Joe Toft: DEA agent who took down Pablo Escobar

welcome to the know your ship podcast presented by ehub I’m your
host Frank Dolce you guys are in for a treat unfortunately several several of
you in the room were not born when all of this was was occurring I was in
college when this was happening with the War on Drugs in America and the
Colombian cartels it’s a fascinating story and there are lots of resources if
you want to go listen to it afterwards but you have the number one resource
here with us today on a live broadcast of the know your ship podcast you’re
sitting in the midst of a living legend I’m not kidding that’s that is
absolutely true this is the man who is the head of the DEA in Colombia who
took down the most notorious drug trafficker of all time Pablo Escobar this
is the one and only Joe tof I’m going to have a very hard time living up to
that introduction there yeah yes I said living legend and everyone thought I
was talking about myself but it was you it was you this time I’m going to
read a few facts about Pablo Escobar uh because I don’t I don’t want to
forget any of these things he was also known as the king of cocaine uh one of
the most notorious criminal terrorists in the history of the world DEA agent
Mike vehill said Osama Bin Laden was a choir boy in comparison to Pablo Escobar
a life meant absolutely nothing to him one of Joe’s Partners Kenny mcke said
Al Capone who we think of as a notorious gangster in the United States would
have been nothing more than a driver for Pablo Escobar at the Pinnacle of his
reign of terror Escobar controlled over 80% of the cocaine shipped into the
United States of the se he had several Labs throughout the jungles in
Colombia each capable of producing thousands of kilos of cocaine per week and
just so you have an idea one kilo of cocaine would sell on the street in the
United States for $660,000 or more uh the cartel was netting about $420
million per week at the time Escobar had a net worth of approximately 30
billion do he was listed on the for Forbes wealthiest people in the world at
number seven he owned a 20,000 square kilometer estate that that he built
with several man-made Lakes a collection of luxury cars and bikes a private
Bull Ring sculptures of dinosaurs and a zoo that still exists with elephants
giraffes hippos ostriches and exotic birds I know Colton would be excited
about that because he’d like to go hunt all of those things the hippos are
still prevalent and in fact in some ways overrunning the Colombian
Countryside uh to avoid to avoid extradition to the US he built his own
luxury prison called La cadel staffed by his own employees which included a
soccer field a bar a hot tub and a dance club uh and notoriously he invited a
couple people Joe will talk about this to the prison where he assassinated
those people he tried to position himself as a modern-day Robin Hood he
sponsored many social programs for underprivileged he built roads electric
lines soccer fields housing and hospitals in the poorest neighborhoods in
medine he was a ruthless killer he assassinated or had assassinated three
Colombian presidential candidates the Attorney General eneral of Columbia he
kidnapped the entire Supreme Court and killed at least three of the members
scores of Judges more than a thousand police officers a sitting Cabinet
member journalists civil servants in 1989 he suspected that a presidential
candidate Cesar truo would be on a flight out out of Colombia aanka flight
203 he blew up the flight killing 107 people on board truo was never on the
flight nine days later more than 50 were killed and over two 2200 injured
when he detonated a truck outside of the administrative department of
security headquarters building in Bogota that was the individual that you
decided to go and hunt down I’m just curious why did you want to do that well
excuse me I didn’t decide that the government decided the US government
decided so I was just uh lucky enough to uh be at the right place in the
right time and I got selected to go to Colombia with the mission of hunting
down Pablo esar and doing away with the medine cartel when I left uh for
Colombia I thought I was very well prepared I I had studied Escobar read
every file that DEA had on Escobar in the median cartel studied about
Colombia history uh Customs Etc and I went to Colombia pretty confident that
I could get this guy probably in less than a year it was a three-year
assignment that I went to but uh due to corruption in Colombia and the fact
that he basically owned everybody uh the corruption reached the presidential
Palace uh the military was in his pocket a good uh portion of the Colombian
cops were in his pocket uh every time we located him and we ran an operation
when I say We R an operation that we didn’t have police uh powers in Colombia
because we were Americans guests of the Colombian government so our role was
basically to provide the Colombian police uh with advice intelligence and
help them locate and run operations against uh Escobar but every time we had
an operation it was uh negated by the fact that Esco bar got a a tip from the
authorities prior to our arriving at the location so this Hunt went on for I
was there for almost 7 years and the hunt for Escobar took uh nearly uh
nearly six years so part of his strategy was to build this network of
informant and he did that with the social programs and helping out the poor
and providing food and money and housing and in fact had all of those people
had an opportunity to tell somebody in the cartel if they spotted something
if they saw something so he he kept himself out of trouble by this in
incredible Information Network that he built he built an incredible network
with the poor every cab driver in medene had a number they could call if they
American showed up in medine and so every time that my agents were spotted in
medine Escobar got a phone call to be alert we had uh at times we had as many
as actually more than 100 wire Taps going on at the same time in Colombia um
most of them with the Milan cartel some with a Cali cartel and uh the
corruption even in the wiretap rooms you know he he knew about conversations
that were being intercepted about him or his colleagues before we did so it
was it was a rough road it was extremely difficult and the corruption part of
the issue that you faced is that the government was either uninterested or
afraid of going after Escobar because the corruption Rose to the highest
level of the government including the presidential cabinet absolutely you
know the big obstacle was corruption however another obstacle was that he
established a reputation of uh uh carrying out his threats and it didn’t
matter who the target was the Attorney General presidential candidate the
chief of police whoever he killed them and uh so Colombia all the way to the
president I mean president of Colombia was afraid of Escobar president
gavidia in my opinion did not act against him but they would not uh provide
this the uh the support for the police for to go after him to the degree that
would have uh enhanced the chance of capturing him uh for fear and um yeah
was uh an extraordinary situation so you’re the head of the DEA operation in
Colombia and you’re coordinating with local police with the CIA with the
military as well yes how difficult with all of the corruption how difficult
was it to run an operation like that against someone who is so feared in the
country extremely difficult the the main obstacle I was the local authorities
I felt that if I had the autonomy to run my operations with DEA Personnel it
would have been a I I don’t want to say a piece of cake but it would have you
know we would have been able to get Escobar a lot sooner but the minute you
know the thing I want to explain I don’t want to create the picture that
every Colombian cop was corrupt some of the greatest bravest uh cops that
I’ve worked with through my near 30-year career were Colombian cops that
would not be corrupted and many of them paid a price uh they were killed or
their families were targeted and even with those threats those daily threats
they stood up to Escobar and those are the people we trusted those are the
people that we shared our intelligence with but they have to rely on others
to run the operations they had to bring in others and that’s where the
corruption took place in in organizing that operation and trying to track him
down what were some of the things that you did how did you coordinate with
the local police what was the technology that you used how did you organize
all of these vast resources to try and hunt him down well we had a lot of
resources uh at one point Point uh we actually got the Delta Force to come to
the country at this is after Escobar escaped from his prison and uh the same
unit uh led by at the time Colonel boyin who I’m a great admirer of the
colonel uh he was promoted to General now he’s retired but that was the same
unit that uh worked on the Blackhawk Down uh you know the the book that was
written by Mark Bowen and uh so we had a it was a complicated thing because
there are a lot of turf wars too between the agencies so the CIA would not
normally share with us everything they had we did the same thing with them uh
the police was always a a big question mark because we knew that 95% uh there
was a 95% chance of any anything that we gave the police that would be
compromised we uh we run I said we knew where Escobar was dozens of times but
that information is very time sensitive so you don’t have time to sit down
and you know plan a an operation to carry out in two days you have to react
you have to immediately react because Escobar never stayed in the same place
for very long he was always moving usually no more than a day or two at any
one place so consequently uh as soon as we got the information of where he
was we would go to the police we would give him the information they would
create a a group to to uh uh Target that location where you at and even
though it was a matter of hours by the time we got out there we learned that
Escobar had escaped two hours before or an hour before sometimes his food was
still warm you know uh and um yeah it was extremely frustrating and very
challenging and uh very difficult so you’re you at one point you you
mentioned the prison which I think is a fascinating story and I’m going to
let you tell that but at one point you’re you’re kind of closing in on
Escobar and he turns himself in to the Colombian government to avoid
extradition to the United States which I think he feared most of all the only
thing that Escobar really feared was extradition to the United States the
only law enforcemen that he really feared was DEA and he was through his
campaign of Terror in Colombia uh where like I said he intimidated the
population the agencies the military the uh police the all the way through
the presidency he was able to create a situation where he made some specific
demands uh regarding his uh uh turning himself in and some of his demands
were that he’ be allowed to turn himself in into his own person a person that
he had built that he was allowed to uh pick the security people for the prison
that he was allowed not to uh have law enforcement within 2 kilometers of the
prison that he was allowed to plead guilty to one count of drug trafficking
and uh nothing to do with the murders and you know the thousand thousand of
people that he killed and kidnapped and and president gavidia out of weakness
and out of fear gave into to all his demands and let him walk into his own
prison where he continued operations and we all knew we constantly G we have
intelligence for everything that was going on in that prison and we had
informants we had you know the people were telling us about Escobar going in
and out of the prison whenever he wanted to to attend parties uh they had
ories at the prison they bring in all prostitutes they uh I mean it was unbelievable
he had a disco build in the prison you know uh so and all of this information
was being related to the all the way to the presidency and it was shared with
the police and the police some of the information came from the police the
the people we trusted but uh the president kept dened this was going on until
he finally killed some of his own colleagues that were allegedly cheat
cheating him out of some money or some cocaine and he was forced to uh try
and move Escobar at which point Escobar escaped so I I want to go back a
little bit there’s a few things in that story that I’d like to touch on one
is so the the police force there was corruption throughout the police force
but it wasn’t just that the police force was being bribed police families of
the police force were also being intimidated and that was something they they
say this the silver or the lead C can you explain a little bit about what
that means the silver or the lead basically Escobar had a would approach
someone in Authority in the government not only police that he would approach
politicians whatever and offer him a briefcase full of money and say hey this
is for you and basically what that was doing that that individual owed
Escobar a favor that you know might happen 6 months from there or when
whenever Escobar needed and if you refuse that then he says okay then the
Alternatives LED and he carry out this threat constantly and that’s how he
created this intimidating uh force that was so difficult to deal with and
that’s why I admire a lot of the cops that I work with that refused the money
this the local the Colombian the colan the Colombian police and I have still
a lot of friends up there they just refuse the money and a lot of them pay
the price and what one thing that you said is you were an interesting
circumstance in your life that allowed you to take on this role and you were
excited to to go and do that but someone asked if you were a Colombian police
officer would you have done that and your answer is you know as you’re
sitting out there and one of the things that I have a really difficult time
was you’re asking those cops to do the work that you would normally be doing
in the United States you know uh carrying out uh the operations and
everything and and this guy’s is getting killed and it’s it’s really
difficult to sleep knowing that that’s taking place and uh if I was in their
shoes and people were threatening me and knowing that they are going to carry
out that threat not that anybody’s going to protect my family knowing that
they are going to carry out the threat I don’t know if I’d have that courage
to uh to say no you know it’s it’s it’s hard for an American to understand
that and law enforcement in the United States I’ve been working for the EA in
the United States and other places I’ve been you know in a situation where
people make threats you I’m going to get you when I get out of prison yeah
you listen to it but you’re not really afraid and it 9 9% of the time you
don’t have to think to worry about but in Colombia Escobar made sure that if
he threatened you he carried out because that’s how he built his reputation
that you don’t mess with Escobar well and you you were also uh part of that
Escobar knew about you and he knew about the DEA and there was at least once
maybe more threats on your life and in fact the the US Government tried to
bring you home but you refused yes there were several instances where there
alleged threats alleg alleged contracts put on my life and not only my life
but other agents yeah but I was kind of like the focus because I was the the
head huner of the of the of the DEA in Colombia and the state department
wanted me out because the Ambassador would say I don’t want your blood in my
watch uh DEA same thing the guy I replaced in Colombia left Colombia with
threats on his life and that’s one of the reasons they took him out and my
argument was you know we’re asking this Colombians to do our work to do the
dangerous part of the work you know the operation of getting killed left and
right and you’re going to take me out because there’s a threaten is my life
how am I going to look at them in the face how am I going to you know how is
Dea going to ask them to do the stuff that I’m not willing to face and
luckily for me I was able to convince them and they left me there let me just
touch on something else there was a period in 1989 where Escobar killed the
presidential candidate Galan and the same day that he killed Galan he had uh
the chief of police and medine and after that uh the US ambassador and myself
went to see the president of Colombia and asked them to react to this thing
and at the time president Barco who was in office called all the law
enforcement agencies the military to go after Escobar and for a very short
period of time Escobar was I mean I felt we were going to get Escobar because
for a change we had a complete war on the median cartel and there were raids
going on every day every place we knew that he was associated with uh was
being raided we were pretty excited about this Escobar’s reaction was he put
a bounty on Cops and medine $1,400 ahead and um in a period of about four
months 300 cops were assassinated in medine and I mean 300 cops being
assassinated some of them with their kids in a park and somebody would go and
just shoot him behind the head um it was a horrible time horrible time and
yeah I’ll never forget that I mean I I had so many meetings with the cops
some weekends there’ be you know 253 cops killed in one city different
locations off duty some on duty um it was a nightmare the more that we talk
about your story and what you faced in Colombia the more I am amazed about
what you accomplished and what you did and it’s it’s breathtaking I think we
a round of applause for what you have done and we’re not done we’re not done
there’s lots more to the story I just think it’s unbelievable and you
mentioned that you thought maybe you wouldn’t step up but I think you’ve
demonstrated over and over again that your willingness to be in the face of
that Terror and danger I think I would have stepped up but I would have
question my decision so well let’s go back to the private prison because I
think that’s a fascinating time you were hot on the chase hot on the tale of
Pablo Escobar he turned turn himself into the colan government and that’s not
a day of celebration for for your team very unusual for law enforcement that
they we knew he was trying to turn himself in so for several weeks we were
trying to do everything we could to prevent his surrender which is kind of
bizarre for a law enforcement agency and so we were trying to do everything
we could to scare the hell out of them from surrendering he surrenders
himself we’re devastated we thought we lost because uh the president of
Colombia president gavidia gave in to every request that he made every
condition that he made and gave him what he wanted and the following months
you know we knew that he was running everything from from the from the prison
he was going in and out he was operations were these Labs were still
operating dope was being manufactured everywhere I mean was produced
everywhere we were still making huge seizures from this organization uh yeah
it was a horrible day the day he escaped from the prison we all partied the
hunt was back on you yeah you don’t hear that much from law enforcement
people party whatever okay tell me the circumstances why did he leave I mean
that sounds like a pretty safe place to be and he was in control of it why
did he end up leaving the prison he made a mistake there were let me explain
a little bit about the medine Cartel medine Cartel you have pabl Scar and the
Galan the um um Ooa brothers and Rodriguez gacha and those are the heads of
the the hierarchy of the uh Meine cartel and right below that under that
umbrella you have major organizations that are operating under that Medan
cartel and this organizations uh R their own operation most of them bought
their own uh cocaine from the uh from Pablo Escobar but they had their own
distribution networks they had all this stuff so Escobar got a win that two
families the monata family and the gallano family which were major operators
in medine as well were cheating him because they were supposed to give them a
percentage of everything that they exported to the United States and they
found out some sources that they were not giving him the percentage that he
deserved so he invites him to the prison he confronts them with this he
tortures them they gave up the location where allegedly $30 million that they
had was stashed so we sent a couple of these goons from the prison to recover
the money they got the money they got back now they had the money so they
decided to kill the heads of the gallano and the and the uh monal family and
The Story Goes that they were chopped into little p p and we never you know
their bodies were never found and I don’t know if they were taken out of the
prison and dumped somewhere who knows the bottom line is that this created a
reaction from the families the wives and the other people in the organization
and they went to the Press because they were looking for their husbands they
were you know they told them the last time they went now they knew about they
went to the prison Cathedral to talk to Escobar and uh so this put president
gavid in a very uncomfortable position because he created the situation by
caving into Escobar’s uh demands so gavidia instead of sending a the police
force to take over the prison and get Escobar out of there and take move him
to another prison he sent a politician a young 29-year-old Deputy Minister by
the name of mendosa to ask Pablo Escobar if he would be willing to be
transferred to another prison due to all the commotion that had been created
by Him Escobar takes him hostage and um when he built the prison Escobar had
built uh uh double walls where he kept millions of dollars he kept weapons he
kept drugs you know whatever they wanted for an emergency situation so he
kept uh uh mandosa the vice minister in the prison and left a couple of these
guys guarding him and then he and his closest Associates that were with him
in the prison these bodyguards they walked out of the prison the military who
was in the area allowed him to walk out and he disappeared and that’s when
the party began the party mean you mean the hunt party okay okay so at at
that point now now Escobar is on the Run you’re you’re on his tail and you
you find a point of Leverage with Escobar and you had a fascinating meeting
with a family member who visited the embassy and you had a conversation with
yes Escobar’s son who at the time I think was I can’t remember 16 17 18 years
old came to the Embassy asking to speak to the Ambassador and request a Visa
for him himself and his sister who was a few years younger to go to the
United States uh the Ambassador was notified that uh Escobar son was at the
embassy so the Ambassador called me and he said Joe you’re not going to
believe who’s here then we got Ambassador son he wants to talk to me he says
no way I’m going to talk to him do you want to talk to him so I said of
course I’m going to talk to him so I went down and sat down with a young man
I was very impressed with his maturity I mean this a young kid that has lived
so much you know he seen so much and bright but uh I told him you know I mean
there’s no way you’re going to get a visa to the United States you know I
told him basically say if you brought me the heads of the the platter of the
Cali cartel you still would not get a visa and um so that was my encounter
with him and shortly after that there were many other efforts with other
embassies and we got intelligence from conversations that we were
intercepting actually the police was intercepting not us but there were
shared with us about Escobar’s efforts to try and get his family out of the
country so we keyed on that we identified that as a u a weakness for pabl
Escobar so we paid a lot more attention to the family and we prevented the
family from leaving the country at one point they got on a plane and got went
to Germany and I we learned about the uh that they were going to Germany so I
put an agent on the plane and a cop they flew to Frankfurt Germany and in the
background uh the Ambassador and myself the Ambassador with the state
department myself with DEA and other law enforcement agencies including
German uh agencies DEA headquarters we all worked our butts off to try and
get Escobar’s family from not being allowed in the country he was returned to
Colombia I they were returned to Colombia three of them and this where
Escobar lost it he stopped doing the little things he was doing that
prevented our being able to locate them every time he got on his uh they call
them radio phones every time he got on His Radio phone we were monitoring
every conversation he had he always got on a vehicle he drove around so the
directional finding equipment that we were using to locate them was very
difficult to pinpoint where he was at and as soon as his family was returned
from Germany went berserk he called the presidential Palace making threats
he’s calling everybody police and everything and he’s from one place from one
location and that’s how we found him that’s where he was killed so what what
are the circumstances leading up to that you you said he started making
mistakes he stopped doing he stopped he stopped moving around when he was
only’s phone that was the one thing that was preventing our directional fing
equipment from pinpointing where he was at and he was making a lot more
contact he was talking to his son he was talking to yeah he was threatening
everybody he was you calling the police calling the the president you know
you name it and so what are how did you end up finding him you’re tracking
phone calls one of your one of your police force happens to to spot him in a
building we had uh uh undercover police vehicles with uh directional finding
equipment and so they were combing the medine area constantly trying to
pinpoint his location but because of his uh moving around it made it impossible
but on this occasion just happened to one of the units which was run by a
lieutenant at uh who was the son of the uh commander of the Colombian task
force in medine he was operating the equipment and as he’s driving he
actually had eye contact with Escobar as he was on the phone looking out a
window of a second floor building in medine and here we had them finally we
had them so what ensues they spot Escobar what are the next steps okay the
lieutenant immediately notified his father at the command post in medine uh
the father immediately put together a a group and within minutes they were at
the location and uh they surrounded the place they forced themselves into the
uh the apartment they found Escobar and the one person that one of his
bodyguards that was with him the only guy that he had with him and uh Escobar
decided to try and jump out the window into the one-story roof next to the um
his the place he was at he had two weapons with him and he shooting back at
the window he jumped from not realizing that they were shooting at him from
the street and that’s where they got him on the rooftop top on the rooftop
and that was the end of Pablo Escobar that was the end of Pablo Escobar and
the end of his bodyguard so and and you weren’t on site you were no I was I
was in bot I I wish I would have been on site what how did you react when you
heard the news at first I didn’t believe it uh the first call I got within
probably a minute or two of the fact that he was killed it was General uh V a
great friend a great cop who was the guy in charge of the Colombian aspect of
hunting Escobar he calls me and he said I just got a call they kill Pablo and
I said are you sure because you know I knowing the history of our fail
efforts are you sure as Pablo he says absolutely he says we’re sure as Pablo
so I ran out of my office and I screamed as loud as I could so everybody in
you know the agents would hear it Pablo is dead then I ran upstairs told the
Ambassador and came back headed for the Columbia national police champagne
bottles were being you know all over the place we had a big big party and uh
big celebration but it was a bitter sweet celebration MH because as S I mean
there was tremendous amount of euphoria everybody hugging each other
everybody giving each other high fives finally did it and then it kind of
sinks in because a big role in this hunt for Pablo Escobar was the fact that
the Cali cartel was very involved and destroying the infrastructure of the
medine cartel with the black ing of the Colombian government so the Cali
cartel competitive with the medine cartel helps they want to get rid of Pablo
Escobar they helped to get rid of Pablo Escobar but now a new cartel is in
power well the C cartel was pretty impressive and it you know it’s a huge
cartel but uh they wanted the Monopoly and without Pablo they would not had
have only 15% or 20% or whatever they had they would have the whole show so
it was a bit a bitter sweet you know and then I remember very vividly I knew
some of the Colombian officers that were celebrating this they were in the
payroll of the Cali cartel so as I’m looking around up there I’m seeing this
guys you know just ch you and I say you son of a I’m not going to say it but
guns so yeah well it it’s it’s a fascinating fascinating story and you
weren’t done well you were done with your work there but you you still made
some headlines with some follow-up stuff I’m going to ask you about that but
I first want to ask you as you look back on this whole experience you were
there for about seven years is that correct uh 6 years and 8 months plus okay
and you thought initially it would take a couple years you had a three-year
assignment you’d get rid of Escobar six plus years later you finally bring
him down as you look back are there things that you could have done
differently or more strategically to bring him to Justice sooner you know one
of the problems we were extremely rich in intelligence we had a vast network
of informant not only in Colombia but we had informance in uh in the US
primarily in Miami that provide us with a lot of good information La you know
I mean New York and we had the wire Taps we were being bombarded with
intelligence constantly and it it was I mean it was there was never a moment
where you could just lay back and just rest and kind of try and look at the
picture in a in a broader sense so we’re constantly reacting and everything
was time sensitive you know so you couldn’t we have to respond so it was just
go go go go go and the one thing that I God I wish I had was the time to um
think a little more plan a little more strategize a little more um and come
up with strategies to try and set a trap for Escobar in in a more
sophisticated way and even though I stayed up all night thinking about it you
know we didn’t have time we just didn’t have time you when you were leaving
after that situation you had some intelligence that the Cali cartel supported
the election of the new president and you gained a little notori because you
did a couple things to tell the world that that was happening and some people
weren’t very happy about that yeah actually um I was away from I was in
Washington when um this took place uh one of the uh a politician paid the
Ambassador a visit and uh um he said there was a campaign going on there was
a presidential race on going on at the time and he had he handed the
Ambassador some tapes uh involving the campaign manager of the opposition
party not of the the other party not the party of the guy that walked into
the ambassador’s res uh office with us and indicating very clearly that they
were seeking financial support from the heads of the Cali cartel for the
campaign I mean this was not surprising because I think this been going on
for for year with other for years with other uh campaigns in Colombia but God
we had evidence we had conversations you know so the next day I came back to
Columbia and the Ambassador called me in he says Joe I want you to listen to
this and um so I listened to it my God you know I said we we have the goods
on this guy and um because the parties were being identified and stuff like
that in the in the tapes so the Ambassador said I’m going to take this to the
then president president gavidia uh and share this with them the problem is
that gavidia was not of the same part I mean he was the same party as the man
that was caught on the tapes so politically this was a tough one to swallow
for him you know and she did that and president gavidia told the Ambassador
that he would take care of it