Pablo Escobar: Escape from La Catedral

Trailer - Pablo Escobar: Escape from La Catedral

Pablo Escobar was one of the most powerful men in the world in the 1980s. Through terror and a network of corruption, he came to have almost total control over the police, the army and much of the Colombian government while operating a gigantic international cocaine trafficking network. In the late 1980s, after a series of savage attacks involving the aircraft shootdown, bounties for killing police and bombings of government offices in broad daylight, the government of César Gaviria negotiated with the capo his surrender in exchange for a series of concessions such as operating -as if it were a personal palace- the prison of his confinement: the site called "La Catedral" in his native Envigado.This podcast in Spanish and English narrates, based on tapes of telephone espionage of the time, the convulsive months between Escobar's surrender, escape and murder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

1. Prologue

A mysterious set of audio tapes arrives anonymously at the offices of Detective, a multi-media production company in Mexico City. On those tapes are secretly recorded phone conversations of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. The head of the Medellín cartel used the telephone as a weapon of war, but it would also be the key to his ultimate demise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

2. A priest, a drug lord, and a journalist

At the end of the 1980s, Colombia had become one of the epicenters of drug trafficking in the world. But a change of government in 1990 opened the possibility for peace and the Colombian government began telephone negotiations with Pablo Escobar for his surrender and an end to the violence that was crippling the nation. In the end, Escobar's surrender sounded like a bad joke, what happens when a narco, a priest and a journalist all board a helicopter? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

3. Get that gun out of my face

The DEA disagreed with Colombia's so called "policy of subjugation" that allowed the surrender of the Medellín Cartel leaders. In addition, they felt that “La Catedral”, Escobar's personal prison, felt more like a country club than a punishment. He even continued to run his criminal empire with no issue from inside the prison walls. That is, until he made a serious mistake. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

4. The dark at the end of the tunnel

The murder of two of Escobar's associates inside La Catedral prison forced the government of President César Gaviria to act. But an attempt to transfer the Medellín capo to a traditional prison resulted in the kidnapping of multiple high-level government officials. When the Colombian army managed to penetrate the prison to rescue them, they were surprised to find out that Escobar was gone. The government and U.S. intelligence agencies begin an intense operation to capture him in which the telephone lines became a battlefield. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices