Some mysterious tapes have arrived at Detective, the production company of Diego Enrique Osorno, journalist and collaborator of MILLENNIUM. No one could have imagined that there were many hours of intercepted telephone records Pablo Escobaryes, the famous Colombian drug trafficker.
From this the podcast was born Pablo Escobar: Escape from the cathedralwritten and directed by Diego Rabasa together with director and documentary maker Pedro García, his work, which is very successful in Spotify.
“Everyone’s first reaction was: “We won’t do another series on Pablo Escobar”. There are already soap operas, t-shirts, mugs and everything that has been and will beRabasa said.
So the podcast team decided it was a narrative challenge to tell a story you already know, but make it “in such a way as to be able to arouse new reflections or to be able to find angles of analysis that would not have been covered in all the previous paraphernalia”Added the writer.
The podcast about the powerful drug trafficker is narrated in Spanish by the Colombian journalist Daniel Coronell, who lived through those hard and bloody times in Escobar’s Colombia; while the English version covered the Mexican journalist Jorge Ramos and the actor Manolo Cardona.
“It is a podcast with the audio of the narco recorded in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the Colombian police and US authorities wanted throws a glove at Escobar. Some of the tapes were known because there were many agencies following him, but they had never been brought together in this way and told in this way. ”
Furthermore, Diego Rabasa explained that “we have had the opportunity to reflect on the war on drug trafficking and drugs, using the Colombian example … but that it had full resonance in the Mexican present“.
Pablo Escobar uses his phone as a “weapon” and the tapes that power the podcast recount key moments such as:at the height of his power, in his campaign of terror and in the war he had; the way he plans his handover, when I’m already in jail, “The Cathedral”the war against the Colombian state, its escape and when a ferocious hunt for the bloodthirsty boss is undertaken in audio.
“What we did was, rather than tell that story, which can be easily found on the Internet, we tried to establish that as a narrative thread but to reflect, for example, on the double standards of involvement that the United States has with respect to anti-drug policies in Latin America. Or how does the time in the reformulation of major players such as: the former president of Colombia, César Gaviria or the head of the CIA. It means understanding the political dimension when dealing with problems that go beyond all institutional channels of a state such as drug trafficking in Colombia or drug trafficking in Mexico. It is a phenomenon that has absolutely overwhelmed the institutional capacities of the state and after the years we can find an important parallel to what is happening now in Mexico ”, he added.
Since its premiere, with only nine episodes, Pablo Escobar: escape from the Cathedral has become the most popular podcast Spotify in Latin America.
“We spoke to spies, reporters, soldiers, relatives of the chief, DEA agents, former presidents, historians and many other direct witnesses who have helped us understand the tapes and continue to examine and interrogate them. various aspects of the so-called war on drugs ”, Diego Osorno writes on his social networks.
What was Pablo Escobar like?
“He’s a super complex figure, on the one hand he’s a wild, sociopathic, narcissistic, misogynist and cruel guy in the way he orchestrates his desires… but he was also a sentimental man, ridiculously mawkish with his family. Escobar’s sister comes out to testify in the podcast of a ridiculous Latin American soap opera and, on the other hand, a bloodthirsty madman.
For the writer, editor and founder of the editorial Sexto Piso, it is impressive to see, above all, the figures of power at that time.
“We have the former chief of police, the former president, the defense minister, the CIA … see a little bit of how so aloof, so self-centered and megalomaniac with which these people who have made decisions that have affected the lives of hundreds of thousands or millions of people. They are the reasons why they act, the personal motivations that then end up channeling the course of an entire country… it’s a bit chilling ”.
And Pablo Escobar, as he had been saying for years, he preferred a grave in Colombia than a prison in the United States.
“It’s a fascinating story and I think that with the recordings and the podcast you understand better the whole phenomenon of what happened there, because it was a geopolitical theater beyond the specific case of this man who is already known but who never ceases to surprise. But it is impressive to observe everything from afar and to realize how naive the public debate is, how little information is available when it comes to knowing a complex phenomenon such as drug trafficking ”, concluded Diego Rabasa.
Clave
is podcast Presented by Daniel Coronell, it recounts, on the basis of telephone spy tapes of the time, the hectic months between the surrender, the escape and the subsequent assassination of Escobar.
caov
