Real Narcos

It’s late 2014, and El Chapo is finally back behind bars. The prison he’s in has a reputation as a fortress - it’s even more secure than the last one. But if anyone’s going to have a crack at busting out, it’s Chapo Guzmán. Specially trained diggers hatch a plan for one of the most audacious prison breaks in history. Back at large, the sensible move is to lay low in the mountains. But Chapo can’t resist the limelight. He prepares for a sit-down. Not with his lawyers or the cops, but with the Hollywood actor Sean Penn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The DEA agents make a huge breakthrough in the investigation, when a routine wiretap in Arizona unexpectedly leads them to El Chapo’s personal cell phone. Monitoring his personal communications, they get to know their target intimately. The Mexican marines begin the process of rounding up Chapo’s henchmen. Each arrest gets them closer to the boss himself. Until, finally, a dawn raid in the resort town of Mazatlán yields the ultimate prize. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s 2001, and Mexican drug baron Joaquín Guzmán Loera has spent nearly a decade behind bars. But now he becomes a fugitive once more, as he pulls off the most daring escape his super-max prison has ever seen. DEA agents wrangle a sit-down with a new, priceless informant. Meanwhile, Chapo finds love in the mountains. And his cartel branches out into a new market, with a product that has huge possibilities for financial reward: meth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After escaping a hit at Guadalajara Airport, El Chapo disappears from view. When he resurfaces, he’s in Guatamela - Mexico’s next-door neighbour. Acting on a tip-off, the authorities close in on a hotel in the border town of Tapachula. Returned home in handcuffs, Chapo can look forward to a lengthy stay at a top-security penitentiary. But by throwing money around, he’s able to win the prison guards over to his side. The flow of drugs into the United States continues, unhindered by Chapo’s incarceration. So DEA agent Joe Bond prepares to go into the jail undercover for a secret face-to-face with Guzmán himself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the early 1980s, Chapo Guzmán is still in his mid-20s. But he’s already done more than enough to grab the attention of the Guadalajara Kingpin. Pretty soon, he’s promoted into the Cartel's inner circle. He’s put in charge of logistics - using tunnels, ships and even submarines to transport contraband between South, Central and North America. As Chapo assumes personal control of Sinaloa State and the Pacific Coast, he turns his own operation into a supersized cartel. As a brutal drug war breaks out between rival traffickers, DEA agents go undercover in an attempt to unpick the intricate arrangements of Chapo’s distribution network. In doing this, they’re taking their lives in their hands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

El Chapo: the scourge of Mexico and America’s most-wanted. Joaquín Guzmán Loera, to use his real name, escaped from custody multiple times and dodged death many more. For years, he rode roughshod over Mexican justice and evaded the long arm of the US Government. He became an A-list celebrity criminal - a subject of fascination and even reverence - despite a never-ending list of heinous crimes and innocent victims. But how did this semi-literate psychopath from the rural hinterland of Sinaloa do it? In the aftermath of Félix Gallardo’s downfall, in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, the old drug empire is divided up amongst heirs. But some will fare better in this new landscape than others. Real Narcos unpicks how Chapo rose from obscurity right to the top of the pile, swiftly becoming the dominant force in the drug world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With one of the Cartel leaders behind bars, the DEA have taken a big step in rounding up the killers of Agent Camarena. The search for the remaining fugitives is ramped up. The noose tightens around Félix Gallardo, as DEA agents stake out and raid properties all across Latin America. But the end of Gallardo will not close the curtain on the North American narcotics trade. Into Gallardo’s shoes will step his former understudy. He’s a fresh-faced, fearsome enemy for the authorities to deal with - a new godfather whose story will bring us right up to the present day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Guadalajara, DEA agents search frantically for their missing friend and colleague, Kiki Camarena. The US-Mexico border is almost shut down as 50% of all cars crossing at San Ysidro are searched for leads. The massive effort soon pays off. Meanwhile, on the runway at Guadalajara Airport, in the shadow of a luxury private jet, DEA agents are caught in a Mexican stand-off with the Godfather’s right-hand man. And out in the remote countryside, a farmer makes a gruesome discovery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1981, DEA Agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena lands in Mexico. His task is to bring down the man known as El Padrino (The Godfather). This drug lord's real name is Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo. Gallardo sits atop an industrial scale cocaine and marijuana trafficking operation, propped up by millions of dollars’ worth of bribes. He’s a man intertwined with the upper echelons of the Mexican establishment, a deadly spider at the centre of a web of corruption. Agent Camarena is only supposed to be stationed in Mexico for a few years. But his stint will end in horrific, unprecedented circumstances. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everyone assumed Matta Ballesteros was just a low-level pusher. But it turns out he’s the shady mastermind behind an overland supply route funnelling eye-watering quantities of cocaine into the southern United States. After a long and gruelling pursuit across multiple borders, the US agents on his tail hatch a plan to snatch Matta off the street. Finally, Mike Vigil of the DEA comes face to face with the man he’s chased halfway across Latin America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The drug lords in this series tend to be larger than life. This guy is a little different. The man they call ‘El Negro’ – ‘The Black One’ – is an elusive, faceless phantom. Hunting him is like trying to catch smoke. But in September 1981, the DEA make a huge cocaine bust in Los Angeles, California. The raid throws up clues that point the agents towards a Honduran cocaine chemist. The hunt for Matta Ballesteros begins... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Griselda Blanco outhustled and outwitted the men in her orbit to rise from desperate poverty on the streets of Colombia to remarkable wealth on Miami Beach. In Bogotá, a domestic dispute between Griselda and her husband snowballs into a shootout in a nightclub parking lot. In Miami, a rookie cop is called to a homicide bearing all the hallmarks of a Godmother hit. An informant is planted at the heart of Griselda’s family network. And DEA agents come face to face with the Godmother herself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the early 1980s, the US Coast Guard are inundated with speedboats, propeller planes, helicopters and even submarines loaded with ton upon ton of high-grade cocaine. Sleepy towns find themselves on the front line of the war on drugs. Miami goes from quiet southern resort, to international front-page news. Behind this tidal wave of white powder washing up on the beaches of south Florida? The world’s first female narco-terrorist - a fearsome woman they call The Godmother. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kim Jong-il built a volatile rogue state with nuclear missiles trained on its enemies – all while living a life of the utmost luxury. In the first episode of Real Dictators, we piece together the early life of this tyrant and that of the country he came to rule. Kim Jong-il is born during World War Two. His father – Kim Il-sung – fights the Japanese and helps found the state of North Korea. After the War, son and nation grow up together, as Kim Jong-il begins his own rise to power. Historians trace Kim’s early years, while defectors from North Korea reflect on the propaganda they grew up with. Subscribe to Real Dictators to hear more episodes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Barry Seal has gone from smuggler to informant, and now penetrates further into the heart of the Medellin Cartel than any American before or since. But this daredevil pilot flies too close to the wind… As Seal’s identity is exposed, the tables are turned. Can he disappear into the ether before the Cartel track him down? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tom Cruise played him in a Hollywood blockbuster movie. Barry Seal’s name has passed into legend. In this episode of Real Narcos, Barry Seal flips. The world’s most illusive smuggler becomes the DEA’s most highly prized informant. With a mission brief from his handlers, Seal embarks on a death-defying mission into the mountains of Colombia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pablo Escobar couldn’t have reached the heights he did without smugglers willing to traffic cocaine by land, sea… and air. The story of Barry Seal starts in a bar in Baton Rouge in 1981 and will take us flying over the Gulf of Mexico to South America, then back again to the South Louisiana swamps. This is the tale of the over-sized American airline pilot who gave up the dream of the white-picket fence… to become the biggest home-grown narco-trafficker the United States had ever seen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The DEA agents finally discover Escobar’s whereabouts. Pablo’s empire comes crashing down. Shot dead on a Medellin rooftop, the most powerful cocaine smuggler of all time meets a grisly end. The agents reflect on their journey, and where the death of their number one target leaves the war on drugs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pablo escapes from his luxury prison and vanishes into the Colombian countryside. Agent Ken Magee finds himself on a plane bound for Frankfurt, Germany… with Pablo Escobar’s wife. And Escobar’s teenage son makes a surprise appearance at the office of DEA Agent in Charge, Joe Toft… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pablo Escobar launches all-out war on the Colombian government, firing RPG rockets at the man about to become President. A new DEA chief arrives in town with a maverick plan. And at a lavish party at Pablo’s mansion, a murder in the night threatens to turn the Medellin kingpin’s empire upside down…  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We pull back the curtain on Escobar’s empire and follow his rise to power – from the rough streets of Medellin to the forefront of the international drugs trade. Journalist Simon Strong goes in search of Pablo’s father. Agent Kane uncovers a plan to kidnap the children of DEA agents in Colombia… While Escobar himself begins construction on a lavish mansion, complete with bullring, waterpark, and a private zoo… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1980s, a new generation of American special agents lands in Colombia, tasked with capturing the most infamous cocaine trafficker on the planet: Pablo Escobar. We’re embedded with the DEA as they track down a man who blows up commercial airplanes, bombs civilians and murders government officials virtually at will. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If the US Government asked you to move to Colombia to hunt down the world’s most brutal narco-terrorist, what would you say? Real Narcos meets the real DEA agents tasked with bringing down some of history’s most notorious criminal masterminds - from the King of Cocaine, Pablo Escobar, to the most powerful drug trafficker on the planet, El Chapo. New episodes Monday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices