativity and by using innovative technology, by partnering with leading and emerging local platforms. The agents' actions nearly got an informant killed, according to reports. Borrowing a tie, he goes to spend his first day as a representative, only to be denounced as a narco. Its main argument was that the 18th Amendment didn't go far enough to restrict the manufacturing and consumption of alcohol at the onset of Prohibition. If you're a native English speaker, chances are you've never paid much attention to the accents in Narcos, beyond thinking, "Yep, that sure sounds like Spanish." Perhaps the most notorious killing of a DEA agent occurred in February, 1985, when Enrique S. Camarena was kidnaped outside the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara. Among the most prominent was David, the violent son of Cali godfather Miguel Rodriguez. The far smaller M-19 (pictured) gets far more attention, and when FARC does turn up in season three, the group is described as being made up of "farmers" who are good at kidnapping but otherwise a negligible part of the drug scene. Read more >, On January 26, 2016, Stephen C. Arnold, a detective with the Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, Sheriffs Office and a Drug Enforcement Administration task force officer, was executing a federal search warrant at a residence in New Orleans with investigators from DEAs New Orleans Field Division. Salary Expectations for DEA Agents. The DEA was established in 1973 ostensibly to consolidate drug enforcement activities into a "superagency" that would bring together federal drug enforcement resources. A law known as the Mansfield amendment, introduced by Senator Mike Mansfield and passed by Congress in 1975, prohibited DEA personnel to even be present at the scene of an arrest outside the U.S. Honduran police initially called the mission a success, but an investigation by journalists and human rights activists later revealed the truth -- the victims of the anti-drug operation that night were on a boat entirely unconnected to the supposed smuggling activity. 1 Fallen K9. The report cited a number of cases in which the DEA has undermined, ignored or circumvented research suggesting that marijuana and MDMA, or Ecstasy, don't belong in DEA's Schedule I, a category for substances with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse or severe psychological or physical dependence. A DEA agent impersonated a woman by creating a fake Facebook profile in her name. The most important one of all may be that it was probably the Colombian military that started the fire. Murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena was dark moment in 1980s drug war Killed by a cartel. Guns were left in supermarkets, at bars, or on top of vehicles; they were stolen from hotel rooms and purses. "On February 7, 1985, Special Agent Camarena was kidnapped by the traffickers," then First Lady Nancy Reagan somberly told a room full of anti-drug advocates. Corrupt DEA agents made millions off the drugs they were supposed to be taking off the street. In 2012, the lapses turned downright dangerous when one DEA agent left his loaded Glock in a crowded airport bathroom beyond the security checkpoint. An official website of the United States government. Read more >, Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Terry Watson was murdered on June 21, 2013, during a robbery attempt in Bogota, Colombia. Showrunner Eric Newman put it like this: "we've sort of put Pena as our one continuous character and made him representative of the DEA and the management in Colombia at the time," which is producer speak for "yeah, it's all bull poop, but it's poop that makes excellent TV!". Among them was the bombing of Gilberto Rodriguez's daughter's wedding. 8701 Morrissette Dr This operation was conducted as part of the Seattle, Washington Field Divisions Domestic Cannabis Eradication and Suppression Program. Former DEA agent Mike Vigil (left) burning two tons of cocaine in Colombia in 1984. An ABC News report in 2008 found that the DEA lost 91 weapons from 2002 to 2007, often in humiliating, or at least seemingly implausible, fashion. Well, one of the reasons it was so odd was because the writers did with the plot what any good mule would do with a condom full of Escobar's marching powder: They pulled it out their butts. Based on the real rebel-turned-drug-dealer-turned-paramilitary Diego Murillo Bejarano, Don Berna is portrayed by Mauricio Cujar as not just being connected to the narco-world but also having a long-standing relationship with Agent Pena. The truth is that almost nothing is known about Escobar's last days on the run. Months later, reports suggested the agency had not cooperated with local authorities investigating the incident, which led Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) to ask earlier this year: "Could U.S. agents engaged in the 'war on drugs' abroad operate without any sort of accountability?". He was 46 years of age at the time of his death. It's powerful stuff, and Connie's return to the U.S. with their adopted daughter is a great way of showing how the hunt for Escobar is leaving Murphy isolated and hollowed out. While the DEA does its best to keep many of its dealings out of the public eye -- it regularly claims secrecy is imperative to the success of its anti-drug operations -- here are some of the most sketchy, messed up things that we know it has done: The DEA claimed Prohibition was a success. Joseph W. Floyd, an agent with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Internal Revenue, was killed in Houston, Texas, on May 17, 1922, while attempting to serve a search warrant. But Carlos Castao was particularly familiar with the workings of Medellin. And serious is exactly what Narcos is until you go digging into actual Colombian history and find out just how much Narcos distorted, or exaggerated, or just plain made up. Netflix's Narcos has probably been responsible for teaching more Americans about Colombian history than decades of Discovery documentaries combined (and the same for Mexico with its spinoff Narcos: Mexico). A deep dive into the murky world of the war on drugs, Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel, and the power plays at the top of Colombian politics in the '80s and '90s, Narcos is famed for its commitment to historical accuracy. Still, it's hard to feel sorry for a guy who once helped his father run a drug empire even larger than Pablo Escobar's. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint, arguing that items such as masks, glow sticks and pacifiers were not "drug paraphernalia" as the DEA claimed, because they played no part in the actual ingestion of any drugs. He turned the money down. Later, the same agents, who reportedly spent this dirty money lavishly, also confessed to stealing bundles of cash from drug busts. They helped Colombian authorities track down cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar, who was killed by the Colombian National Police in 1993. One party in the 1980s ended with Medellin police discovering the abused bodies of 24 teenage girls. At one point, so many undesirables were dumped in the Cauca that the cost of removing the bodies bankrupted a downriver municipality. Like the fictional David, William was involved in the family business. The US State Department once called Fidel Castao "more ferocious than Escobar.". He was 30 years of age at the time of his death. Manhunters: The Real DEA Agents Who Took Down Pablo Escobar Posted on February 13, 2020 by Javier F. Pea and Steve Murphy. Those killings came just a month after DEA agents took part in an anti-smuggling operation that led to the deaths of four innocent Hondurans, including a pregnant woman. Get the day's top news with our Today's Headlines newsletter, sent every weekday morning. Standing in the ruins of his home, the real Martinez was offered $6 million to stop fighting Escobar. Three weeks before that, on New Years Eve, 1986, Special Agent William Ramos, 30, was slain while trying to arrest a narcotics suspect three miles north of the Mexican border near Pharr, Tex. On February 7, 1985, a group of corrupt Mexican officials kidnapped DEA agent Kiki Camarena, who had infiltrated the Guadalajara Cartel. The agent created an entire fake profile purporting to belong to Arquiett, using personal information and pictures taken from her cell phone following Arquiett's arrest in a cocaine case. When agents stormed into Kirking's house, they found a small baggie of weed, enough only for a misdemeanor charge. The real son of Miguel Rodriguez, William not only didn't die in a hail of bullets but according to theMiami Herald, is also mighty annoyed Narcos thinks he did. The showrunners used him as a useful receptacle for stuff many DEA agents did at the time. In fact, Cali and Medellin were so close that they knew one another's operations intimately. Formed in 1964, FARC started out as a gang of impoverished men who wanted to carve out their own state separate from Colombia. We offer a range of benefits such as a generous pension plan, life assurance and holiday allowance, and there are useful local perks in various offices, and summer Fridays across the whole company. Indeed, Villareal's case is an extreme example of what has become a trend of concerning incidents. He was 28 years of age at the time of his death. It's a powerful moment, and it more or less really happened the "more" part being that Escobar really did get elected to the Senate and really did get denounced, the "less" part being that his political career didn't last a single day. ), Paige eventually sued the DEA, claiming the agency had released the video footage of him. Raids on legal marijuana facilities have slowed in recent years, and Leonhart's stance on the drug war has appeared increasingly at odds with the more progressive views of Attorney General Eric Holder. She struck a deal with prosecutors and served only 15 years in prison. A Mexican federal judicial police commander, a major drug trafficker and his cousin were later indicted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles. Bout said that he understood that the CSs wanted the arms to use against American personnel in Colombia, and advised that, "we have the same enemy," referring to the United States. The paramilitary group the brothers led was also more extreme than the one seen in the show, if that seems possible. Thirty guerrillas took over 300 people hostage, and the Colombian military responded by attacking the building. At one stage, they owned a bank in Panama together, and both were equally instrumental in the "Death to Kidnappers" project to hit back at guerrilla groups, which is something Narcos depicts as completely excluding Cali. Task Force Officer Grosso died of his wound the next day. Anyone who's spent too much time watching viral videos is familiar with this one: In April 2004, DEA agent Lee Paige was giving a gun safety demonstration to a classroom full of children when he delivered this now-famous line: "I am the only one in the room professional enough, that I know of, to carry this Glock 40." In both cases, strict prohibition has taken away resources from treatment for addiction and abuse, overburdened court systems and jails, fostered corruption in law enforcement, propped up organized crime and even, some argue, created a damaging disrespect for the rule of law.