How would you use the pistol? How--? Can you show me how you would use it?
[in Spanish] Look, in my world, in the Mafia,
a professional assassin always shoots here and above.
Not below there.
Like this and this.
Two shots, that's all.
[helicopter whirring]
[man] I'm Jason Fox.
I spent ten years in the special forces,
where I hunted down drug lords in Afghanistan.
Yeah, these are good-- These are what we used.
Now, I'm going to Latin America.
[Fox speaking Spanish]
The dark heart of the global drugs trade.
[Fox] We're going into the barrio now.
-One of them's got a shooter. -[man in Spanish] Quickly, quickly. Go!
[Fox] This time, I'll be travelling unarmed...
[man in Spanish] A car is coming! Get in, get in!
...to try to understand them from the inside.
[in Spanish] You've got guns, pretty girls, bikes.
[mimics motorcycle revving]
[in Spanish] You have to harvest coca. [hisses]
[in Spanish] There's no other good work here.
[Fox] Starting in Mexico, I'll make contact with the feared cartels,
more powerful than the state.
[in Spanish] I'm a hitman by trade.
In Peru, I'll meet the producers at the bottom of the supply chain.
[in Spanish] Thanks to this, we educate our children.
And in Colombia, I see how the legacy of Pablo Escobar
still runs deep.
[in Spanish] For us he wasn't a boss, he was a God.
This is a world where violence is a way of life...
[in Spanish] I have killed 257 people with my own hands.
[man speaking Spanish] If you do something stupid,
you'll be fucked.
[Fox] ...and the criminals are the ones in charge.
If we were here without your permission, what would you do with us?
[in Spanish] A gringo or a whitey...
[Fox] I'm in Colombia, continuing my journey across Latin America.
This is where the global narcotics industry began.
More dollars have been spent defeating the drug barons here
than anywhere else in this region.
Yet, Colombia remains one of the biggest traffickers of cocaine on the planet.
I want to find out how the cartels manage to ship such vast quantities of the drug
to more countries on Earth than any other producer.
Pleasure to meet you.
-I'm Oliver, your fixer. -Yes.
Yeah, nice meeting you. How's it going?
-So, Foxy... -Yeah?
I hope you will have an exciting trip down here in Colombia.
[chuckles] I'm sure we will, yeah.
[Fox] Oliver is a local journalist who moved here from Germany 20 years ago.
We're leaving Cali
and driving 70 miles west to the Pacific Coast.
[grunts]
Our destination is the biggest port in Colombia. Buenaventura.
Almost half the cocaine that comes out of Colombia
is smuggled through here, and then shipped across the world.
So, how, uh, just how dangerous is Buenaventura?
Well, the city has been for...
most, uh, for more than ten years,
one of the most dangerous places in-in Colombia.
Um, I would think, uh...
I would say there are almost people being killed
every couple of days, at least.
Um, so, there is still an ongoing war between different drug cartels
trying to gain control over the city, over the neighbourhood, some barrios,
and from where they get access to the ocean.
[Fox] After four hours, we reached the outskirts of the city.
[Oliver] So those are the barrios on the left side.
[Fox] Yeah.
[Fox] Buenaventura has many slums.
People live in these rickety-wooden stilt houses perched above the water.
But right next door is the international, multi-billion pound port complex.
Somehow, the cartels manage to get their drugs from the barrios
onto this huge container ships.
[Oliver] We turn to the left, the next one, please.
-Where? This one? There? There? -This one, yeah.
Just follow those.
[Fox] Oliver has arranged for us to stay inside the port area.
It is surrounded by armed guards.
Looks quite fancy, don't it?
[chuckles]
[chuckles] It's alright.
Considering the place outside, it's very deceiving.
Wasn't expecting this, considering what we've just driven through.
[horn honking]
[foghorn blaring]
[Fox] Next morning, I went to see how the smuggling operation works.
But this means heading into the barrios.
These are no-go areas for outsiders.
Let's go. Come on.
Buenaventura has been described as a national shame.
The cartels regularly use torture, dismemberment,
and murder to control those living here.
[man speaking Spanish] This week in the bay of Buenaventura,
more dismembered bodies were found.
[woman speaking Spanish] Arms, legs, torsos.
Only the torso was found, without the head or limbs.
[man 2 speaking Spanish] These people are basically being chopped up alive.
[Fox] Exposed to such extreme violence every day,
I want to get a sense of how ordinary people manage to survive.
We're meeting someone who's lived here all of his life.
Okay, I can see him. It's the guy over there on the right side.
-Oh, right, in the brown T-shirt, yeah? -Yeah, in the brown T-shirt.
[horn honking]
[lock clicks]
[speaking Spanish]
[both speak Spanish]
Javi, Foxy.
[speaking Spanish]
-Javi? -[speaking English] Yeah, Javi.
[snickers]
What's this barrio like?
[in Spanish] This neighbourhood has been forgotten by the government
and it's hit by violence.
[Oliver speaking English] We have to take down the camera, please.
He says we can't be filming here, this is a dangerous place.
[Javi in Spanish] Thanks a lot.
Here, here.
[indistinct chattering]
[Fox] Javi is taking us to the street where he lives, in Kennedy barrio.
[thunder rumbling]
It's safer to film here.
He spends much of his time trying to stop kids from joining the gangs.
[Javi in Spanish] On a daily basis, people have to hustle, do illegal jobs.
Men end up being gangsters and women become prostitutes.
[in English] And then that's why they get involved with the cartels and the gangs.
[in Spanish] Exactly.
There's no support for people who want to move on in life.
They want people to struggle.
It makes it easier to dominate and control them.
-[Javi] Puchi! -[in English] What's up?
[Fox] This is Puchi, a friend of Javi's.
[all speaking Spanish]
[Puchi in Spanish] This is my ghetto.
[in English] Come on, come on. Alright.
[Fox] He's a former gang member turned singer and musician.
-Puchi. -Alright.
[Oliver speaking Spanish]
Can we listen to some of their music? Can we listen to some of Puchi's music?
[in Spanish] Okay, of course.
♪ In the name of the Father The Holy Spirit, and the Son ♪
-♪ God bless those alive and the dead ♪ -[Javi beatboxing]
♪ Those who attack me And those who are with me ♪
♪ My family and friends ♪
♪ Blessings from my heart ♪
♪ That's why they call me "The Lion" ♪
[beatboxing]
♪ Rid us please, God, I ask and beg you ♪
♪ I implore you don't leave us alone ♪
♪ Don't leave us alone ♪
-[chuckles] Good effort, man. -[Javi in English] Yo, yo.
-Boom! -Yeah. Boom. Boom.
Puchi, are you able to talk to me about what sort of work you did
for the gangs in the cartels in the drugs industry?
[in Spanish] I was dividing up the marijuana and cocaine
making shops and supermarkets pay us taxes.
[in English] How-how difficult is it for young people living in the barrios
to not get drawn into...
the violence of the gangs, and the cartels,
and the drug industry as a whole?
[in Spanish] It's not difficult, it's easy to get involved.
Young men fall into the trap in this city, especially in this neighbourhood.
Everyone thinks of the easy life.
Yeah, it's like fashion. [chuckles]
You've got guns, pretty girls, bikes.
-[mimics motorcycle revving] -[both laugh]
It's a fashion.
The gangster culture is cool.
A labourer working really hard in Buenaventura
could earn £150 in a month,
but he could be earning £180 in a day.
All that in one day instead of a month?
If you hadn't got involved in the music project with Javi,
where would you have been now
in the sort of cartels, gangs, and the drugs trade?
[snickers] I'd have been dead by now.
[in English] Yeah.
[indistinct chattering]
[woman speaking Spanish]
[woman 2 speaking Spanish]
[Fox] As night falls,
Oliver gets word that a cocaine smuggler has agreed to meet me.
Under the cover of darkness, he's going to traffic a hundred kilos
out of the barrio and onto a container ship.
If this load reaches the UK,
it will be worth a staggering ten million pounds.
The next phase in this little bit is, uh, ditching the cars,
and then we're gonna be going on foot
for approximately two to five minutes down the walkway,
where, uh, we're gonna meet the guy, the smuggler.
You watch your camera, man. [inhales]
[Oliver] So we get off here.
The cars will stay here at the end of the cemetery.
-And then it's down that road, is it? -Yeah, on the left side.
-Here you go. -Okay. Good luck, man.
[Fox grunts]
[dog barking]
[Fox] A couple of the smuggler's men are taking us in.
[car door closing]
[Oliver] He says we need to-- have to buy something so people wouldn't be...
-thinking something about us. -[tires screeching]
We just go to a shop, buy something.
[man speaking Spanish]
[indistinct chattering]
[Fox] The barrio has become too dangerous for the police to enter.
And the drug gangs have lookouts everywhere.
Nothing happens here without them knowing.
This is the house being used by the smuggler.
We're just waiting for the dark. I mean, we could have done
with the timing being a little bit better.
So we just got here and it was good to go.
You don't want to arouse too much suspicion,
it's really sketchy here.
-[Fox stutters] The guys over there. -[Oliver] Yeah.
Alright, the longer we're standing around...
-[Oliver] Yeah. -[Fox] We've only just arrived,
and we've already been spotted by a group of young men.
Everyone's on edge and the only way out is back past them
-or to swim for it. -[objects clanging]
-I wouldn't stay here too long. -We've already--
Because basically, unless you wanna get wet,
that's the only fucking way out
and they're all fucking stand-- stood there.
[Fox] The drug smuggler wants us to call him "Pedro".
He's waiting for a call from his boss.
The cartel have to line up everyone else involved before they can move the drugs.
Pedro, um, can you just let us know what's going on at the moment?
[in Spanish] I'm waiting for a phone call from the boss to make a delivery
and for him to give me the coordinates.
[in English] Are you able to tell us which cartel you're working for?
[in Spanish] That's dangerous information.
So how-- how did they contact you and let you know that tonight is the night
that you're gonna set off with the hundred kilos?
They tell me an hour before.
And then when they have everything sorted with the coastguard, they proceed.
When everything is sorted with the people in the dock,
and they have an exact time, they call me again.
I then have 15 minutes before I go.
-[cell phone ringing] -Oh.
-[Oliver] I think that's the caller. -[Fox] It could be the caller.
[in English] Hello?
[speaking Spanish]
[in English] Yeah.
[speaking Spanish] Uh-huh.
[speaking Spanish]
[in Spanish] In five minutes, I go.
Okay. [stammers] Pedro what about--
What are you gonna be doing in five minutes?
I'm going to take the delivery. There's a point where they are waiting.
[in Spanish] Where are the drugs now?
They are at the casa, over there.
[Fox] Can I come with you, mate?
No, I won't do it.
They'd kill us.
[both speaking Spanish]
[Fox] With Pedro heading off,
we need to leave here as quickly as possible.
-[Fox] Right. Mate, where's--? -[Oliver] There's someone coming over.
Right, there's someone coming over. Get rid of that now.
Alright, should we go?
-Yeah. Yeah, let's go. -Let's go, mate.
[Fox] Our route back is through the barrio.
[baby crying]
[Fox] Shit.
[Oliver speaking Spanish]
[car door closes]
We were getting a fucking shitload of, uh, attention from young guys.
Guys who are just hanging on the street corners,
hanging outside some the casas, which was, uh, unnerving.
Then Pedro got the call and he had to go through another casa.
He's probably now en route, if not there, picking up the cocaine,
and heading on his merry way to drop it off.
[Fox] The Colombian cartels are experts in the industrial exportation of drugs.
Nearly half of all the cocaine that comes out of country
is smuggled out of this port area.
We've heard that last night,
Pedro successfully offloaded
the hundred kilos of cocaine onto a container ship,
all under the noses of the authorities and the shipping companies.
We've arranged to meet him in the mangroves surrounding the port
to find out how he did it.
[Fox] If you look over there in the mangroves, quite close to the port.
You've just got to see how the water goes in it.
It's like little tributaries in little bays.
They just indent into the mangroves,
so it's perfect if you're getting chased or you need somewhere to hide.
That's it, you're in there and you're gone,
and no one's ever gonna find you.
To police, the coastline here is just-- is nigh on impossible.
-Oh! Pedro! There he is. -Hey.
[in Spanish] Good day.
[grunts]
I can T-bone the poor bloke.
[grunts]
So, um, Pedro can you explain where it was you went
and what sort of procedures you had to carry out
to get-- pick it up and then move it?
[in Spanish] We looked for a safer place for it.
There were lots of people watching and we didn't know if they were informers.
I was a little nervous because of the situation,
you know, the risks you have to take.
That's why these jobs have to be done quickly.
At any time, you can have law enforcement or armed groups and you're dead.
-[Fox] Let's go. -[Pedro speaking Spanish]
[Fox] Pedro's going to show me the route he took in his canoe
to smuggle the cocaine onto a container ship.
[Fox] Okay, so we've just come up through the mangroves.
And, uh, it looks like we're now approaching where the docks are.
You can see all the containers and the cranes.
With all the hustle and bustle,
and how busy it is, it would be so easy just to...
Just canoe out with your load,
get it lifted up on the opposite side onto any one of these ships.
And that's it, offloaded and good to go.
[Pedro in Spanish] Last night when the boss called,
I was given a specific location.
And the ship was just here.
[Fox] So, the shipping was here...
[Pedro] Yes, right by this wharf with the containers.
It wasn't easy, but we did it.
-[Fox] And do they-- -We did it, bit by bit.
Oh, so, it's pulling it up?
[both in Spanish] Yes.
[Pedro] They lowered a hock
and pulled the stuff up onto the ship.
It was a big ship that left this morning.
Everything was timed perfectly.
[Fox] You'd never think that a small canoe would rendezvous
with a huge ocean-going tanker.
You'd think there would be something in between.
It makes perfect sense.
The small canoe without an engine is almost impossible to detect at night.
And this is the perfect place to do it.
It's a busy port, all that anyone's interested in
is happening on the other side of the ship.
Because of health and safety, the lights, and the noise.
Everything's focused on people not dying on the other side.
When, actually, what everyone's interested in--
should be interested in is the fact that a hundred kilograms of cocaine
has just been hauled up the side of a massive ocean-going vessel.
[Fox] This port is the most valuable smuggling route out of Colombia.
But it's the barrios where all the planning and logistics take place.
The cartels run them with an iron grip
using hitmen, known as sicarios, who've grown up on the streets here.
[Oliver] Uh, we should-- Sorry, we should go left here. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
[Fox chuckles]
[Oliver speaking indistinctly]
[Fox] Oliver has arranged for us to meet one at a petrol station
not far from the port.
[Fox] What time did he say he'd be here?
[Oliver] Um, 5:30. He's supposed to be here at 5:30.
Ugh, these hitmen. [chuckles] Okay.
[Oliver] I think that's our guy.
[Fox speaking Spanish]
[Fox] The hitman wants us to call him "Pepe".
He's going to show me how he carried out one of his many hits.
[Fox in English] Off on the, uh, route of the hit.
Crazy Buenaventura.
-[hitman chuckles] -[Fox] Ugh.
Okay. So we're going into the barrio now.
And then, it's where it gets a little bit sketchier.
Less movement going on. Less people cutting around.
Keep our wits about us now, as we get further in.
Don't think we've got far to go now before we get to the place
where, um, ol' Pepe conducted the hit.
[Fox] So, is this it?
[Pepe in Spanish] Yes, there on the corner.
I killed a guy.
The hit was by motorbike.
I was on the back of the motorbike, got off and bang, bang, bang.
Then drove off straight away.
-How many bullets? -Five bullets.
-Five? -Yes, five.
Sí, sí. Make sure, to make sure.
That's where it was. Right there on the corner.
Underneath the sign.
It's getting dangerous now, we have to go.
Yeah, yeah. Sí. Let's get the fuck out of here.
[Fox] Pepe grew up in the barrios.
He lives alongside the people the cartel order him to kill.
Can you tell me about the last time
that you were actually contracted to go and do a hit?
[in Spanish] My last hit was a woman.
She owed money.
It was taking a long time to pay it back.
I was given the order, if she didn't pay the money, kill her.
That was the order from the cartel.
When I've had to do my job and I've ended up killing people,
sometimes it's been in front of, um,
maybe family members, children.
And that is the thing that has bothered me.
And it's something that I've lost sleep over in the past.
Uh, I was wondering if you've ever had the same situation
where you've had to kill someone in front of family members
and how you feel about that.
Yes, I've had a similar situation.
Exactly.
There is a person that I see around
and I killed his father.
And he knows, but it hurts me when he talks to me
because he does talk to me.
He says, "How are you doing, Pepe?"
In those moments, it hurts.
Fuck, it's tough.
It makes me cry.
He knows I did it.
But that's, obviously, that's just what happens when...
that's the job that you-- either you chose or you...
had to do and that's what you got to deal with, I suppose.
Do you go from a hit, straight back home, straight into normal life,
or do you go somewhere to maybe take a bit of time and chill out?
I never go straight home.
I go to another house.
Then back to mine.
If the hit is at night, I'll come back the next day.
If I kill in the afternoon, I'll come back home in the early hours.
I'll come back 12, 13 hours later. I can never go straight home.
Do you think that because of the job you've got,
do you feel that you can lead a normal life,
or do you think it doesn't quite work?
I don't have a place to be with my family. I don't get to see them growing up.
None of my children.
That's what I miss.
These are the things I miss because of this job.
Like I tell you, this is not a normal life.
I don't sleep well.
You're doing this job and it makes you feel like this
and you miss lots of things. Why do you do it?
Well, the truth is, if I were to retire
and I stayed in Buenaventura, I would lose.
Because the cartel would think I was a traitor.
[Fox] Pepe must kill when ordered, or be killed.
He's trapped in a relentless spiral of violence,
like the many victims he preys on.
Apparently, the going rate for a Pepe hit is $800.
I mean, if you look at this area, that's probably quite a lot of money.
But then in the grand scheme of things, is that how much a life's worth?
But then it also shows you
how much power the gangs and the cartels around here have.
Due to the fact that they are able to dictate the price of a life.
The authorities seem powerless in their fight to control the drugs trade.
Of the total amount of cocaine smuggled across the world last year,
a quarter of it came through this port area.
I want to see how the Colombian Navy are trying to stop the traffickers.
It looks like were gonna be, um, stop-stopping this boat here
to give it a random check and make sure it's not carrying any drugs.
So you got the two guys in the front with weapons,
so they're gonna offer protection as they go on
and they're gonna, obviously, board.
It's only a small boat, so you only need two of them,
so you can probably just have two guys jump on the boat.
Then you'll have a bit of protection from the back.
They might have a few more blokes get on board.
Empty beer bottles.
They're fucking pissed
with the amount of empty beer bottles in the fucking boat.
[indistinct chattering]
So you got one bloke checking the, um, documents,
making sure that the boat is legit and that it's owned by these guys.
And then you've got a guy there that's starting to rummage through the cargo.
Looks like it's just a weekly visit to the bottle bank by the looks of it.
-[in Spanish] Thank you, have a good trip. -[both speaking Spanish]
[engine revving]
There isn't a set boat that they're looking for.
It can be any boat.
I mean, we've seen lots of different boats...
cutting around the bay.
You've got a canoe over there.
You got sort of slightly bigger boats than the canoe there.
You can have go-fasts, you can have boats that are not dissimilar to this.
[stammers] There's a mixed array.
The traffic coming in and out of Buenaventura and this bay is...
There's a lot of it.
And that's just one of them at the moment, out here, bobbing about.
Just down the coast from the port is the Malaga Navy base.
I'm meeting the commander, Captain Lemaitre.
-Hey, how's it going? -Hi, Jason.
-How are you? -I'm good. Thank you.
-Nice to meet you. -You, too, yeah.
He's going to show me an extraordinary method
the cartels now use to traffic their drugs.
They build their own submarines.
I'm intrigued to know what it's like inside.
[Lemaitre] Some of them we caught at sea,
and some of them we have caught them at land.
Just ready to be... load. Ready to be load.
[Fox] The Navy have caught over 100 of them.
This sub was capable of travelling 8,000 miles,
more than enough to make it to the coastline of California.
[mariachi music playing]
When this sub was stopped in 2016,
it was carrying $73 million worth of cocaine.
They don't look very comfortable, they're obviously ma--
They're massive, aren't they? They obviously pack these full of cocaine.
[stammers] It's mainly, um... [clicks tongue]
-Storage space. -Yes, yes.
-It has an engine room, as you see. -Mm.
It has to have a cockpit.
It's not comfortable, as it's very hard to be on it.
There are always four people inside of it.
There's a couple of engine guys,
there's the one that drives it, and the one that owns the cocaine.
-Always over there. -Yeah.
He's watching what you are gonna do with the cocaine.
It can't be nice inside them.
[stutters] I've been in proper submarines
and they're not comfortable at best of times.
-These must be horrendous. -Yes, yes.
In terms of heat, in terms of humidity,
uh, when they breathe, it's very hard.
How long are the journeys that they're doing, normally?
Three days, four days, inside of these kind of ships.
These kind of artefacts.
-Can't be too safe, either. -Yes, it is-- It is a big risk.
It's worth a lot of guts to go and come inside of these things.
You know, you're gonna go out, you don't know if you're gonna come back.
And it is very hard.
[Fox] I wonder where they make them, you know?
They made it inside the jungle. Everything, every one.
Even though that one is the biggest one that we have.
[Fox] You got to admit, it's quite clever.
[Lemaitre] Yes, yes. -Can we have a look in any of them?
Let's see if we can go inside the last one over there.
-It's slippery over here. I tried. -Yeah.
-You tried this one? -Yes.
Let's have a go.
-[Captain Lemaitre] Is it hot? -[groans] It's alright.
[grunts]
-Tell me if there is a-- there is a chain. -It is hot, yeah.
-It's chained up. -Is it closed?
-It's locked. -Is it locked?
Yeah, it looks stinking in there.
They've even got, like, the toughened glass in these.
I mean, it's-- It's amazing.
'Cause if you think about how we make submarines back home,
there's, like, big docks, dry docks.
It's-- You know, there's hundreds of engineers and scientists,
and they're all building it.
And yet, they manage to build this in the middle of the jungle.
I mean, are you impressed with their ingenuity?
-Yes, yes. -It's hard not to be impressed.
Yeah, it's-- it's something that we wonder, uh...
How come they can do these things for bad matters?
Otherwise, we could have some very...
-Uh, innovations [stutters] for the good. -Yeah.
[Fox] This coastline around Buenaventura
has become a breeding ground of narco innovation over the years.
But it was one drug lord in particular
who first pioneered ingenious ways to traffic vast quantities of drugs.
[male reporter] Colombia's number one enemy at this moment
is the terrorist Pablo Escobar,
whose criminal organization...
[female reporter] Cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar, still at large.
He escaped from a prison near Medellin yesterday.
[Fox] Pablo Escobar single-handedly transformed the drugs business
into a global industry.
With Pablo Escobar came the birth of the modern-day drug trafficker,
um, gangster and hitman, all rolled into one, really.
He turned Colombia
into a globally known cocaine state, I suppose.
And its-- it's kept that reputation. It hasn't got rid of it.
I doubt it'll get rid of it for a long time.
[Fox] I'm heading north to the town of Medellin.
From here, Escobar built an empire
that controlled most of the world's cocaine supply.
I want to meet one of the men that helped him do it.
In the '80s, Medellin was reported to be the most dangerous city on Earth.
Escobar's cartel gave rise to the modern global drugs industry.
They controlled 80 percent of the cocaine supply to the US.
[man speaking Spanish] Viva Pablo Escobar Gaviria!
[crowd cheering]
[Fox] I want to see how Pablo Escobar is regarded today.
I've come to a barrio that he turned into a fortress against the police.
It provided a safe haven for his cartel members
to hide out and operate in.
-[man in Spanish] Good afternoon. -[Fox in Spanish] Good afternoon.
Hey, man, give me a call.
[Fox] The man showing me around was a close friend of Pablo Escobar.
Popeye, here in the right of Escobar, helped build the Medellin cartel
into the most powerful drugs organization in the world.
He was recently released from prison after serving 23 years.
[Popeye in Spanish] Foxy, these are labyrinths.
During the war, the police couldn't come here.
Only the Special Forces.
[in Spanish] See you, silly.
[indistinct chattering]
-[chuckles] -Hey, old man.
You have to rest.
[chattering in Spanish]
Why is it that you are such a celebrity around this barrio?
[in Spanish] The people here are very friendly.
There's a lot of love here.
They're good people.
In the past, this neighbourhood was violent.
Here, people know violence, so they appreciate peace.
So, Popeye, what is it that you do for these people in the barrio?
Look, the people here...
How are you doing?
[chattering in Spanish]
Look.
Pablo Escobar was a man who loved the poor.
Pablo Escobar built entire neighbourhoods.
He provided medical centres.
He gave presents at Christmas.
But today, those things are no longer here,
though the grandparents remember.
They are very grateful to Pablo Escobar.
Here, they respect Pablo Escobar
because he always supported these neighbourhoods.
[Fox] Today, this barrio is still a dangerous place
with drugs and violence, a regular part of daily life.
-[woman in Spanish] Good evening. -How are you?
-Can I talk about him? -Okay.
-[Popeye] See this young man? -Uh-huh.
He died violently, a young and friendly man.
He was my friend.
What happened to you, little mouse? Huh?
Look, a friend.
[both speaking Spanish]
[Fox in Spanish] How are you?
She is the sister of the man who died.
[both speaking Spanish]
[woman] Thank you very much.
[Fox in English] It's clear Escobar has left a lasting impact here.
But of all the narcos I've met on my travels so far,
no one has perpetrated more violence and horror than Popeye.
And on Escobar's most wanted poster,
you don't have to look very far to find him.
[clamouring]
Popeye carried out this assassination of a presidential candidate.
[man screams]
-[gunfire] -[people screaming]
[Fox] He killed judges, police, innocent bystanders.
All on the command of Pablo Escobar.
Popeye, the families of the victims,
they must be sickened to see you treated like a celebrity.
[in Spanish] I've paid 23 years for my crimes.
It was a very tough prison, and victims' families know this.
The violent chapter has passed and everyone's wounds are healing.
To go back to revenge would wake up the monster of war.
[Fox] Despite this,
Popeye never likes to be out in the open for too long.
So he's taking me back to his apartment.
-Follow me, Foxy. -[Fox] Gracias.
Look, my virgin.
I was given this US flag by a warrior from the Iraq war.
I'm a religious man, but not like ISIS. They're a miserable act.
I killed for a cause. I didn't kill for religion.
-Foxy. -Popeye.
Gracias.
[in English] How many people did you kill
to receive 23 years in prison?
Look, with my own hands, although I'm not a psychopath,
I killed, and that was it.
With my own hands, I killed 257 people
and the most successful of all
was the killing of Dr. Luis Carlos Galan, the presidential candidate.
You still have to believe, you have to believe what you're doing is right.
And you obviously have to somehow sell to yourself
what you're doing is the right thing.
Our positions are different.
Because we are both killers.
But you are a legal killer, a killer for the constitution.
You kill with the constitution in your hand.
-Mm-hmm. -I'm an illegal killer.
We do it for the love of the criminal organisation.
You do it out of love for your country.
Did your family know what you did?
To begin with, they didn't know, but they found out and I'll show you how.
When they started putting up these "Wanted" posters,
my family found out.
Here's Pablo Escobar and this is me.
The United States Government put up this money.
They were very dedicated.
I was worth 100,000,000 pesos or two million dollars.
Today, that's ten million dollars.
How did you become a hitman? W-Why?
I grew up in a very violent society.
This has been a violent country for 60 years.
A kid surrounded by violence will grow up violent, too.
How-- how would you use the pistol? How-- Can you show me how you would use it?
Look, in my world, in the Mafia,
a professional assassin always shoots there and above.
Not below there.
Like this and this.
Two shots, that's all.
The other bullets are for when you leave in case there's a reaction and a fight.
Foxy, I'd like to ask you a question, please.
How many people did you kill in your wars?
So, uh, I never really counted how many people I killed.
For me, um...
For me, it was just part of a job to get something done.
Where I was employed by the military, like you said,
you know, working for the constitution.
Uh, for me, it was actually just me protecting myself
and the people around me, doing a job that I did love doing.
That's war, Foxy!
When you walk down the street, you walk with your head held high.
No one ever calls out "murderer" in your beautiful city.
I get called murderer in the streets.
There are people who have photos taken with me, others shout "murderer."
You never get called a murderer.
Foxy, you are a hero, I am a murderer.
But I'd like to tell you something.
I tell you clearly.
I would like to have been a man like you, with honour.
[Fox] Popeye wasn't the only one
who gave his undying loyalty to Pablo Escobar.
[men singing in Spanish]
Escobar saw how to use poor communities
who felt abandoned by their government and put them to work for his own good.
I've seen how in the barrios of Buenaventura,
the narcos still prey on those who have no one else to turn to.
When Escobar was finally shot dead by the police in 1993,
25,000 people attended his funeral.
For many, it felt like a national day of mourning.
When nighttime falls in Medellin,
Popeye comes out to visit the grave of Pablo Escobar.
Twenty-five years after his death,
he still casts a spell over those who knew him.
[Popeye in Spanish] Let's make this clear.
I'm always connected to this history.
Our history.
I am the memory of the Medellin Cartel.
I am Pablo Escobar's man
and will continue to be Pablo Escobar's man.
[singing continues]
[Fox] Pablo Escobar's legacy
is a global drugs industry the world is powerless to stop.
Cocaine is now consumed in every country on Earth.
It's become a business worth around 90 billion dollars a year.