DEA Agents Who Took Down Pablo Escobar: Steve Murphy and Javier Peña

a young sicario 15 years old he I mean you know he told me that you know his life belonged to paqua he says I'll die and I'll kill for him or do you just say hey I could die and that's just part of my job when he escaped everybody was happy uh it was a feeling of elation because we were going to have another chance and this time we made a promise basically that we were not going to lose [Music] welcome to game changers live from our home studio here at the beautiful Campus of FIU the College of communications architecture and the Arts my name is Sergio Theda your host and I have two very

special guests on and this episode is brought to you in partnership with the Jack D Gordon Institute for Public Policy where they are shaping the next generation of leaders through education research and Community engagement be sure to connect with them at Gordon institute. fiu.edu so my guests today are Mr Steve Murphy and Javier Peña most famously known as the DEA narcos welcome gentlemen thank you Sergio thanks for having appreciate it Len I'm I am a huge fan of of obviously the Netflix series I think that's what really capit you know capitalized and and and made very very famous this entire story to the nation but before we get into that tell me what was it

that got you too interested in the DEA to begin with and did you ever realize or even think that it would lead you to the biggest Manhunt in history well you know what interesting for me I did not know what DEA was I was working with a sheriff's office in Laro Texas 19 I started 1977 going to school during the day working at nighttime like a lot of you know people are doing now and uh Sheriff's Office I remember 1977 and I I was like 19 years old I was making probably I think it was like $112,000 a year so when I saw the announcement on a college bulton board that da was hiring at$

177,000 I asked like oh I'm rich now I got it but I asked a buddy of mine what's the DEA he said stupid those are the federal marks oh okay so I did not know what what it was but then uh I came on after the Sheriff's Office career in radio and I I only wanted to do a couple of years to see what it was like and I wanted to go back to the Sheriff's office so I was a lieutenant I was teaching part-time at the junior college I had it made you know so I came on and uh you know those two years turned into 30 so uh I think I I like

the career my job at DEA there you go how about you Steve for me I started as a uniform police officer in the booming Metropolis of Bluefield West Virginia there you go you know back then we only had 35 officers but uh and I had just turned 19 years old and the funny thing about that is is at that time you had to provide they provide your uniforms and such but you had to provide your own weapons in leather gear I wasn't old enough to buy a gun or bullets so but I could carry one and arrest people U so did that for 6 years became a Railroad Cop for almost six years and and

I was the same as Javier I didn't know what DEA was but there was a railroad police officer I worked with Pete Ry still dear friend who was a Virginia state trooper had worked on a DEA task force out of Ron o Virginia he's the one that really got me interested came on DEA in 1987 uh first post was Miami here from 1987 to 1991 if you remember those days it was still the wild west here in Miami absolutely Paradise Lost oh it's you know what I still love Miami my wife and I this is our favorite city in the entire United States believe it or not um and then volunteered to go to Columbia

didn't no hobbyer you know when you go overseas with DEA you have to volunteer they don't just send you and had no idea that I was going to be working on the Pablo Escobar case it's it's one of those instances where you get in the embassy you get to know everybody Javier had a different partner that actually got to be friends with Gary Sheridan just because we had some common law enforcement contacts in West Virginia then Gary got promoted and I'd already been working with Gary and Javier to a degree but that's how we got to be partners and you know what three days after I got in Columbia in 1991 is when Pablo surrendered

and I figured well he heard Murphy was in the country might as well that's it it's done this was an easy assignment that's a joke so that's how I got involved in it so for everyone out there you know listening if you've seen the show or if you haven't seen the show let me give you some statistics here so he Pablo ES bar was one of the wealthiest people in the world at the time he was worth an estimated $30 billion in the 1990s which today adjusted for inflation would be around 64 billion he carried you know he he spent $2,500 a month on rubber bands just to hold his stacks of cash together he

would uh the me the Meine cartel was smuggling approximately 15 Tons of cocaine every week just and they had cornered the market they had 80% of the the global cocaine Market 90% of the US market but he he was also incredibly violent you know they killed an estimated 4,000 people his sakario is a private Army you know at it the peak I think reached to close to a thousand and so in incredibly uh violent and Incredibly you know the largest man hunt in history to go after the this guy but also in Colombia he was also seen from a different perspective as well right because it wasn't the Mad Men that everyone else in the

world thought it would be he had a bit of a Robin Hood effect so tell me about what you saw there that made them think that yeah that Robin Hood like I said uh he he was known as uh that Robin Hood because yeah he he gave money to the poor built houses uh gave a lot of money to the Catholic church in uh medine but at the same uh time he was responsible for the killing of about 50,000 people innocent people 50,000 50,000 Steve and I did the our analysis and we put the analysis we we we pretty much put a figure of 10 to 15,000 people when we get the 50,000 people one

of his favorite shario a guy by the name of papey John haido Velasquez Vasquez was the last remaining sario went to jail he did about 20 years he he came out about 5 years ago and he also you know writes a book he's been on documentaries but he says that the figure was closer to 50,000 people that proba Escobar killed and I got to mention that papey also he himself credits about 300 killings uh to him that he he killed and I and I'm going to say that people have tried to uh get us on the same stage with poey we will said we will never share a stage with papy and and he died

about I think about 3 years ago uh and you know the melan cartel was pretty much wiped out basically you know wow you know and talking about him being Robin Ood he did good things you know and I hate to give him credit for anything but he did give money to poor people he he built housing free housing for people that lived on the edge of a trash dump he gave away food he built medical centers but there's always a payback he didn't do this out of the goodness of his heart right when he needed new sarios where do you think he went to recruit him he went right back into those baros those slums

and the people there loved him because what he had done for them so where some people say he a robin we call him a master manipulator manipul because he manipulated all those people and the sad thing is he would go in and say you know hey I need a new I need 100 people to come and and kill for Pablo and die for Pablo and you might have 400 kids from what 13 to 19 20 years old step up so he just used those people so this thing about the Robinhood that just there's nothing Robin Hood about this guy it was all about him right and they saw that that's their way to Prosperity that's

their way to get out of the slums to to make something for themselves to make some money and that was their only choice so when you all moved to to Columbia and I know you spent some time in Miami where you you know you mentioned prior to coming to Miami you had only seen you know perhaps a few grams of of cocaine where now then all of a sudden you're into 4 or 500 pounds of cocaine at what point did you guys realize the depth and magnitude of what Pablo Escobar was doing when you started the you know the case well the basic basically when uh Pablo Escobar started obviously he started uh and you

know he started with his first cousin guy named Gustavo gavia riveros in medine and they started with small amounts and that's when the height of the cocaine business in Colombia in the mid 80s early 80s was starting to flourish and by flourish there were other organizations so Pablo Escobar you know started experimenting you know trying a small uh kilos at a time and they noticed that this was going to be a very lucrative business and because of PA esars that Ingenuity that he had that violence streak that he had that leadership and I got to mention Pablo had leadership skills that you know and when you you talked about the Saros the recruiting sarios I

mean he'd go there and he'd hug them there'd be about 300 Young thugs call him thugs waiting for him hug him kiss him give him money and that's what the allegiance uh was all about you know that working for the boss Pablo Escobar and if you started to work for Pablo Escobar at this time you were going to be somebody in Meine and you know I've always money yes and I've always you know what what something that always fascinates me is the life of a sario and I don't think there's been that you know cuzz uh how does a sario is he born with it or is he does he learn and you know what

if you look at this Thugs and I remember the first one I I had to get involved in arrest of a a young sario 15 years old he I mean you know he told me that you know his life belonged to paa he says I'll die and I'll kill for him and you know what the basis was for that that Paar rescued them from being in poverty in other words we were living He told me living in cardboard boxes me and my mother Pablo picked us up bought us a house gave us money he says my life belongs to Pablo Escobar and one thing he also mentioned he says you know what by he says

I'm 15 years old by 21 22 I'll be dead but as long as I die working for PA esar that's what I want in life wow so look at that attitude and you multiply it by 500 it's almost like a religious fanaticism yes right to that point you know we're talking about a man who became the world's first Narco terrorist so what's a narco terrorist basically it's just a Narcotics trafficker that employs terroristic activities in his criminal Enterprise right Pablo introduced a level of violence that and and if you research the the history of Colombia it has an extremely violent history I mean there's there's even one section of time that they refer to as

La violencia the the the violent times and and uh but you got Pablo who comes in and introduces a level of violence that before him there had been violence in the narcotics traffick but he introduced a whole different level so when you talk about this guy being charismatic and a leader well his leadership skills are I ask you to do something and you don't I'll kill you and your family yeah well that that word gets out pretty quick right and that's that's why people feared Pablo because if he said he was going to kill you you better run or you better get ready for battle and his his manner of influencing people obviously demonstrating the

violence and one of the most famous ones was the aanka flight which you know killed hundreds of innocent lives and what was what was that like in Colombia when that came out did that turn the tide against him well there were actually a couple of factors that turn the type aanka of course was one I mean it was a commercial airline was going from vatat to Cali 1989 uh Pablo thought the presidential candidate Cesar G was going to be on board and Gavi at the last minute cancels he is not on board that struck colia by putting a bomb on a commercial airline again 10 I think it was 107 innocent people were killed on

board that Airline but to me I mean obviously that is drastic right you know put a bomb on a commercial airline to kill one person but to me and I witnessed it was what turned the Titus when he killed the presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan 1989 that turned the tide that caused Colombia to ask the United States for help that caused Colombia to authorize extradition and remember extradition what was Pablo was fighting all big fear he did not want to get extradited and he was unconstitutional so when he kills presidential candidate Luis Carlos Gan the president of Colombia bar Vargas barav Vargas I'll always remember says you know what I do not care that extradition

is unconstitutional I am authorizing extradition on his own decree how was a president he did it and that's what actually turned the tide and that's where most of the Colombians were mad because they love Luis Carlos Gan he was going to be your next president and you killed your next president so obviously the aanka bombing was critical the killing of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan the bombing of the do building 2019 I mean uh 1999 where he was trying to kill General Miguel masam Marcus one person who ran the Das which was like the local immigration FBI office in Colombia and then again all the kidnappings the assassinations the bounties on police officers that's what

costed but if you had to single out once particular event I would say it was a killing of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Gan wow how did you cope with the the thought that you had bounties on your heads how how did you sleep at night and knowing that there's just constant danger to you to your loved ones to your families uh spouses you you're there for years is that something you just get used to or do you compartmentalize it and say okay I'm fine I'm I'm protected or do you just say hey I could die and that's just part of my job um I tell you what when you first find out that there's a

$300,000 price tag on your head it's it's a little bit disconcerting but you know it's human nature is if you survive things over and over and over again you become somewhat complex about it m and it's always in the back of your mind but you just if you sit around and worry about it something like that it'll drive you crazy right um and it was you know it's kind of a sick way to look at it but you come back to the United States and you're talking to your buddies and DEA and your old friends that know what you're doing and you know you just kind of brag about it a little bit as silly

as that sounds but um you know there were a couple wire Taps where we heard paao refer to the two gringos and that was Javier and I and then later on there was an except that actually mentioned the name's pinan Murphy wow that was uh that was probably more disconcerting than knowing that there's a bounty on you but it's the same token if you look back to the Kiki camarina days when he was killed by the Mexican cartels M and and the the response of the United States was they shut down the border between the United States and Mexico for a certain amount of time very short amount of time a day or two but

if you look at what the traffickers are doing why are they in the drug business to start with it's all for the money right right so if they've shut the borders down they can't get their product up here they can't get the cash flowing back into South America they don't want that so we think that that Kiki's Legacy had a lot to do with keeping us alive um you know I mean we were never we never prend pretend to be tough guys we're a couple Small Town country boys that got to work a really big case but you know we were much younger we had some extra training and weapons and things like that and

and for me well cier as well we're both Christians I believe the good Lord has plan for all of us and when it's my time to go I might be sitting here talking to you on this podcast hopefully not me too but and and I don't have a a morbid view of life it's just I figure when it's time to go it's time to go right and so what was the what was the Turning Point what was that gamechanging moment where you said okay now we have the upper hand cuz you're going after different CH you know Parts in the chain right yep and if you go back to the surrender 199 81 the surrender

to me was like what is Colombia doing letting him letting him surrender because of all the innocent people that he killed all the police officers that he killed friends of ours that he killed uh you know I remember a lot of you know personal people that I knew uh getting killed and when Colombia said we're going to let him surrender it was like what what about all the lives all the aanka people people that were killed on board that airplane all the the 50,000 people uh so basically and I always remember when he surrendered our attitude was like basically paes War one you know and what's going to happen nothing all the people that he

killed all the traged he buil his own luur with the night and Saun and everything he surrendered into his own prison so basically we lost the turning point of all this is the escape pabar from his so-called prison when he escaped that night basically the next day Steve and I were you know were sent to help out the search block of the Columbia national police and it was everybody was happy uh it was a feeling of elation because we were going to have another chance and this time we made a promise basically that we were not going to lose prior to to Steve getting there you were there 3 years prior to that tell me

about what that time was like yeah I got there in 1988 and it was an informal task force not like the one that Steve and I did after the Escape but during that first uh that first I call it the first man hunt for Pablo it it was a learning experience for me because like I said I came from Austin Texas where we were you know doing undercover for small amounts of meth you know coke uh you know black tar Hao one was big in in in Austin Texas so uh when I went to Colombia oh and by the way you know what you know how I got to Colombia I mean I not it

was a mistake I want to go to Mexico and I put in for Mexico and it was a mistake so they sent me to Colombia and I my boss says you want to fight it I said no I I'll go to Columbia so I'll never forget 1988 I mean 19 yes 1988 and it was uh basically a learning experience for me because here you are dealing with some of the major traffickers of the world you're dealing in tonnage quantities of cocaine my first I remember my first case was 800 kilos of of cocaine on a plane on American Airlines going to Miami and the cocaine was just in boxes not even hidden in the belly

of the plane you know I said like what you know was just to show the people the that this traffickers had at the airport you know the con yeah connections everywhere so it was a learning experience and uh when I started working you know and I got ass signed the case of Pablo Escobar and then I started going to medine and it was you know working with our cops we had a specialized group of cops it was like wow this is an organization I've never been used to so start started slowly uh working it and I towards the end I learned a lot of Pablo Escobar remember 80% of the cocaine was being sent by

Pablo Escobar and if you look at Miami and I like to correlate the mid the late 8s early '90s Miami the remember the movie Scarface remember the movie Blow it was just like that going on and uh matter of fact I remember the best I talked to a we had a conference and there was a doctor in the audience and after the uh uh after the conference the doctor says you know what guys I was a young I was a rookie doctor in Miami in the mid 80s and we had to rent Refrigeration refrigerator trucks to put the bodies of dead Colombians we could not handle them at our morgs and you know you look

at the massacr the Dateland ma Mall Massacre 1:00 in the afternoon and if you look at the grel de Blanco story she herself was vicious here in the Miami area killing a lot of people herself so it was a WWA West show here in Miami however the cocaine was being sent by Pablo squar in Columbia and when you in Batar in the book and DEA Naros I remember you saying that you had you had come home you have a you have a beautiful apartment in in the north part of Bogota and then you get a phone call yes I get a call from my boss who says oh here uh he says all right just

don't panic he says Get Your Gun he says uh get your we had Broncos get your Bronco and hul ass to the Embassy hang up the phone don't say nothing just get out of there look at your surroundings make sure so when I get to the Embassy they were all waiting for me and I said what happened well we got an intercept that they were coming for you uh that they were going to come and kill you at your apartment and it's in beautiful Apartments you know uh it was four bedroomroom Apartments this one was on the 17th Floor overlooking the city of uh bogai on one side the city then I had the mountain

views I mean we couldn't live in anywhere like I said in the States on this so uh my first experience was to get out of my apartment and head to the Embassy cuz they were coming toward me wow and that happened twice that happened twice yeah but yeah the the US government all they did was get used to moving around yeah moving around all right so I I have some some fans that I asked okay what questions do you want me to ask these gentlemen they submitted some some some great questions here so I want to I want to read a couple of these to you all right so the first one comes from uh

Dr Gabriel de she's the owner of DNH National research centers says the show Naros highlights moments where ethical boundaries were tested to capture Escobar in real life how did you balance the pressure to bring him down with the need to maintain integrity and uphold international law were there moments when the ends Justified the means and how did that impact your approach to Future operations well nothing the ends can never compromise your integrity right we took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States we have zero jurisdiction down there we're not calling the shots we do have input uh and we're supporting the operations we broke policy rules and procedures every day from the

embassy and from DEA everybody knew we were doing it but the one thing we never did was break the law so the show shows that we were on helicopters when people were being kicked out the door that I was kidnapped I was never kidnapped Javier shows Javier passing classified information to little peppies that's Hollywood none of that is true and and people you know one of the most frequently qu asked questions we get is how much of narcos is true well there's only about a third of it that's really true wow the second third is kind of true they really dramatized a lot of what's goes on and that last is just straight out make

believe Hollywood it's wow you know one of the most frequently asked questions we get is did they s you know they break into my apartment and kill our cat well we did have a cat named puff and puff died in Columbia but puff was old he had a heart attack scos didn't break into our apartment he had an easy death so wasn't tortured the and like when we go to the United Kingdom man in England they believe if it's on TV it's a gospel I mean they believe everything is see on TV and we do a Q&A at the end of every show this is our ninth year of of traveling around the world and

uh we used to let the audience shout questions up to us on stage and I mean they they're like you know Javier's dirty why isn't he in prison oh my gosh well it's Hollywood it's make believe you know and that's the one thing we learned is that with Hollywood is they'll never let the truth get in the way of telling a good story right right right and if I can say but you know what yeah that we always get that that question why were we dirty uh but like Steve said we broke policies rules we never broke the law one thing that we did uh do is go out on operations uh every time with

the cops on search warrants with them so and by going out with them and they wanted you to go out with them uh but it was that exchange of intelligence you cannot like for example I remember finding uh phone numbers of people in Miami that work for Pablo esar so we would channel that information right away to Miami and Miami da uh was doing a great job in going after the Escobar people working in Miami that's one thing that really helped us but by dismantling all of the organization I mean it was beautiful you know Miami would take down escar people we would take them down in Colombia you're going after the all of the

organizations which is what we try to teach to some of our you know uh counterparts uh what how it worked and I just cannot over stressed by us being there instead of waiting a month a week to get that information you're getting it hot off the press and you're acting on it and a lot of it was coming back from Miami to Colombia I remember uh some of the information led to the famous Warehouse where paabo kept all his antique cars we gave him that information uh uh we were following people of Escobar all over the world we give them the information when they were calling back to so by us being there was a

big turning point in in us you know basically going after all of the organization you know Sergio if you look at intelligence if you don't act on it when you get it tomorrow it's not Intel it's history right so that was what he said is exactly right that's what made the difference and and believe it or not as strange as this might sound taking down Pablo and the median cartel was the first time that we had completely dismantled an international manufacturing and distribution cocaine organization and then DEA continued work with Columbia national police and took out the C cartel and then next was North Valley cartel and then Don Burna who had la fa theado

you know it was a model that that worked but it's just strange to say that taking down the median cartel was the first time that we' entirely dismantled the entire organization yeah it was a game changer in in US history it was that's incredible and so that leads me to the next one from laurian Cox she's the CEO of breakthrough Miami said would it be easier to successfully capture and take down Pablo Escobar today and why that's a great question uh you know what and like you said if you if you look at like said the all the terrorism and that's why we call them the inventor of narot terrorism you look at the the

bombing the the aanka the da the killing of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Gan the killing of newspaper editor G moano who theor you all remember leor wrote an all bad piece saying Escobar should be extradited Escobar Hills the editor it's a famous I mean famous editor that everybody loved in Colombia so this was a different type of a a war it was personal and it was something you know and we said that there was a lot of times towards the n and I would just say you know what let's let this guy surrender let's just all go home man go back to our families we're living with the cops in medine but when he blew

up you know put the car bombs uh police officers getting killed it's like you know what we cannot let him surrender so it was a different type of a war and like I said I always go back we never crossed that line yes we worked with some City characters we we work with Donna and if you look at the naral series Donna was the head of those pepis however we did not know that at the time we find out after PA esar gets killed that DNA was the head of L pepus and D's in jail in the United States right now he gets extradited uh so yeah there's a lot of instances however like I

said we never crossed the line you know if you look at I think it would be harder nowadays to capture Pablo simply because of the advancement of Technology you know with indn cry end encryption on your communication devices right that's almost impossible to it's almost impossible unless you have some specialized program and you know I don't know that uh the drug war first of all is a big misnomer title but I don't know that you have the commitment of our country to commit those typee of resources to go and so that that's interesting because there's there's another question here from Juan Diaz who's a a VA surgical nurse and he talks about the supply of

cocaine being as as high or or or higher than before is that because so let me get let me read the question here so given historical prices showing that the value of cocaine on the street is much lower today than in the 80s would suggest that the supply of cocaine has not decreased if anything is still well supplied uh do you feel our longtime waren drugs started over 50 years ago has been successful or is it time to find some kind of new approach to it what what are your thoughts on the you know the war on drugs and has it been successful you know unfortunately he's exactly correct you know it's can you we

challenge our audiences can you go out and buy cocaine on almost any Street Corner in the United States today we all know you can right but it's also not something that can be ignored so H and I have discussed this at length on on other shows and on the stage and and different you know uh media groups we're big proponents of Education if you look at the statistics the United States is the largest consumer country in the world of illegal narcotics and so we look at what our our lawmakers are doing and they're making it easier to get access to narcotics in the United States why are we making it easier for our citizens to

get drugs that will harm them right and we've I mean it's a proven track record now they say there's functioning uh addicts out there I've never met one I guess there are I've never met one yeah and it and it actually comes down to a personal opinion as well I think we should stop being so permissive I think we should enforce we don't need new laws the laws are on the books we don't need law enforcement reform you know let the cops do their job stop expecting them to do every job that nobody else wants to do you know when when we went through theems we' both been through two acms you're trained in law

enforcement I was never trained in how to handle a mental person you know was all the different things even going to domestic disputes you're only trained very minimally and how to handle those you're responsible for handling that and you know now I know I'm getting on my high horse a little a little bit here but we're expecting our law enforcement professionals to do things that they don't know how to handle and then we want to point the finger at them when when things don't go right so it's I I think that we just come over become overly permissive in our country uh to the point where certain states are legalizing heroin methamphetamine cocaine not just

weed I'm I'm not in favor of weed being like legalizing right people thinks that's a cure all you know the the end all the be all for it's going to raise billions of dollars is what we're talking about in Florida here really billions of dollarss I mean some of these things you just have to apply a common sense principle to but you know back to the question there he's absolutely right but we can't ignore the problem right you know it's if we did where would we be what if it if it wasn't for all our professional law enforcement Personnel out there that are fighting this on a daily basis that are risking their lives every

single day where would our country be we'd be another third world countries what we'd be right and we've talked to a lot of people that are adults now a lot of all mention remember the Dare program that they went to in school they was like man it was a great program we've talked to other people was like you know what all those pictures you would see of the before after you know drug use he said I was remember some somebody said you know that scared me to the point where I said I don't want to get involved in that the point I'm trying to make is education we need more and I think that's been

going down the tube lately on on drug education uh we need something more programs and and you're right it's out there you can buy dope anywhere look at the all the problems going on but uh again it's uh going back to you know what we need to start telling you know young people the truth of what the drugs are the consequences right and so and and fentol obviously is now the new cocaine and even much more dangerous Much More Much More I mean you know if you don't view that as a as an attack on I don't want to get in polished we try to stay very apolitical so I don't want to talk politics

but if you don't view the influx of fentel under our country as a as somebody invading our country it's a pretty naive opinion to take in my opinion one point of advice I will give everybody is be careful with that medication that your friend will offer you how many times have we been told by our neighbor our friend hey not try this pill it'll you know it'll help you there are more consequence quences we've talked to many people where uh that one pill person never ED drugs could not sleep they think it's a it's a a common prescription for a painkiller and it's they bought it on the streets and it was filled with fentanyl

there are thousands of those type of examples be careful with that stuff they give you out there if it comes from your doctor you're fine you're pharmacist you're fine but comes from a uh from a friend I've learned how and you know you go back in your lifetime how many friends have offered you neighbors all here take this it could be as simple as a Tylenol or an aspirin right and you didn't even realize it it's you know before covid uh we worked with another Group H and I did and we went on Capitol Hill twice once to talk to the house side once to talk to the Senate side and then later we went

to speak to the American legislative exchange conference and it was all about counterfeit medications and this was before before fentel was really becoming a household world uh word but of all those polic politicians and staffers we talked to I'll bet you less than 5% knew that counterfeit medications were even an issue in the United States they would come to you afterwards and ask questions and they're like I had no idea wow well you know after we informed them of it we still didn't seen change for years I mean over the last year or so is you know we're losing over 300 people a day to fental poisonings whatever you want to call it overdoses poisonings

doesn't matter we're losing three 300 Americans every single day so if that's not most serious what if what if a jet airline a commercial airina crashed every single day that's there's not 300 people on those PL what would the reaction be from our government then or from our populace but you know it's it's it's like having a $300,000 bounty on your head you become complacent you know and we just accept it until it'll directly affects us then people want to get serious about it I wish I had the answer you know jav and I we're both big proponents of Education these groups that are out there now the faces of fentel and things like that

where they are bringing more awareness to it if you think that it's not touching your family in some manner you need to look harder I'm just about guarantee it will absolutely and so as you as you look back on your careers I always my my point of view is I would I would rather regret something I have done than regret something I haven't done I always you know prefer to I don't want to back on my in my deathbed and say oh I wish I would have tried that I wish I would have tried this when you are you know you start looking back at your careers is there anything that you regret from the

time that you were there or or you know saying I should have you know taken that chance obviously you guys took the biggest chance of all with with your lives and perhaps you didn't realize what you were getting yourselves into at the time but is there anything that you look back on you say you I wish I would have done something different yeah you know what my regret and I don't know just I wish we would have taken down pabl Escobar a lot sooner yeah than later there's an old saying Sergio that says if you find a job you like you'll never work a day in your life M we were fortunate enough to find

that job we were both cops for 38 years I know it look that old but we are but it was I I can't think of anything else I would have rather done yeah well you guys are game changers absolutely in you know in your careers and and what you've done and and the lives that we've saved through the influence of not only yourselves but the the Colombian uh police enforcement the military and and hopefully we never see somebody like Pablo Escobar again hopefully and the real heroes were the Columbia national police search led by Colonel ug Martinez and general Octavio Vargas Silva they're the heroes and we've we've said a lot of bad things about

Columbia during this little talk here it's one of the most beautiful countries in the world the people are some of the nicest people World um other than a different time you know after the United States that's my favorite country to visit yeah I was telling that yeah we have great friends there great people and we encourage tourism go back visit Colombia and it's safe absolutely I I used I was telling Steve that I used to work for Caterpillar and you used to go there once a month for 3 years and it was fabulous I mean just the people still beautiful y the food the the scenery it's just beautiful country yeah well congratulations gentlemen on

on on a on a stellar career you definitely are game changers thank you for being on the show I appreciate you guys thank you Sergio we appreciate you having us y thank you Sergio all right so if you enjoyed this make sure to like And subscribe and share it with somebody that needs to hear this because you could be the Game Changer in their life and go FIU go FIU pause up [Applause] [Music]