logo
episode-header-image
Oct 2024
56m 45s

The Cartel That Went to War w/Pablo Esco...

The Underworld Podcast
About this episode
As Colombia's cocaine industry exploded in the 1980's, Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel became the dominant player, capturing headlines across the world. But there was a second cartel rising up, one that operated more in the shadows and would soon grow more powerful - and more profitable - than even Medellin. The Gentlemen of Cali were slick, sophisticated an ... Show More
Up next
Oct 27
Colombia’s Narco Influencer Showdown
In a city on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, a young man rose through the ranks of a violent paramilitary organization to become one of its key leaders. But that wasn’t all. Throughout, he posted his criminal exploits to social media, crafting a Robin Hood image while robbing, dealin ... Show More
1h 4m
Oct 20
Cape Town's Bloody Mob Wars: The Steroid King, Dirty Cops, and Numbers Gangs
Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It's also home to one of the most violent and tangled criminal underworlds on the planet, where drug lords, prison gangs, crooked cops, and millionaire businessmen wage bloody wars over everything from nightclub security ... Show More
1 h
Oct 13
Cuba’s New Synthetic Drug Wave
How Cuba is Slipping into Drug Chaos Since the beginning of the year, the US has placed Cuba under an oil embargo, crippling its public services and throwing a society that was already on its knees into chaos. Blackouts roll for days, trash piles high and locals are getting sick ... Show More
59m 52s
Recommended Episodes
Feb 2019
“Cali Cartel” Pt. 2: The Rodríguez Orejuela Brothers
At the height of their power, Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela were bringing in one million dollars a week by smuggling cocaine into New York City. In the 1980s, a war broke out between the Cali Cartel and the Medellin Cartel. Officials struggled to track down the notorious ... Show More
42m 58s
Aug 2024
Drug Cartels | The Chess Master | 1
In the 1970s, a pair of brothers and their longtime friend begin smuggling cocaine from their home city of Cali, Colombia into the United States. They quickly establish a complex but highly efficient system for importing and distributing vast quantities of the drug, creating what ... Show More
21m 19s
Sep 2022
Trailer - Pablo Escobar: Escape from La Catedral
Pablo Escobar was one of the most powerful men in the world in the 1980s. Through terror and a network of corruption, he came to have almost total control over the police, the army and much of the Colombian government while operating a gigantic international cocaine trafficking n ... Show More
30s
Aug 2025
75. The Hunt for Pablo Escobar: The War on Drugs (Ep 2)
In the early 1980s, Pablo Escobar reinvented himself. He was no longer just the man who could smuggle tonnes of cocaine into Miami - he was the successful businessman, the philanthropist, the proud family man. To the poor, he built homes and football fields. To the powerful, he o ... Show More
56m 9s
Nov 2023
Hunting Pablo Escobar
<p>By the early 1990s, the Colombian city of Medellín was at the centre of the world's largest drug empire. The fearsome Medellín Cartel, led by the notorious drug lord and narcoterrorist Pablo Escobar, brought murder and mayhem to the city and the world for nearly two decades.</ ... Show More
29m 44s
Mar 2023
The Rise Of Pablo Escobar: Real Life Narcos Part 1
Pablo Escobar was one of the world's richest and most dangerous men at the height of his drug smuggling career. Capitalizing on the rise in demand for cocaine within the 70s and 80s, Escobar formed the infamous Medellin Cartel to traffic large shipments of the drug across interna ... Show More
1h 26m
Aug 2024
The Backstory: Pablo Escobar: Drugs, blood, and $30 billion
Maybe you’ve seen Sicario, Scarface, Narcos, or Blow, but they have nothing on the bloody and intense real-life story of Pablo Escobar, the king of cocaine. Starting out as a kid in the slums of Medellin, Columbia, he went on to run the Medellin drug cartel in the 70’s, 80’s, and ... Show More
8m 14s
Aug 2025
74. The Hunt for Pablo Escobar: Rise of a Drug Lord (Ep 1)
Colombia in the mid-20th century was a place of beauty and bloodshed - where jungle mountains sheltered rebels, the cities were ruled by oligarchs, and outlaw legends became folk heroes. Into this world stepped Pablo Escobar. Charming, calm, and calculating, he would become one o ... Show More
58m 56s
Apr 2019
“The Cocaine Godmother” Pt. 2: Griselda Blanco
After a DEA investigation forced Griselda Blanco to flee New York City in 1975, she returned to her hometown of Medellin, Colombia to run her cocaine operation from the shadows. There, she met a protege who would soon become her deadliest rival: Pablo Escobar. Parcasters - The US ... Show More
42m 28s