WEBVTT - The Sweet Song | 2 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:11.119 Aldo to persadas, yeah, d two person de canto. And 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:15.120 I remember that when I was singing that song, I 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:19.120 raised my hands and I say to my God, I 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:24.799 forgive the person that did me that. And I say 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:29.400 to my God, forgive them and forgive me, because in 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.320 this time I need you so much. 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:45.000 On the first of December nineteen ninety three, a short, plump, 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:49.519 middle aged man is celebrating his forty fourth birthday inside 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:54.000 a house in his home city, a Meddy in Colombia. 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:59.760 There's cake, good wine, and marijuana. The man has a white, 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:03.680 small and graying hair at the sides. He owns several 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:07.080 palatial homes, has been a congressman, and for the last 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.920 seven years running, made the world famous Forbes magazine list 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:22.200 of billionaires. But right now he's in hiding. The next afternoon, 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:25.200 the man sits inside waiting for a boy who's been 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:30.280 sent to fetch lunch from a local restaurant. Outside, hundreds 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:34.280 of police and soldiers quietly surround the building, blocking off 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:38.560 the streets and taking up their positions. At two point 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:41.840 fifty one pm, two of the heavily armed cops from 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:46.120 an elite unit of Columbia's National Police approach knock on 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:52.600 the door, and when no one answers, they smash their 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:57.400 way in. Hearing the noise, the man runs upstairs, climbs 0:01:57.400 --> 0:01:59.360 out through a window and jumps onto the roof of 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:04.200 the next door building. Despite his wealth, he's barefoot and 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:08.680 dressed in faded jeans and a blue polo shirt. With 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:12.680 the police now closing in from every side, his money 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:23.600 cannot save him. I'm Fiona Hamilton and from the Times, 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:28.480 The Sunday Times and News Corp Australia. This is Cocaine Inc. 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:43.080 Episode two, The Sweet Song. To understand what led to 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:45.400 the death of Ellie Edwards, which you heard in the 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:54.480 last episode, you need to start here directa in Colombia, 0:02:55.320 --> 0:03:01.640 where the cocaine trail begins. It's the world's biggest producer, 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.520 where that barefoot man fleeing from police across the rooftop 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:08.960 helped turn the cocaine trade from a local smuggling operation 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:15.880 into a global business. Today we're in Bogata, the capital 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:19.960 of Columbia, in the luxurious National Police Social Club in 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:24.960 the city center. There's tall glass windows, manicured grounds with 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:29.880 palm trees, and inside a small chapel, a swimming pool 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:33.079 and a Bowling Alley. It's where some of the city's 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:37.800 cops come to relax. My colleague, News Corp Australia National 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:40.920 correspondent Steven Drill, is sitting at the bar. 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.320 Okay ready to go. My name is Stephen. I'm a 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:54.880 journalist from Australia. Can you please tell me your name 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:56.320 and how old you are? 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:02.880 My name is Jose Fernando Carbajaldrea and twenty seven years old. 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:04.960 And do you have children? 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:07.200 No, I'm single. 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:13.920 Single. I've spent years as a reporter covering cocaine busts 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:19.279 and celebrity cocaine scandals, and I've started to wonder where 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:22.360 does this problem come from and do we even really 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:27.200 understand it? So I managed to convince our bean counters 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.120 and a nervous HR department to send me halfway across 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.520 the world for this podcast, where one of the first 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:39.000 people I meet is Jose, the former policeman. The first 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:42.240 thing I notice is how young he looks, with a 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:48.120 neat beard, pale shirt and dark suit, and unlike what 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:50.880 you might expect for someone who's worked at the center 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:55.440 of global cocaine production, he has an infectious enthusiasm. 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:59.320 I work in the Mountaine in the forests in the 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:03.800 eradica of the elicit plants, call it cocaine. 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:07.359 And with eradication, what do you actually do? Is it 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.840 like spraying a chemical or cutting them down? 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:19.960 I will land square that question. In Spanish, Lacacun des. 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.560 Jose says the police used to spray weed killer, only 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.680 people criticized the damage it was doing to local farmers 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:30.680 and their crops. The Colombian government banned the practice in 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.719 twenty fifteen. There was also a concern the chemicals in 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:38.640 the toxic weed killer would get into waterways and cause cancer. 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.000 So now the cops go in and physically pull out 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:47.080 the coca plants by hand. Wiping out the coca plants 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:49.840 is one of the main ways governments around the world 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.960 have been trying for decades to shut down the cocaine business. 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:59.039 The basic idea is that by sending in cops to 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.680 destroy the coca fine yelds, he reduced the supply of cocaine. 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.719 Supply goes down, the price goes up, which means that 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:09.640 customers and maybe that's you on the streets of say 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:14.279 London or Sydney, don't buy cocaine because it's so expensive. 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.000 To give you an example, there was a cyclone in 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.000 Australia about ten years ago. 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.680 The banana industry is worth four hundred million dollars, but 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.560 it's been brought to its knees by cyclone Yasi. 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:31.839 The banana plantations were wiped out. The price of bananas 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:35.680 went to about thirteen bucks a kilo. That's seven pounds 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:38.640 or close to nine US dollars for a bunch of bananas. 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.160 I didn't eat one for a year. It's economics one 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.440 on one right, Only there's a cost that doesn't get 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:46.880 accounted for it. To check out. 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:57.359 La mozerra internaoso almente in La Selba. 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:01.599 Then Wastro pays and the Colombian police was sent to 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.640 destroy the coca crops. Jose says it was his job 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.160 to go ahead of the other officers with a sniffer dog. 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:12.080 Jose and his dog went alone through the forest to 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:14.520 make sure a path was clear for the rest to follow. 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:20.000 And one day I stepped on i s plus if 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:24.400 a mane and I lost my legs for that. 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.920 He lost his legs. That landmine was left by a 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:34.480 cocaine cartel to protect its harvest, and whoever set it 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:39.200 packed the bomb with nails and glass. They also put 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:43.720 in dogshit to make sure the wound got infected. I've 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.880 seen a lot while reporting on crime, but the evil 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:51.119 intent of that decision is hard to get over. Jose 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:53.520 was left lying on the forest floor. 0:07:54.600 --> 0:08:01.440 It was so bad, and I remember that I look 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:07.440 in the sky and I unsquare to my God, God Why? 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:15.320 And the helicopter arrived. Three miners later. 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.760 His fellow cops rade him out under heavy gun fire 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:23.200 from the cartel how Is I was taken to hospital. 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:27.280 Both his legs were amputated. He lay in a coma 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:32.160 for eighteen days. Finally he opened his eyes. 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:36.960 I remember that the film that I see was my 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:43.680 younger brother. In that moment, I thought, in my family, 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:49.959 I lost my legs, but in any moment, I lost 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:56.360 my dreams. And I fight for my dreams with effort, 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:02.920 with a smile, because I love my country too, and 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:07.360 I think that I should continue service to my country. 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:12.640 Jose says he's fellow police officers are warriors who fought 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:17.440 all day, every day against the drug gangs, losing limbs, 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:23.120 losing their lives, leaving behind their homes and families. And 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.760 it's that human cost that doesn't get accounted for. The checkout. 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:32.240 Yes, when I lose my legs, I arrived at the clinic. 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:38.440 I cried so much, but I take a decision so 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:39.680 important for my life. 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:43.839 Despite the cost he paid in the drug war, Jose 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:46.960 says he's come to terms with what happened to him. 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:52.440 One day, I wake up so sad, and I remember 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:57.960 that I hear a nurse seeing a hitting music. Christian 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:03.120 music is music a Christian Yeah, and there is a 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:08.240 part of the song that I will sing at the people. Yes, 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:19.000 quando test friend al mar heloscatra Visa Germa s on 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:27.840 brey Confe solo love hell mar Romano Nomo see the 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:35.440 transbiene fa on delo Kanto. And I remember that when 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:39.520 I was singing that song, I raise my hands and 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:44.640 I say to my God, I forgive the person that 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:49.440 did me that. And I say to my God, my God, 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:55.439 forgive them and forgive me because I need you in 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:58.360 this time. I need you so much. 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:06.319 Jose forgave the cocaine gain who set that landmine. Today 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:11.760 he's living in Bogata studying law. I will be a 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:19.439 selling layer. And somehow he's still managing to smile given 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:21.840 what happened to him. You might have thought Jose would 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:24.439 be pretty down on the practice of cops pulling out 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:27.160 cocaine plants, except he. 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:33.360 Isn't reason by Santa if. 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:39.640 It's a difficult job, but he says it's important, which 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:41.480 is where we get back to what I was talking 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:46.640 about with the bananas. According to economists, by reducing the 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.920 supply of the coca crop, you would think it would 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:54.520 drive up the price of cocaine. Jose says something similar 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:55.880 is when I. 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.640 Demanda, I ferda, it's. 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:05.680 All about supply and demand, except, as I was about 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:09.360 to discover in the cocaine business, it doesn't work like 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:14.480 that at all. We finished talking and head out of 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:18.400 the police social club together, Jose walking slowly on his 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:19.360 prosthetic legs. 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:29.200 God bleeds you, and never forget that the life will 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:35.640 be better with my with our love, maybe is our 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:37.720 message for you. 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:48.600 Afterwards, I joined up with some of Jose's former colleagues 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:52.520 in the National Police, and together we're traveled by helicopter 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:57.440 deep into the Columbian Mountains. The police are armed with 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:03.000 sixteen rifles as we fly over the thick forest, We 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.960 land and climb into heavy duty four by fours, then 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:12.520 drive along muddy tracks, heading deeper into the jungle. We're 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.800 about one thousand meters above sea level, but among the 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:20.440 mountains there are plateaus where the local farmers have planted fields. 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:22.679 We walk. 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:30.600 Among the trees. I see neat fields with row after 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:35.040 row of coca plants, with their flat green leaves and 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:40.240 bright red berries, the source of the global cocaine trade. 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:45.160 They're handpicked by local farmers. Only here there's no farmhouse, 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:50.160 just some ramshackle buildings made from timber and corrugated iron sheets. 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:56.440 Leaving the car behind us, we walk closer and standing 0:13:56.440 --> 0:14:06.120 there in silence, when suddenly the forest erupts around heavily. 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:10.520 Police charge forward, but this time it's a training rate 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:14.520 on a mock cocaine production lab, but the noise in 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:18.360 the threat of violence feels real. The men pretending to 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:22.360 be cocaine farmers are forced to lie face down, hands 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.040 out stretched in the dirt, and the cops as soon 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:29.960 seizing assault rifles, clearing rooms, pulling their suspects off at gunpoint. 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:35.040 It all happens in seconds. What's left is a stack 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:39.160 of brick sized blocks of white powder cocaine lying in 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:44.200 the jungle sun. Watching the police, I see a lot 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:48.640 of bravery, but not a lot of evidence the strategy 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:53.760 is actually working here in Colombia. As acre after acre 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:57.000 of coca plants are destroyed by the police, the farmers 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:00.080 just go out and plant more. And even if half 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.520 the harvests are ruined every year by cops, which is 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.640 pretty much what happens, the price paid on the street 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:10.240 for cocaine has actually stayed the same or for one 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:15.280 in real terms, over the past thirty years, which is 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:19.720 where we come back to economics. Economics says that that 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:24.280 shouldn't happen. A supply of reduction shouldn't meant a price fall. 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:28.680 The coca farmers should be able to charge more and 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:32.160 the drug cartels should have to pay it. When I 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:34.760 was trying to understand this, I read something by the 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:41.920 Economist Magazines Central America correspondent Tom Wainwright. Picture this, You're 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:44.840 at the supermarket buying a two letter bottle of milk. 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:50.080 It's pretty cheap. In fact, in real terms, the price 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:52.920 of this bottle of milk has fallen over the past 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:56.720 thirty years. Part of the reason it's cheap is because 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:03.120 the big supermarket chains dominate the market. Think Tesco, Sainsbury's, Coals, 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:08.080 Woolies or wal Mart. Those big supermarket chains account for 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:10.680 a huge amount of the food we eat and the 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:14.240 milk we drink, meaning the dairy farmers have a little 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:17.960 choice over who they sell to. That means the supermarkets 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:22.720 can squeeze their suppliers, telling them they're only prepared to 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:26.240 pay so much, keeping down the cost to the customer 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.640 while maintaining their own profits and leaving any increase in 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:32.400 the cost of producing the milk itself to be picked 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:36.840 up by the farmer. And while Western farmers might say 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.880 they feel like they're being held at gunpoint, the farmers 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:46.040 in Colombia actually are. Those cartels set the prices. Meaning 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:50.440 the whole strategy of destroying the coca plants, something governments 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:55.440 have spent billions on, doesn't work. You see, the amount 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.480 of land used to grow coca plants world wide has 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:03.360 roughly trebled touring the past decade. Production is now at 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:08.119 a record level. The crops do get destroyed, but that 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.040 just makes it harder for the farmers. It doesn't affect 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.440 the cocaine gains that are shipping and selling the drug. 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:28.680 Looking back at what I've seen so far in Colombia, 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:32.080 it's the sheer violence of a drug trade. That stands 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:36.320 out Jose's injuries from a landmine, the police training for 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:40.480 a raid with both sides armed and submachine guns. Who 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:44.119 created this business model? There's really one place to go 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:48.480 to find the answer. From the mountains, I travel north 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:52.399 to Meda Yane, where Papal Escobar helped build the world's 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:55.919 first major drug cartel during the seventies and eighties. 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:01.320 The Median Catel group of men that in the last 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:05.000 few years has formed a near monopoly on the processing 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:06.480 and sale of cocaine. 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:10.560 The Median cuts held changed everything in the cocaine business. 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:14.199 They were the first to industrialize the process, shipping and 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:17.119 flying cocaine bus quantities out of the country. 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:21.320 According to American officials, controlling as much as eighty percent 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:22.359 of the world's supply. 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:25.960 With that control came huge profits. 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:29.680 They're talking about a business that probably makes a couple 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:30.879 of billion dollars a year. 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:35.320 In nineteen eighty one, Time magazine ran a front page 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:40.119 story calling cocaine the drug of choice for millions. A 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:44.280 few years later, Forms magazine put the Median cartel's leader, 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:48.760 Pablo Escobar in its annual list of billionaires. Cocaine Inc. 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:52.400 A huge international business run by a relatively small band 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.400 of smugglers operating out of Columbia. This cocaine cartel, in 0:18:56.400 --> 0:19:00.000 many ways, is as sophisticated as a fortune five hundred 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:00.360 up on. 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:04.720 It, and it was sophisticated just like any other business. 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:09.800 The carta had to manufacture, transport, market and seal its product. 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:14.280 The people running it also became sophisticated just like other 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:18.159 business leaders. They wore the same expensive watchers, went to 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.879 the same expensive parties, and had the same expensive problems 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:27.840 as those running legal businesses, like managing their employees, navigating regulation, 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:32.360 finding reliable suppliers, and dealing with their competitors. 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.440 The forty four year old Escobar was accused of waging 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.439 a terror ac campaign. Hundreds of people were killed by 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:40.680 Escobar's assassins. 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:45.760 Looked at this way, cocaine might be the ultimate capitalist product. 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:52.119 The businesses that had the most success selling it are dynamic, innovative, ruthless, 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:56.840 loyal only to the pure, unfettered free market. 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.720 Pablo Escobar had been a fugitive more than a year 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.720 and a half after escaping from this prison, where police 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:05.600 say he still ran his cool Keene. 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.919 Empire until, of course, it ended. 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:18.119 An elite Colombian police unit killed Pablo Escobar in a shootout, 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:20.719 cornering him here in this house where he had been 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:22.200 hiding in the city of Medaheene. 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:27.159 Escobar was the barefoot man who tried escaping across the 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.520 rooftops that Fiona was talking about at the beginning of 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:34.840 this episode. He'd vowed to go down fighting rather than surrender, 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:38.800 and was true to his word, firing at the police 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:43.639 with a nine millimeter pistol in each hand. They shot back, 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:50.480 hitting him twelve times. Escobar fell dead on the terra 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:56.000 cotta tiles. The police post for photos, smiling holding their 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:59.719 guns over his bloodied body. It looks like a trophy 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:01.919 photo taken by a hunting party. 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:06.399 Colombian authorities say its message to other drug lords is 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:08.640 to surrender or you will be killed. 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:12.200 But that message didn't seem to get through. In the 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:16.080 year after Escobar's shooting, his cartail broke up into factions, 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:19.800 and so did the control it had over the cocaine 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:29.080 business in maneem I visit a suburb called Communa thirteen. 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:31.879 It's high in the hills on the outskirts of the city, 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:35.560 but near the main highway. A crucial combination for the 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:40.359 cocaine trade. But while the drug bosses make millions, Communit 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:44.439 thirteen is one of the poorest areas of Columbia. Escobar 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:48.600 ruled it as his personal kingdom. Walking through its narrow 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:51.639 streets to get out of the rain, I duck inside 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:54.200 one of the houses and sit down with a local woman, 0:21:54.960 --> 0:22:00.359 a gay. We mean, her name is Rhodes. She doesn't 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.560 speak much English and I don't speak much Spanish, so 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:07.720 we talked through a translator. Grat yes for letting us 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:08.800 speak in your home. 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:10.840 Audience. 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:13.400 Nah, huh, come kill woostom. 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:17.240 We're in a very small room, about two meters by 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:21.760 three meters. It's the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room, 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:24.800 and the bedroom. Rose actually pulls down a chair off 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:28.440 the bunk bed so we can sit down. 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:30.600 She said, you know, this is my humble house. 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:32.359 How long have you lived here for? 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:32.920 Okay? 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:42.000 As a quanto it she was fourteen years old when 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:45.000 she arrived here, and now she's speak the name do 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:45.199 you know? 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:49.960 Okay? And so you were here when the drug lords 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:52.440 and the gorillas were in charge, just to walk out 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:59.200 until she said yes. Rose tells me how Commune thirteen 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:02.200 could be a the place even for people with nothing 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:04.680 to do with the drugs trade. 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:08.360 She said, the gorillas almost killed one of her sons. 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:13.399 The gorillas confusing with somebody else, so they wanted killing 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:17.320 someone who knows her. You know, saw what was happening 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:20.440 to him. So the guy warned her and she went 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:24.000 directly to the place where her kid was, and she 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:26.439 said to the gorillas, No, he's my kid, and you 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:29.160 got to respect him. If you want to kill him, 0:23:29.160 --> 0:23:30.760 you have to kill me too. 0:23:33.040 --> 0:23:36.320 Rose stood up to the drug gangs and her son survived. 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:40.040 Neither of them had anything to do with the cocaine business. 0:23:40.720 --> 0:23:43.400 But that's how close life and death got In made 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:49.600 n in the nineteen nineties. After Escobar's death, his cartail crumbled. 0:23:50.440 --> 0:23:54.520 Other gangs stepped in fighting over the cartail's business, and 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:58.040 while Rose's family managed to escape the violence, plenty of 0:23:58.080 --> 0:24:02.720 her neighbors went so lucky. For a time, Menin had 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:07.560 a reputation as the murder capital of the world. Life 0:24:07.600 --> 0:24:11.680 in the city has gotten safer, Rose says, looking back, 0:24:12.200 --> 0:24:17.400 I ask what she thinks about the drug trade. 0:24:17.600 --> 0:24:22.320 She said, I wish would be gone, because you know, 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:26.000 that's definitely only no good for the kids. So she 0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:29.080 would lay, never see that again. I run the streets bad. 0:24:29.480 --> 0:24:32.720 It's it's impossible as spite of the columbn economy. 0:24:32.840 --> 0:24:40.200 So yeah, Rose and I don't chat for too long 0:24:40.280 --> 0:24:42.880 before I leave and make my way back to my hotel, 0:24:43.359 --> 0:24:46.640 to the narrow streets of Mediine. But what she says 0:24:46.720 --> 0:24:50.080 days with me. What she said is that the cocaine 0:24:50.080 --> 0:24:54.440 business isn't just a criminal enterprise. It's bigger than that, 0:24:55.720 --> 0:24:59.320 so big that it's part of the Columbian economy, just 0:24:59.440 --> 0:25:04.600 like say in the oil industry or mining, huge multinational 0:25:04.640 --> 0:25:08.439 industries with power to change the lives of millions, and 0:25:08.480 --> 0:25:13.600 in some cases more powerful than individual governments. I'm still 0:25:13.600 --> 0:25:15.280 thinking about it months later. 0:25:20.720 --> 0:25:25.640 Do you speak Spanish, Salido. 0:25:25.480 --> 0:25:27.360 Which is how I ended up on a video call 0:25:27.400 --> 0:25:30.160 to another person who's witnessed the rise of the cocaine 0:25:30.200 --> 0:25:35.680 industry in Colombia. This is doctor Luiz Vales. Today he's 0:25:35.680 --> 0:25:39.639 a law professor. He actually teaches Jose, who you remember 0:25:39.760 --> 0:25:43.080 from earlier in this episode. It was Jose who suggested 0:25:43.080 --> 0:25:43.920 we speak. 0:25:44.880 --> 0:25:47.800 And now did you interpew it here in? He's wonderful 0:25:47.960 --> 0:25:48.800 a human being. 0:25:48.920 --> 0:25:52.840 And actually, but before taking up his teaching post, doctor 0:25:52.920 --> 0:25:56.080 Vealez was a judge who oversaw the state's investigation into 0:25:56.080 --> 0:25:58.919 the drug gang that took over the cocaine trade from 0:25:58.960 --> 0:26:02.720 the Median cartel. They were called the Cali Hotel. 0:26:03.000 --> 0:26:06.720 And we're talking about Cali cartel is mean conunction. 0:26:07.240 --> 0:26:10.080 And then the Cali Catel took over after Escobar. 0:26:10.800 --> 0:26:14.280 Yeah, yeah, but it was the first time in Colombia 0:26:14.520 --> 0:26:18.320 that the Georgiers had bodygardener. I have the bodygarder. 0:26:18.800 --> 0:26:21.880 The judges. He had bodyguards. He tells me he had 0:26:21.880 --> 0:26:26.600 a bulletproof vest and a bulletproof car. His family also 0:26:26.680 --> 0:26:27.480 had to have protection. 0:26:28.200 --> 0:26:31.600 My daughter, she was one year old and she had 0:26:31.640 --> 0:26:34.399 to go to the kindergarten with the bodyguarden. 0:26:35.440 --> 0:26:39.360 Really, this was the big nineteen nineties. The Cali Hotel 0:26:40.040 --> 0:26:41.880 spread throughout Colombian society. 0:26:43.040 --> 0:26:47.639 I saw how drugs money corot the Colombian society. The 0:26:47.720 --> 0:26:52.880 point is, drugs trafficking becomes a new form of employment 0:26:53.000 --> 0:26:57.320 in one of the most an equality country in the world. 0:26:58.080 --> 0:27:02.480 Let me repay that trafficking became a form of employment 0:27:02.680 --> 0:27:06.320 in a poor country. But what's driving that economic engine, 0:27:06.720 --> 0:27:11.119 according to doctor Valais, is not supply. It's not the 0:27:11.119 --> 0:27:15.159 coca plants growing in the jungle. It's demand, and that 0:27:15.320 --> 0:27:19.040 demand is coming from those rich countries where people pay 0:27:19.040 --> 0:27:21.120 a fortune for cocaine. 0:27:21.680 --> 0:27:27.359 Columbia is the country that has been the highest course 0:27:27.840 --> 0:27:32.200 in the war in the by again drugs. 0:27:33.280 --> 0:27:36.359 He says. Colombia is the country that's paid the highest 0:27:36.359 --> 0:27:39.720 price of any in the drug war, or at least 0:27:39.760 --> 0:27:44.280 it wasn't ntil recently, because like any modern business, the 0:27:44.320 --> 0:27:48.960 cocaine trade is always changing, and when the authorities like 0:27:49.040 --> 0:27:52.280 doctor Valez cracked down on it here in Colombia. 0:27:52.800 --> 0:27:55.680 It moved. 0:27:54.560 --> 0:27:54.800 And I. 0:27:56.600 --> 0:28:02.280 Think it's a base for this terrible Mexico. 0:28:04.760 --> 0:28:07.760 Doctor Valez is now working as an advisor to the 0:28:07.760 --> 0:28:11.719 government of Mexico. Were countless thousands have been murdered by 0:28:11.760 --> 0:28:12.800 the drug gangs. 0:28:13.480 --> 0:28:14.639 Mechico is terrible. 0:28:15.880 --> 0:28:19.359 Mexico is terrible, he says. And that's coming from a 0:28:19.400 --> 0:28:22.040 man who had a bodyguard for his one year old daughter. 0:28:23.400 --> 0:28:26.920 Hearing that, I know that Mexico is where we must 0:28:26.960 --> 0:28:27.520 go next. 0:28:29.359 --> 0:28:34.560 The problems between the different cartels, normally they solved that 0:28:34.720 --> 0:28:38.400 through killing people, and unfortunately we have lots of corpse 0:28:39.240 --> 0:28:43.040 and we have not been able to identify those people 0:28:44.240 --> 0:28:49.280 belong to that, and there are lots of clandestine. 0:28:48.480 --> 0:28:53.000 Grapes That's next time on Cocaine Ink. 0:29:01.560 --> 0:29:05.160 Cocaine Inc. Is a joint investigation from the Times for 0:29:05.280 --> 0:29:10.160 Sunday Times and News Corp Australia. The reporters are David Collins, 0:29:10.360 --> 0:29:15.080