The only character to appear in all three seasons of Narcos plus Narcos: Mexico is the Cali godfather Pacho Herrera (above). It's a way for Narcos to explore two different types of drug dealers, and it helps explain the animosity between the two cartels. 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. According to his own son, Escobar used to boast about his crimes and warn his kids they might become victims themselves. The catalog of controversies below helps explain why the public has often questioned the DEA's priorities, as well as the methods it employs to advance them. In 2016, Sebastian Marroquin, the real-life son of Pablo Escobar, posted a lengthy Facebook rant where he identified 28 inaccuracies in Season 2 of Narcos. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Wood, as they attempted to execute a search warrant on whiskey smugglers at the Shearman Ranch in El Paso, Texas, near the U.S. - Mexico border. When they started out, they were practically brothers. Detroit, MI. Read more >, On November 4, 2019, Jorge R. DelRio, a Dayton, Ohio, police officer and a 19-year Drug Enforcement Administration task force officer, along with other members of the DEA Dayton Resident Office were executing a federal narcotics search warrant at a residence in Dayton. Arriving in Bogota with his wife, Connie, in tow, he initially clings to her as his lifeline to the real world, before parting with her in Season 2 when the threat to her life becomes too great. In one notorious case, DEA agents were caught stealing drugs from the agency's evidence vault. Lock Last Updated September 2, 2017, 6:30 AM. Marshals in Racine, Wisconsin, according to police. Be sure to check back soon for part two of this story. This triggers a chain of events that winds up with Cali allying with right-wing paramilitaries and the wife of a dealer murdered by Escobar, Judy Moncada (Dolly Moncada in real life), to bring the war onto the streets of Medellin. 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. Formed in 1964, FARC started out as a gang of impoverished men who wanted to carve out their own state separate from Colombia. A locked padlock Luis Guzman, who played Jos Gonzalo Rodrguez Gacha in season one, just stuck with his Puerto Rican accent. MEDELLIN CARTEL TARGETS DEA AGENTS - The Washington Post One agent was found guilty of pocketing $700,000 during the operation and sentenced to two years in jail. Escobar really had put a price on the heads of Murphy and his family. The girls were later handcuffed. See our Wall of Honor page for more information and a list of our fallen FBI Family members. What started as a routine investigation with DEA agents following up on tips that illegal drugs were being transported on an Amtrak train from California turned deadly as agents closed in on a suspected drug dealer. An official website of the United States government. International Arms Dealer Viktor Bout Convicted in New York of Despite once being the biggest rebel group in Colombia, FARC is curiously absent from Narcos. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Police. Two Mexican nationals living in south Texas were later arrested and charged with murdering a federal agent as well as possession of intent to distribute 303 pounds of marijuana. The FBIAA hopes that all Americans will join us in condemning these abhorrent acts of violence.. The soldiers that stormed the building disappeared and murdered 12 cafeteria workers they wrongly suspected of supporting the guerillas. The agency was formed just two years after Nixon launched what became known as the "war on drugs." Rather than doing so under Escobar's orders, M19 attacked the Palace of Justice after President Betancur violated a ceasefire agreement with the group. At least Paige knew where his gun was when he shot his foot. Read more >, Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Ralph N. Shaw of the Calexico, California District Office died May 14, 1976, in a plane crash north of Acapulco during an operations flight in support of Mexico's opium eradication program. She wants him to surrender and get a sweet deal, or at least take the family and leave Colombia for good. U.S. Drug . 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. ELN barely shows up, and FARC is portrayed in Season 3 as little more than a bunch of farmers living in the jungle (rather than an insurgent army that once controlled a third of Colombia). But while you might have assumed the alliance between Pena and Don Berna was fictionalized for the sake of narrative simplicity, you probably wouldn't have assumed that it was entirely made up. Shortly thereafter, the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General released a report excoriating top DEA officials not only for the incident itself, but also for failing to immediately report it to their office. Type "Cali wedding bomb" into Google and all you'll get are discussions of Narcos rather than, y'know, actual history. U.S. Government Law Enforcement Line of Duty Deaths He was assigned to the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York Joint Task Force. Y'know, the one where fugitive Escobar grows a beard and goes to visit that old peasant dude living on a farm only for us to discover the peasant is his dad, and then the two spend like 45 minutes fixing fences together? 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. U.S. Justice Department. He turned the money down. 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. Steve Murphy and Javier Pea are the real-life federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents portrayed by actors in the TV series "Narcos" on Netflix. The agents' actions nearly got an informant killed, according to reports. He was a 16-year veteran of DEA. From Colombia to Afghanistan and from Los Angeles to New York, DEA agents, investigators, analysts, chemists, lawyers, and support staff all work . On February 7, 1985, a group of corrupt Mexican officials kidnapped DEA agent Kiki Camarena, who had infiltrated the Guadalajara Cartel. Escobar himself made very clear it was so if they were captured and tortured they couldn't give information on him. Kansas City, MO. He was 32 years of age at the time of his death. Earlier this week, an FBI agent was shot and critically wounded while serving an arrest warrant with the U.S. While he admits he bribed politicians, and spent five years in a U.S. jail for drug trafficking, he disputes ever carrying out any murders. 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. Secure .gov websites use HTTPSA lock ( The real Cali cartel was poisonously homophobic. AETNUK. 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. 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. [20] 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). The ordeal ultimately ended in a $4.1 million settlement for Chong. Among them was the bombing of Gilberto Rodriguez's daughter's wedding. El Chapo's sons charged with fentanyl trafficking, torture - The "He was tortured and beaten to. Watson, 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 Finals game. Several tied to Haiti assassination plot were previously US law - CNN According to Murphy, she got upset when she read her character was being written out. He fled the cab but collapsed a short distance away. But the real Pablo was way less of a family man than Netflix makes out. As showrunner Eric Newman admitted: "Did she consider trying to get him to surrender? That's not to say everything Pena does in Season 3 is fiction. Lock According to theGuardian, the Cali cartel at one point hired a British mercenary to bomb Escobar's estate from a military attack helicopter. Sometimes, life is stranger than fiction. We want to be famous for creating and sharing stories that matter unique, trusted, entertaining, everywhere. Meet the DEA Special Agents Who Helped Bring Down Pablo Escobar Adam Janos Special agents Javier Pea and Steve Murphy sitting in front of the entrance to Pablo Escobar's "prison cell" at La Catedral immediately after Escobar's escape. On Monday, DEA Special Agent Michael Garbo, a 16-year veteran of the agency, was shot and killed during an operation in Tucson, Arizona. The real Escobar was indeed a guy who liked the ladies. Standing in the ruins of his home, the real Martinez was offered $6 million to stop fighting Escobar. When agents stormed into Kirking's house, they found a small baggie of weed, enough only for a misdemeanor charge. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. He was the only person prosecuted as a result of the failed sting. Far from being just farmers, FARC at its height was actually comprised of a ruthless terrorist army that controlled one-third of Colombia (via Colombia Reports). By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. According to BLS salary data, police and detectives earned a median annual salary of $65,170 in 2019. The former agent made it clear that he and the real Berna had almost nothing to do with one another. This has been an incredibly difficult week for federal law enforcement, he said. A+E Networks EMEA is an amalgamation of A+E Networks UK, Germany, Italy, Poland, Nordics, Benelux, Spain and Africa. While Pacho's position meant he was immune from such treatment, he was the lucky one. Since 1920, when federal narcotics efforts were a function of the Internal Revenue. Acting Deputy Director of the ATF Tom Chittum told ABC News in an interview it has been a hard week for federal law enforcement. $20k - $102k. TheAssociated Press reported on the peace deal. The. So, the penultimate episode of Narcos season two was weird, right? Until, that is, a convoy he's in is dramatically ambushed on the streets of Medellin. The head of security for the Cali cartel, Salcedo is shown as a fundamentally decent guy trapped in a life of crime by circumstance and the need to protect his family. This was seen as a coup for Vargas. Striving to always do so requires passion. The DEA has terrorized and killed innocent people. Caught sitting in a car by Navegante, the two have a creepy chat before Navegante pulls his gun and is instead blown away by Salcedo, who does a Han and shoots first. He kills people in cold blood, murders innocents, blows up an airliner, and generally does things so unambiguously evil that he makes Tony Soprano look like Santa Claus. Everyone has a voice and should feel proud and free to run with their ideas, enjoying their successes and journey with us. DEA agents have lost their guns in weird places, including an airport bathroom. Narcos portrays his wife Tata as young and inexperienced, but it doesn't make much of the fact that the real Tata (known as Maria Victoria) was only 15 when they married. Special Agent Michael was a member of DEAs foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Team Alpha, assigned to Afghanistan. A Mexican federal judicial police commander, a major drug trafficker and his cousin were later indicted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles. Per the Miami Herald, it undermined the effectiveness of crucial scenes. In her testimony, Leonhart refused to answer the seemingly straightforward and obvious question of whether heroin or crack are worse for a person's health than marijuana. Secure .gov websites use HTTPSA lock ( As showrunner Eric Newman toldThe Hollywood Reporterwhen asked about the truthfulness of the episode, "That was invented in terms of the content." Read more >, Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Chad L. Michael was killed on October 26, 2009, when the U.S. military helicopter he was in crashed while returning from a joint counternarcotics mission in western Afghanistan. But while the basic outlines of the Castao's backstory is broadly true, Narcos did miss out one crucial detail. The showrunners used him as a useful receptacle for stuff many DEA agents did at the time. The age of consent in Colombia is 14, but still. On February 17, 1985, Palombo and fellow DEA agents arrested Blanco at her home in Irvine, California. But while in Narcos, the accusation is enough to make Escobar leave, in real life, he tried to turn the tables by accusing Bonilla of being a client of (irony alert) Colombia's cartels. A number of FBI agents and employees have been killed in the line of duty. Steve Murphy - Narcos, Wife & Javier Pena - Biography Photo: Steve Murphy Print Cite Hence their effectiveness as part of Los Pepes. Admission to the DEA Museum is FREE. And last Friday in Louisiana, a deputy U.S. marshal died after he was in a car accident while on duty. ", Of course, there's an open question as to how much of a willing accomplice the real Tata (Maria Victoria Henao) can be called, given that whole "married to Escobar aged only 15" thing. With offices in London, Rome, Madrid, Warsaw, Munich and Johannesburg, we are a truly international company that celebrates difference and diversity. One DEA agent died this week in a shootout. While a DEA spokeswoman has since said that the agency is dedicated to its undercover source's "safety and wellbeing," it's obvious that the original agent's negligence put the informant in needless danger. He is in some ways an unlikely undercover operative; at seventy-two, he has suffered three strokes and has aching hips. With more than 11,000 employees and a host of responsibilities, the agency's activity has expanded worldwide, all the while attracting scrutiny from critics of the drug war who contend that the DEA is an ineffective agency that uses controversial tools to enforce often misguided or unjust federal drug laws. Although showrunner Eric Newman has always been careful to stress that the narrative is condensed and refined to work as fiction, there's no doubt Netflix wants you to take Narcos seriously as television. With Kentucky expecting a shipment of 250 pounds of hemp seeds from Italy, the DEA stepped in, impounding the shipment and claiming the importation was still illegal because under current federal drug law, both hemp and cannabis are considered Schedule I substances. Read more >, Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent George D. Althouse was killed on May 28, 1992, during an attempted car theft in Shelby County, Alabama. She struck a deal with prosecutors and served only 15 years in prison. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Police. each believing he was somebody else's responsibility, a report in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, BuzzFeed reported on the case of Sondra Arquiett, Bill Conroy of the Narcosphere recently reported, mistakes leading to the injuries and deaths, aggressive local protests calling for the DEA to leave the area, called for a further investigation into the episode, agents raided the Illinois home of Angela Kirking, barred the DEA from enacting such restrictions. A critical turning point in Narcos' second season comes when the Medellin cartel detonates a bomb at a Cali cartel wedding party. U.S. Government Line of Duty Deaths. FBI.gov is an official site of the U.S. Department of Justice. Special Agent Garbo was shot multiple times during the interdiction and succumbed to his wounds. How many agents have been killed in the line of duty? FBI ", In a prime example of the extreme lengths to which the DEA can go to combat drug use, the agency attempted in 2001 to ban popular symbols of rave culture at a prominent New Orleans club that had become associated with Ecstasy. He was 46 years of age at the time of his death. Whether our stories challenge and inspire intellectually or simply entertain, we know that we are making a positive contribution to our audiences across the many diverse regions and countries in the UK, Europe, The Middle East and Africa. Most of Narcos' poetic license is used to make real events more interesting, but not this time. The agents never faced charges in the teen's death, even though testimony from witnesses and subsequent reports conflicted with official accounts of the incident. 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. Even though the Drug Enforcement Administration has been around since 1973, many people aren't familiar with the agency's responsibilities, mission, and impact on Americans' day-to-day lives. The fourth episode of Narcos centers around one of the major incidents of the Colombian civil war: the 1985 Palace of Justice siege in Bogota. Instead, he wound up sounding like what he was: a Brazillian dude trying his hardest to speak in a regional Colombian accent and failing. Since 1920, when federal narcotics efforts were a function of the Internal Revenue Service, 31 drug agents have been killed in the line of duty, not including those shot Friday. None of this is a problem at all if you can't speak Spanish. He also stated that the FARC's fight against the United States was also his fight and that he had been "fighting the United Statesfor 10 to 15 years." For all of the sketchy things the DEA has done while waging the drug war, perhaps most upsetting to critics is the agency's often stubborn insistence that the war should be fought with the same aggressiveness on all fronts. He vanished off the grid, so any show that wanted to tell his story would be forced to make something up. One "may have fallen into trash basket at work," according to the report. This photo provided by Evan Courtney shows two officers embracing near the scene of a shooting aboard an Amtrak train in Tucson, Ariz., Oct. 4, 2021. But the DEA has insisted on treating marijuana with equal severity. It's a dramatic, intense scene. Drug poisoning has been the leading cause of injury deaths in America for every year since 2011, greater than deaths by suicide, homicide, firearms and automobile crashes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When Cali nearly kill Pablo's kids with a bomb outside their apartment, Escobar becomes like an avenging angel, enraged that his children are being dragged into his seedy business. In 2003, 14-year-old Ashley Villarreal was shot in the head by a DEA agent while driving just blocks away from her San Antonio home. Who knows? Narcos is clear that Pablo Escobar is one bad dude. TFO Hanger was hiking with other members of the Reconnaissance and Arrest Team following a tip about a suspected large-scale outdoor grow operation when he suffered chest pains, which required immediate medical attention. Mexico drugs: How one DEA killing began a brutal war The number of people they kill in grotesque ways as part of Los Pepes is up there with any old school slasher movie. The operation involved Salcedo bringing together ruthless paramilitaries and mercenaries who'd previously fought for the white supremacist government in Rhodesia. Borrowing a tie, he goes to spend his first day as a representative, only to be denounced as a narco. As played by Boyd Holbrook, DEA agent Steve Murphy is the lynchpin of the first two seasons ofNarcos. A few days after the shooting, Villareal's father was arrested on drug conspiracy charges. Mike Vigil sat on . It may not be as narratively satisfying as having their characters go back to the simple life, but it's probably more lucrative. According to a report in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner earlier this month, an agent accidentally left key documents about a methamphetamine case in the house of a suspect he was arresting. As a result, the shift in Season 3 to the Cali cartel risked alienating viewers who'd been tuning in to watch Murphy and Pena take down Escobar. While the show is right to say the real Agent Pena was out the country when Escobar was finally taken down, the real Murphy was miles away from the action. 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. But not all of them. DEA continues to honor their sacrifices with a redesigned space featuring newly commissioned portraits, a dignified brass display area, respectful 24-hour illumination, and an interactive kiosk that shares the stories of each hero. Cali, by contrast, is coke done NYC business style, with Pacho just as likely to take you golfing as he is to massacre your family. "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 f ing helicopters. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. FARC fighters were trained by both the Soviet Union and the IRA (via Telegraph). Two days later, Villareal died. Our hearts and thoughts and prayers go out to the families, the friends and to those officers that have been subjected to this gun violence.. Thousands of dollars' worth of liquor, a quantity of drugs, and several weapons, including two automatic pistols, were seized during this operation. DEA operatives Steve Murphy and Javier F. Pea tell the true story of how they helped put an end to one of the world's most infamous narco-terrorists in Manhunters: How We Took Down Pablo Escobarthe subject of the hit Netflix series, Narcos. A DEA agent impersonated a woman by creating a fake Facebook profile in her name. Confidential informants people who pose as criminals so they can provide information to the police or some government agency have helped crack some major U.S. cases. Gee, it's almost like real-life narco terrorist psychopaths really don't have a conscience. 1 Fallen Officer. AsThe Guardian reports, the producers sourced actors from all over the Americas to play the Colombian characters. Learning is part of the journey at A+E Networks EMEA and youll be offered personal and professional development opportunities throughout your career with us.
