DEA agents Steve Murphy and Javier Pena tour world to dispel Pablo Escobar myth
The two DEA agents who took down Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar had a $300,000 bounty on their head as they lived undercover in the capital Bogota. These days they are touring the world to remind people he shouldn’t be hailed as a idol.
Confidential
Don't miss out on the headlines from Confidential. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Steve Murphy and Javier Pena are the real life DEA agents who took down Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, who remains as one of history’s most heinous criminals responsible for thousands of deaths from the 1970s to the 1990s.
If you don’t know the men by name, you’d know them as the central characters in TV series Narcos, depicted by Pedro Pascal and Boyd Holbrook.
They lived undercover in Bogota, Colombia from 1991 working to nab the man who controlled the country and dodging death — Escobar had placed a $300,000 bounty on their heads.
MORE NEWS
- Aussie trainer defends Khloe Kardashian’s real body
- ‘Feel like dying today?’ Tiffiny Hall’s terrifying Paris experience
These days the duo travel the world doing stage shows to remind anyone who idolises Escobar that he was a bad man.
“You see people with Pablo Escobar T-shirts and this is why we do our show because we tell the truth and hopefully we convince them that he was not a good person,” Pena told Confidential.
“But there’s people who idolise him still, we know that.
“There’s still a group in Medellin that thinks he’s Robin Hood, this is why we do the show — to dispel that myth.”
Both men lost friends and colleagues during their years and according to Pena “90 per cent” of people living in Colombia at that time knew someone who was murdered at the hands of Escobar.
But from the harsh reality of Escobar’s reign comes some softness, when Pena had the surreal experience of sitting down with one of his fallen comrades’ daughters to tell her about her father.
“Some good friends of mine and some police officers (were killed by Escobar),” he said.
“One of them his daughter called me up, she’s a police officer now.
“I got to see her and tell her about her dad, because she was just a baby when he was killed. “I told her what he did, he was one of our leaders.
“She was following in his footsteps, she was a captain. Very dedicated.”
But Escobar wasn’t only murderous, Murphy said he was also a paedophile.
New information, that the men will reveal in entirety in their shows, proved that the drug lord’s wife was underage when they married, making Escobar a paedophile.
“We have uncovered some information about when Pablo married his wife, about their ages,” Murphy said.
“And what we’ve uncovered is that Pablo was a paedophile — on top of everything else.
“It’s not stuff that people really want to know but we want to make sure people know what kind of person he really was.”
Tickets are available to A Conversation on Narcos with Steve Murphy and Javier Pena tonight at the Sydney Recital Hall, Angel Place.
They will also do shows in Brisbane on July 25, 26 a show in Canberra July 27 and a show in Melbourne July 29.
Originally published as DEA agents Steve Murphy and Javier Pena tour world to dispel Pablo Escobar myth
$14k a clip: NSW YouTube stars making more than you
YouTube stars in NSW are raking in thousands of dollars per video but it’s what they do in their clips that will drive traditional workers mad. Check out the rich list.
Glamming it up for a return to the racecourse
The first official racing carnival featuring the new $46.6m WINX stand at Randwick Racecourse is kicking off, with model and new mum Ksenija Lukich among those dressing up for the occasion.