The Underworld Podcast - The Rise and Recent Capture of Colombia's Most Brutal Narco, Otoniel, w/ Toby Muse

Episode Date: November 2, 2021

Out there in the jungle, something evil and powerful grows. This is the story of Dairo Antonio Usaga, better known as Otoniel, Colombia’s most wanted drug trafficker for a decade. A communist guerrilla turned right wing death squad leader turned cartel boss, he was known for his massacres and predilection for underage girls. He was also known to be particularly brutal, in a way that shocked even other narcos, and he had been hunted by the largest search operation in Colombia’s history for 6 years when he was finally caught 2 weeks ago, deep in the jungles of northwestern Colombia. Tracing his rise and fall with special guest Toby Muse, this is the story of the next evolution of cartel leaders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. Dairo Antonio Usaga, better known as Otonio, had been Colombia's most wanted drug trafficker for a decade. A communist guerrilla turned right-wing death squad leader turned cartel boss. He was known to be particularly brutal in a way that shocked even other narcos. and he had been hunted by the largest search operation in Columbia's history for six years when he was finally caught two weeks ago, deep in the jungles of northwestern Colombia. Well, let's go back 10 years to the rooftop of a building in downtown Medellan,

where a meeting is about to take place with some relatively high-level cartel members. Strangely, the meeting's happening at a multi-story gay bathhouse of sorts. Every floor has TVs playing gay porn that are plainly visible as you make your way up the staircase. Not the kind of spot you'd expect cartel guys to want to meet, but they probably figure it's the best place to arrange a meeting with journalists, somewhere they probably won't run into any of their colleagues. The men are from a group called the Officina del Envigado, the office of Envigato and Magado being a neighborhood in Median.

The cartel originally started as the Sicario, or Hitman wing, of the Median cartel when Pablo Escobar was running things. Escobar's cartel has long since fallen apart, but the hitman formed their own thing, and they took over Medean's cocaine trade. I'm there, on this roof, waiting for these cartel guys, tagging along with my friend Toby Mews.

Toby's lived in Colombia for 15 years, covering the drug war and the drug game from every angle imaginable. He's the author of the definitive book on the subject that came out last year, Kilo, and there are very few people who know more about Colombian cartels and cocaine than him.

He's about as tapped in as someone could get. I'm pretty green at this point, and Toby keeps doing this. this thing where I can't tell if he's messing with me or not. He does it right before we meet these teenage Sikarios at some abandoned ranch in the hills, and he does it again now. Right before these cartel guys are about to arrive, he turns to me and says, seriously, if something goes wrong, like the police come, these guys are going to blame us

and we're screwed. Thanks, Toby. Let's just say it's not what I want to hear. The men soon arrive, and the interview goes off without a problem. They're young guys, maybe early 30s, late 20s, though that may be. makes them senior citizens in the cartel world. Dressed a little flamboyantly, designer jeans, nice watches, and one of those terrible Ed Hardy or Affliction T-shirts that was popular at the time.

Friendly, for the most part. Toby's talking to them about the potential for a new war to break out over control of Median. When they leave, they make sure to tell him that he needs to block out their faces and alter their voices for his video. Right before they head down the staircase, one turns to look back, and as he pulls his thumb across his throat and the universal gesture from murder, says, if anything goes wrong, we'll kill him, him being Toby's friend who helped the range of the sit down. Then the cartel guy laughs and heads down the stairs, but he's serious.

Luckily, no one from our party ends up being killed afterwards. But that's unfortunately not the case for the people of Medean, because La Offesino de la Mugado soon goes to war with the now captured Otoniel and his powerful cartel, the Gulf clan. And for this special episode, Toby's going to tell us that story and the story of Columbia's just captured most powerful drug lord. This is the underworld podcast. Welcome back, everyone. My name is Daniel Gold.

I am here without my usual co-host, Sean Williams, and we are two journalists that bring you the underworld podcast, where we talk about international organized crime, and where we teach you that political ideology doesn't matter as much as whether or not you control cocaine trafficking routes. As always, if you guys want more bonus content interviews, like with our guest today, you can go to patreon.com slash Underworld podcast. Give us a couple of bucks a month and you'll get a ton of bonus content.

But today we are joined by another charming Englishman as opposed to Sean. Toby Muse, Toby, thanks for joining in, man. Hey, it's a pleasure to be back here. This is my second time. Do I get a mug or something for being the second time guest? We'll send you something. I mean, you are our first interview, I think, for the whole thing. And we put that up early on. But yeah, you know, after this happened, I kind of figured you were the right guy to bring in to do this. And I also figured you would do a lot of heavy lifting and sort of, you know, fill in all the points that I don't have to do as much research on. So that's always giving me less work is always a welcome thing around here. Always the role of the Englishman. Yes. Today we are talking about the recent capser of

Colombia's most feared and largest trafficker since Pablo Escobar, a man they call Otoniel and his and his and his cartels rise, the Gulf clan. And what I find interesting about him that, you know, he's not like Paba, right? He's not like some city kid from the slums or anything like that. This is a man from the country, from the jungle, who rose up first as a communist guerrilla before becoming a right-wing death squad guy. And it seems like all he's ever known is war in the jungle. And what's that, I mean, you've spent time there, right? What's that area like, the northwest, that jungle area? Well, he comes out of this part of the country called Urabah, which is this very abandoned, very poor part of Colombia. It's near the border with Panama. And it's known as this

the biggest kind of source of industry there, not industry, but the biggest, well, the biggest industry there is the banana plantations. That's what it's known for. It's known as this banana region. And bananas in Colombia have had this kind of savage history. One of the biggest massacres in Colombia's history was the banana workers back in the 20s. There's something about that industry that kind of brings out the worst. And it's also known as an area of political violence and that's where Otoniel is growing up. It's also known as a region seeped in witchcraft, for instance. Everybody, not everybody, but many people there are practitioners. Otoniel was known to believe in witchcraft had his own witches. And it's just this abandoned part of the country

where the government, the local authorities have never been able to really impose even a minimum of law and order. And that means there's just been a host of different guerrilla groups, and different cartels have operated there, but Otoniel would really come to be kind of the lord of that region. And yeah, when he first burst on the scene, though, I mean, the first I could find of anything about him, he's part of this like Marxist-Leninist communist guerrilla group that no longer exist, right, the Popular Liberation Army. I actually found out, too, that the infamous Don Berno was also a part of that.

Exactly. So if you look at Otoniel, it's kind of interesting to see he's kind of like the forest gump of Colombia's violence. He's just kind of been there, maybe not in the center of it. But over the past 30 years, he's just been there. So, yeah, he joins this group called the EPL. And the EPL is a strange one. It's this Maoist organization.

And it's just one of Colombia's many, many, many left-wing revolutionary groups, just to name some of them. There's M-19. There's the National Liberation Army, which was inspired by the Cuban Revolution. There's the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the FARC, which calls themselves Marxist, Leninists. The EPL demobilized. It never became a national group. It did demobilize, but then another faction kind of grew in the other side of the country in a region called Catatumbo. That was led by this

unique character that only Columbia could have produced a man called Megateo, who was part Robin Hood, part Pablo Escobar and part Che Guevara. But it has been this kind of organization where a lot of people have kind of passed through and then gone on to become criminals. You don't really see that with the ELN or the FARC. There's something about the EPL. And what I think, it's not just Don Burnett, by the way, there were also Los Comba. They came out of the EPL and, of course, of Doniel. And I think what we're seeing is we're seeing men who aren't particularly ideological, but they're joining the closest group that offers them the chance of exercising some sort of power. they pass through and they learn how to strategize.

They learn how to think, how to analyze, how to arrange, how to think logically. That's what these guerrilla groups can often train. They take these skills, then they apply them to building up and running a cocaine cartel. And that's certainly what seems to have happened in the case of O'Connell. And do we know much about his early life or was just that sometime in the 80s he joined this group as probably a teenager? No, we really don't know much. And that's why these kind of backward parts of Colombia, these abandoned parts, you know, I mean,

they're just, they really are cut off from the rest of the country. And especially when it comes to Otonell, because he had such an iron grip on the region where he lived, it just meant that very few people are ready to really talk about his childhood. Why would anyone risk their life by talking to an outsider? So there's really not much we know. We obviously know that he and his brother were moving in and out of these groups together. His brother went by the nickname of Giovanni. As we're about to talk about, they joined the far right desquins. But in terms of their growing up, we don't know much. But I can tell you, growing up in Urabah is about as poor as it gets. There's not going to be any running water. You know, you're going to bathe. You're going to go to the toilet in the jungle. You're going to

bathe using water that you've carried up from a stream or possibly a well. There's going to be no electricity. It's just, you know, it's going to be a hard life. But that was the norm for people growing up in a place like all about. And this time in the 80s in Colombia, I mean, what is going on? It just seems like you have all these different militia groups rising up, paramilitary groups, right wing, left wing, you know, people just fighting each other in the jungle. Like, what's happening in the country at this point? Exactly.

So I think this really sets the stage for everything that's going to come and really explains why Otoniel really represents the evolution of cocaine as well, because he's not the typical drug trafficker we've come to know, the guy in a kind of smart suit with a. a Lamborghini in Medell in with an actress girlfriend. Otoniel is the next stage in the evolution of cocaine. He's moved on from that. And you kind of, you have to go back to the 80s and the 90s. Essentially what you have, you have all across Latin America. You have these insurgent guerrilla groups. If you go back and read the history all across Central America, things you've covered on your podcast when it comes to the creation of the Maras, stuff like that, right, in El Salvador and

place like that. And look at South America again, because this is the Cold War. By the end of the Cold War, by the collapse of the Soviet Union, essentially peace processes. break out across the region because they're kind of ideological, their beacon. The USSR has just collapsed in front of them. What's the point of going on? With the major exception of the FARC, the FARC grows from strength to strength to strength. Why? Because the FARC has taken the decision, this Marxist Lennonist organization, has taken the decision to tax the cocaine industry. That's what they say they do. They say they don't do anything more than that, just people who do business in their territory have to pay a 10, 15% tax. Well, that means while all across the region,

these groups are signing peace processes, the FARC is getting stronger and stronger. They're marauding across all many parts of Colombia. So now what happens? There's the feeling that the Colombian state could be a failed state, that it could fall. How realistic was that? Well, leave that for another conversation. But there was a fear that the FARC, this revolutionary organization, could overtake the country. So what happens? When you have these people in the countryside, so you have businesses, you have farm owners, what happens is the FARC turn up and say, you need to pay us tax. If you were in the FARC territory, you were expected to pay tax. And if you didn't pay that tax, it's extortion. You had to pay, you had to pay this extortion

to the FARC. And if you didn't, they would kidnap people. They would come and kill some of your farm workers. So what they do is they set up this organization called the far right paramilitaries. And it's important to kind of just give a quick explanation of the origins of this in the most romantic way that the paramilitaries want you to think it is. It's basically a bunch of farmers who have been abandoned by the Colombian state who kind of come together and with rusty old shotguns or kind of defend themselves against the FARC. The truth is it always needed the working together of the military, the local army base who would give military intelligence, who would give training, who would give supplies, guns to this illegal militia. It would also need the businesses

to pay for this illegal militia and it would need the politicians to give them political cover, to tell the local police officer don't investigate these guys. These paramilitaries would then declare an illegal, dirty war on the FARC in particular its civilian base. That's what they wanted to do. The FARC had presence in towns, in cities, in these small little villages. And it was crucial for them supplies, medical supplies, food, water. They needed places to gather intelligence. The paramilitaries went after that and separated the FARC from any kind of foothold in these villages. And they were highly effective. And the way they did it was the absolute most brutal part of Columbia's modern history. paramilitaries turned that country in to the country of the massacre. Every single day, when I first got to Columbia, there was another massacre of 10, 12, 15 people. The vast majority of these were by the paramilitaries. And it was on purpose. It was the theatre of terror. They would turn up and they would pick up these rocks and they would smash it over the heads of people. They had bullets. They wanted to send a message.

And it was these revolting three-day parties they would hold in these villages and they would come in. and kill people suspected in the main plaza in front of everybody. They would kill people. They would rape women. But it was all about sending a message of terror. And don't forget, they were working with parts of the army. They were working with parts of the political class. At one point, the paramilitary's guest, they controlled one third of Columbia's Congress.

This was an organization, by the way, that had been listed as a terrorist organization by the United States. I mean, that's how bad this organisation was, but its links to the Colombian elite were so overwhelming. And there's one other part of this. There were also drug traffickers involved from the beginning. They weren't dominant from the beginning, but they were there. And the drug traffickers were involved in this because they were becoming some of the biggest landowners in Colombia. And they decided to ally themselves with the local elites in the countryside.

They saw a common enemy, these big farmers and these drug traffickers, because they're both big landowners, they saw a common enemy in the FARC and they worked together when it came to these far-right paramilitaries. And the far-right paramilitaries really are successful in pushing the FARC out of these villages into the jungle. And that became crucial for the Civil War because it removed the FARC from fighting over villages. And the FARC was having tremendous success in the 1990s. They were overrunning military bases. They were taking over small towns. And the paramilitaries were able to push them back into the jungle. And that's where the battlefield became.

And the FARC were tremendously resentful about that. And I remember in 2016, when the FARC were having that peace process and there was this momentary concern about whether the peace process would concern. One gorilla told me, if we go back to war, I promise you this. The battlefield will not be in our home in the jungles the next time. we're going to bring it to the cities. So when we look at why the FARC ended up being pushed to this peace process, the paramilitaries was one part of that, carrying out this ferocious, sadistic war, but it achieved its result. But the question being at what cost. And this is a group that

Otonell will end up joining. Right, because the popular Liberation Army that left his guerrilla group is a part of the small one. They demobilized in 1991. And that's when he joins the AUC, right? Is that like a catch-all for the right-wing death squads for the paramilitaries? Yeah, I mean, the AUC was the national organization and there were local fronts, but that was considered the leadership, the AUC, yeah, the AUC far-right paramilitaries are synonyms. They're just different descriptions, exactly. So the EPL, the Popular Liberation Army, it does demobilize. Again, it was a very strange organization. And as we see in a lot of these peace processes, and we're going to see again shortly, you have these peace processes.

But the Colombian state really isn't ready to do anything with these men who often don't know anything else what to do except kill, you know, fight in the jungle. So now you've just sent these guys home. Well, you know, certain organizations, unfortunately in modern Colombian history have always been ready to recruit men into these organizations. So, yeah, they leave the popular Liberation Army and then they're recruited to joining the far right paramilitaries, the AUC. And he's fighting under, I don't think he's the leader, but he's a top lieutenant or one of the top copos,

this guy, Don Mario, Rendon Herrera. Exactly. So this is really interesting. So he's sent to the east of the country. And remember how I described the far-right paramilitaries, the AUC, as they weren't, they were brutal and they were great at doing a job of turning up with chainsaws and big rocks to attack a town full of civilians. But they weren't so good at fighting the FARC itself. Because the FARC had dedicated revolutionaries, you know, and these people were committed to the cause. Once you joined the FARC, that was it. You weren't leaving. If you tried to leave the FARC, you got the firing squad. And so, but they were committed to this idea because Colombia's a deeply unequal country, there's been a history of political violence. Many of those who joined the AUC were paid a wage.

So once you had these committed revolutionaries fighting men who were being paid by the month, well, you know, sometimes the FARC would just overrun the paramilitaries in most of these clashes. Othoniel is in the east where they genuinely were having to fight their way with the FARC. Fighting was daily in that part. But it also is becoming a massive part of the cocaine industry. The east of Colombia has always been a place where there's been tremendous amounts of coca crops, which is then turned into cocaine. And what we're seeing is we're seeing the absolute narcoization of the far-right parametries. As I said, at the beginning, it wasn't a completely narco organization, the AUC.

Let's take the founders of basically to be two brothers, the Castagnal brothers, Carlos Castagnol and Fidel Castaniel. I'll move over this quickly, but it's important to see this sets the stage for what comes. Fidel Castanio has been working with the narcos, but his brother Carlos Castanio not so much. As in a typical own goal of the FARC creating its own biggest enemies, the FARC kidnapped the father of the Castaniel brothers. They pay the ransom to get their father back. He was a landowner. he dies somehow and the FARC just never bother sending the body back. So Fidel Castagnos declares war on the FARC. They organize this far right organization.

From the beginning, they are bringing in money from the Narcos. But it's seen as them paying their way to fight the enemy. It's not a narco organization. Fidel Castanio dies and it's taken over by Carlos Castanio. Now, those of you who have seen the series Narcos, Carlos Castanio is in that in season two, I believe. and he also, the actor really well encapsulates. At first, I didn't think it was real. I woke up to this blinding light,

and I was transported to another place. Pluto TV. Then I heard a voice. Come with me if you want to live. There were thousands of movies and shows, and they were all free. The truth is our scene. It's just so beautiful.

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So you see in the scene of Narcos series too, they've invaded one of parliaments. Pablo's neighborhoods. I can't remember exactly what it is. And there's like just some guy standing there. The absolute lowest of the low, some street corner guy for Pablo Escobar, Carlos Castaniel walks past him, pulls out a gun, shoots him in the head and says, for Columbia. That was the level of lunacy that you were dealing with. And Carlos Castaniel has his own interesting story. He is committed to this anti-communist fight, right? He's fighting the guerrillas out there and he's, you know, they're having success. They're working with parts of the state. The state will never admit this,

but many human rights organizations have detailed tremendous links between the far-right paramilitaries and parts of the army and the political class. And he's having success. But at some point, in the turn of the century,

in the early 2000s, he kind of feels like, you know, he feels the narcos have probably got too much power. He's got married to this woman and he's had a daughter. She has developmental problems.

And he wonders if This has been a curse from God from everything he's done. So he starts saying that, you know, he's wanted in the US for trafficking cocaine, but he says, I've never actually had anything to do with trafficking cocaine. And he starts telling the paramilitaries, look, I'm going to go to the US and just clear my name. I'll stand trial there. And this is kind of funny because it kind of reminds me of the anecdote about the director of the Texas chainsaw massacre. Toby Hooper directs the Texas chainsaw masca over this one summer in Texas,

it's 120 degrees every day. There's no air conditioning. But because the Texas chainsaw mask doesn't show anything particularly graphic, when they finish the film, Toby Hooper tells his friends, look, I didn't film anything particularly gory. I left it all to the imagination. I don't see why they're not going to give me a PG rating. One of the most tremendously disturbing films of all time,

he thinks can get a PG rating because he didn't show the gore. That's kind of like Carlos Castaniel saying, I didn't traffic cocaine. He didn't personally do it, but his organization is responsible for tons and tons. And his organization has been slowly token over. We go back to that other trafficker, Don Burner. Don Burner, a pure narco, is now a senior member of the far right paramilitaries. Gordolindo, like fatty cutie, if you want to translate his name. He also is a pure blood narco, as they call them, but he's a leading member of the paramilitaries. This is a guy who couldn't

squeeze into a camouflage. There's pictures of him, this tremendously obese guy in a military uniform and his belt is almost bursting as he's standing there trying to give orders. It was a joke because the traffickers joined the paramilitaries because they hoped they could cleanse their crimes. Columbia has a policy which will become important later on of not negotiating with criminals. The Colombian state will only negotiate with those who have a political ideology. So all of these drug traffickers wanted to join the paramilitaries in order for any potential peace deal. And therefore they were going to kind of pay a little, pay maybe a little bit of money,

spend a few years in jail, and then they would get out free and live off their money, which is basically what's just about to happen. Oh, and sorry, just to finish the idea about Carlos Castaniel, when he says this, he says, look, I'm going to go to America. He leaves. There's a meeting held between all of the rest of the senior leadership of the AUC. They all, including his own older brother, Vicente Castaniel, the order is taken there, including the deciding vote or one of the major votes pushing for Carlos Castagnol to be killed

is his own brother, Vicente Castaniel. And that shows you what the cocaine trade in Colombia really is. It's nothing can stand in the way of the flow of cocaine, not even your own brother. When you get into the cocaine trade in Colombia, you are expected to give up everything. The treacherous betray anyone in your life, the order is always keep the cocaine flowing. And if you can't do that, someone will kill you and replace you. It's all or nothing in that world. And speaking of Vincenti, this older brother who decides that, we have, right, 2005, there's another demobilization process with, I guess, some factions of the AUC or the whole AUC? It's the whole AUC. It's the whole AUC, exactly. It's the whole AUC undergoes this peace process. Yeah. And he's been fighting with them.

Otoniel's been fighting with them for, like, more than a decade at this point. But that's That's when him and Don Mario sort of get out of the AUC. They refuse to demobilize and they join up under Vicente Castagnos. And that's when they set up Los Urabanios, right? Is that how am I pronouncing it correctly? Probably not. Exactly. Yeah, Los Urabenos.

So, yeah, exactly. So what happens is, I mean, this peace process with the AUC is just criticized by everyone. It's an absolute joke because, again, it goes back to this thing of all of the businesses, all of the members of the military who were cooperating with the AUC. So they didn't want this comprehensive peace process, which would, like South Africa, like the Truth Commission, where everybody would just sit down and say, okay, this is what we did. No, they wanted to bury the truth, it seems. So what happens is, essentially, they have the leadership of the AUC. They have to kind of go through these kind of public tribunals where they're supposed to really tell what they did, but they don't really share what they did in many cases. But more deadly is what the government does is it tells all of the mid-range commanders. Go home, guys, and, you know, just don't do it again. Well, it's the mid-range commanders. These guys weren't giving orders. They were carrying out the orders. These were the men who were standing on beaches of midnight, loading up the speedboat with packs of cocaine. These were the men who were taking

over towns in these massacres. These were the men who were strategizing. So they had all of the skills ready. And that's what you see with these men like Don Mario, Otoniette de Janeiro and his brother Giovanni and Vicente Castanio. Well, Vicente Castanio was already a leading figure. So these men, as in always these peace processes, you know, they kind of, the option is go home after you've been a big man wandering around with a gun, giving orders, intimidating people in the countryside, or go home and be a nobody, or go home and start your own kind of new organisation. At the beginning, they call it the Black Eagles. So it becomes Los Urravenos. Vicente, who oversaw the murder of his own brother, is quickly killed. Then Don Mario

is killed, I believe, and then Othoniel and his brother Giovanni takeover. Well, yeah, but first I think in 2007, right, when Domayo takes over, he quickly becomes one of the richest and most wanted traffickers in all of Colombia. And he just starts expanding like crazy. And I saw a statistic between 2007-2009, their group is set to be responsible for at least 3,000 murders. Yeah, exactly. So this is a moment of, it's a readjustment across much of Colombia because

as what always happens in these peace processes, you've had an organization that has controlled massive tracts of land across the country. When they disappear, hopefully what you would hope is that the Colombian state would step in and impose again, just these words, a minimum of law and order. But it never happens. So what happens is there's always this vacuum. So in parts like Uruba, what happens is there's just an absence of the state. So all of these different groups create and they start warring for the,

territory. They start warring to take over the trafficking routes that were once controlled by the AUC. And yes, as you say, thousands died in that war across Colombia. In 2009, that's when Don Mario dies. And it's also the first time Otoniel is indicted by the U.S. But him and his brother, they take over the leadership role. And that's when things are just really coming together out of the ashes of the peace process, as you say, and they're emerging from the jungle from this northwest and border region. And you have this part in the book, I think it takes place around then or maybe soon after. And there's actually warnings coming in from other narcos and other traffickers about how dangerous and how scary this group led by Otoniel and his

brother is. There's this line, right? I'm quoting you now, quote, out there in the jungle, something evil and powerful grows. And it's interesting because we've just seen Yvandouca in announcing the capture of Otoniel. He talks about the fact of, oh, this is the biggest drug traffickers since Pablo. Well, in 2012, there was another drug trafficker. called loco barera at that time the president said uh one manuel santos he said this is the last of the big capos we've captured him as loco barera is being brought back to bogatah he's on a plane on a police plane and there's video of this you can find it online and he's talking to the policeman and he's saying to the police guys you know look you know you've got me you need to know what's happening up there

in uraba there's this animal he calls him an animal ot doniel he says if you don't take care of this, hundreds and hundreds more people are going to die. You need to get on top of this guy. This guy's an animal. This guy doesn't deserve to live. So the narcos are even warning the police about this guy because the narcos by 2010, 2009, the narco, your traditional narco is this guy who, you know, sits around in a elegant shopping center in Medellín, has the latest clothes, again, has his model, actress, girlfriend and a sports car, has a place in Miami, has a place in rid. O'Doniel is something much darker and much coming out of the countryside. This is a guy who has a well-known taste in underage girls, this kind of raping these girls between the age of 12 and 15. That's

something that he shares with his brother Giovanni. It's this culture amongst them in this cartel. So these cartels are just kind of, even they're just saying, Jesus, what is going on with these guys? The constant references to black magic spells all the time. And just the way that that they were able to control every single person in Uruba, in their zones of influence, made them an intimidating figure, and they were starting to spread out across the country. People could see, they could see the threat of this organisation. Because, again, I said earlier, Otoniel represents the next stage in drug trafficking, because what had happened is when you had the FARC and the AUC battling,

often they were battling control for coca crops. they were battling for control of the territory that produced the cocaine. What that meant was, it meant the old style trafficker who lived in Kali, who lived in Medellin, was being squeezed out. Now the organisations trafficking cocaine were these armed, uniformed, narco militias. That's what Otoniel was overseeing with the beginning of this Gulf clan, the Uravenos. Men in uniform heavily armed with AK-47s, with rocket launchers, whatever. These were the guys who were going to.

to be controlling the cocaine trade. It wasn't your guys sitting in a restaurant in Medellin or Bogota, you know, looking like an international businessman. No, it was these narco militias who were controlling from the production all the way to the exportation of cocaine. And then we have 2012, right? There's this New Year's Eve raid. I believe Otoniel is actually there, but I couldn't confirm that. But his brother is killed. He escapes and he takes over everything. And it kind of seems like that's when things get really crazy. I know that's kind of when the war starts in Medellin, right, with Law Ficina Del Amigado? Exactly. So even just to go back, it's kind of interesting.

Giovanni is killed in this New Year's Eve party. But according to one book, the way that the police are able to track Giovanni. So at this point, Giovanni and Otoniel are running this organization that's called the Uravenos. It's one of the girls Giovanni has raped, agrees to become a police informant. So she continues to pretend to pretend to. to be his lover, this underage girl, and all the time she's giving the police indications of where he's going to be. So the police rock up there, this New Zee party, and apparently Giovanni, the police surround the place and Giovanni says, you know, you're not taking me down effectively. You know, I'm a, you know, I'm a warrior. And so he starts firing the police fireback.

They kill him. I believe Otonell was there. He, he escapes and takes over. This is when the Gulf clan, the Uravenu, sorry, are going to make their presence no. So what happens is after Giovanni's killed. And this is what separates again, these organizations from places like, you know, in Europe or in America, the scale of these operations, the scale of these organizations. Otonell says, I'm going to make Colombia sorry. And he declares the first of what is called an armed strike. but strike as in like, you know, a union not going to work.

That's what the word is. Not as in like hitting something. An armed strike, i.e. no one works. And he says, if anybody is seen in my regions of influence, which are all across much of the northern coast of Colombia, all throughout Uruaba, all throughout all throughout parts of Antiochia, this department that houses Medell in as its capital, if I see, if anybody is seen on the street in these places I have influence, you're dead. We're going to kill you.

I was there during one of these. It's a ghost town. Every single shop is shut. There's no traffic, no one on the street. At the same time, the police have to put on a bigger presence out there to show they're not going to be intimidated. And that sets them up and makes them even more vulnerable. So every time during these armed strikes, there's a number of killings of police officers.

In fact, the cartel announces, we will pay $300, $400 for anyone who's to anyone who kills a police officer. And that's when also the Uriveniles decide to make this massive push to start expanding. It tells you something about the way that the cartel is, the drug war, sorry, is being run. So they're called the Urivenios. So this refers to anyone. The cartel is called by the government lost Uravenios. Well, that also refers to people who come from Urabah. So the people from Urabah, send a letter to the government and say, all right, please, could you stop using this term? This is offending us, right? It's cancel culture.

Exactly. You know, cancel culture is already operating back there, right? Colombia was the pioneering cancel culture. So then the government says, absolutely you're right.

We hear you. We're now going to call this the clan Usaga, referring to his surname, obviously. So then Usagat is not a particularly common name in Colombia, but there's enough people out there.

I met a woman just by accident. You know, I was doing another story and she said, oh yeah, my surname is Usagana, I say, Jesus, every single police checkpoint, you must be there for three hours, said, absolutely. So people with the surname Usica sent a letter to the government. Please

can you not call it the clan Usica. So then they finally determine the name of the clan del golf, the Gulf clan. But it kind of tells you something about the war on drugs. At that point, they weren't really winning the war against the clan, but they just kept changing the name. So that was what was going on. So now we go back to that meeting when you see these guys from the Office of Embigado. I believe that was in 2012, right? Yep. Okay. So these guys are bitching and moaning about an internal war at that moment between the Office of Embigado. Because the Office of Embigado was running Medellin, it had the luxury of this civil war. Two guys wanted to be the head of it. One was called Sebas, one was called Balenciano. And they were waring with each other. And it was a brutal war.

because what happens in Medellin, every neighborhood has a gang and every gang answers to one of the cartels who run that city. So when the cartels go to war, that means essentially every gang goes to war with the opposing gang. So it becomes bloody all across the city. These guys were telling us in that interview that they hadn't gone out for a year or so, that they never went out to bars or discos anymore. And, you know, if you're a drug trafficker in Medellin, part of the reason you do this job is you want to show off your girlfriend. in these nightclubs. So when these guys were like bitching about not going to nightclubs, they were really bringing out the violin about how they were suffering.

But they were also telling us about how they were stocking up on guns. This war between the office of Embigado makes the office of Embigado look weak. And for a man with ambition like Otagnel, he sees that and he makes his move on Medell. Because these cities, you have these cities where they have these misery belts. It's a place like Medellin. It's just, you know, the actual city center is there. And then up in the mountains, it's just ever increasing. As the mountains go higher, it's just these ever poorer neighborhoods

where people literally just rock up and start building their own huts. So the clan, the Urabenos, the Gulf clan, whatever you want to call them, these guys were literally stepping out of the countryside with heavy armaments, taking over the neighborhoods at the furthest extreme of Medellin. And they would take them over. like gangs, teenagers with possibly old revolvers, trying to fight off men in uniform who were coming in with AK-47, who had been trained in the art of war, in the tactics of war, who knew how to take over. So these gangs often didn't stand a chance. This sets off another war as the office of

Embigardo starts fighting back. They realize they're in deep problems. So another war sets off. At some point, an order is given. Now, we don't know exactly how this comes about, but an order is given that essentially, you know, the war is to stop. The Gulf clan can hold on to its neighborhoods that it's already taken, but peace must resume. Now, I say I don't know exactly who gave that order, but I'll tell you what the mythology is in the underworld. I don't say this is true or not, but what people in the underworld talk about is something called. the commission. The commission is supposed to be the most important, powerful people of Medellin, like not in the underworld, no, the real powers that run that city. And it could be people in the

political class, it could be in, you know, in the military, in the police, could be, even people talk about people from the church. There's something going, that's what in the underworld they talk about and that the commission gave the order that the war needed to stop. I'm not saying that's absolutely true, but I think it's important to kind of share these things. This is how the people in the underworld see their own reality. And we knew peace was coming back to Medellin because we saw these famous football games between different gangs from previously warring neighborhoods. It was a kind of sign of, all right, we're going to forget it, we're going to live next to each other. But this becomes a tinderbox because you've now got at least two mafias in control of one city.

And from that point to this very day, it's been a very uneasy piece. Occasionally it will explode for a little while, then it will calm down again. Because again, you've got two mafias rubbing shoulders with each other. I just want to take time here, too, to say, I mean, all this, like Toby's book is chockful of these stories. Kilo is the title. Came out last year. It's fantastic. should get it, especially if you're interested in these stories.

Anyway, we move on to 2015, which is when I guess the Colombian government has just had enough. And they launched something called Operation Agamemnon. And it's the biggest manhunt that's ever happened in Colombia, bigger than the one for Escobar. And they're going after Otoniel. And he's in the jungles, living like a bandit. And they just launched this scorched earth policy and trying to catch him. He's moving among safe houses and shacks in the jungle for the next six years. And it's like almost, I felt like I read almost every few months, there was just hundreds more people captured from the Gulf clan, a different top official killed, another lieutenant killed.

And it seems like the, even though they didn't get him right away, it was actually quite effective. I mean, yes, I think it was this, it was, by the way, it was the CIA was proudly announcing, sending every message that they were helping the Colombian government, that the CIA determined that Otoniel was obviously an. national security threat. They were involved in this. Yes, there was this kind of tightening of the noose around this organisation, as you say, thousands of men from the organisation or alleged members were either killed or captured. By the time it was done, over 100 police and soldiers had died in this. Ongoing operations, they would constantly launch these blitz operations on the zone. But, you know, they didn't get him for six years. All right, you know, no one's going to blame them for that. But surely the important thing is to look at what's happened for the cocaine trade.

Well, the production. Right, yeah, I guess effective. Effective is a relative term depending on what you're talking about. Exactly. So the cocaine production just kept growing. Now, back to Otoniel, yes, he was being squeezed and squeezed ever into this smaller zone. But again, he had this complete control over the environs of where he was operating. It's, I remember I talked about this thing about this really. horrific thing they had of raping these underage girls. Well, his control over certain parts were such. There's reports that some families would take their 12-year-old girls to Otoniel and say, you know, what will you pay us or Don Otoniel? When he was captured, he was captured with a 15-year-old

girl. So it was this complete feudal control over certain parts of it. And yes, it was squeezing the organization. We understand. I was told that he was on the back of a donkey because these men operate in zones where they don't want to operate in zones where there's roads because then the army can rock up in a tank. They don't want to operate in zones where there's big open spaces because then a black hawk can land. No, he was often moving around on the back of a donkey in the jungle in one of the rainiest spots on earth. So there is an irony that this guy is living like the most miserable, poorest peasant, small farmer, but he potentially has billions of dollars. He's moving around in the rain on the back of a donkey every day.

You know, cocaine has an ironic sense of humour. One other thing that does happen, just a small anecdote over this course in time, is that, and this shows just how insane the drug war is, one of Otonyell's shipment is busted on the Caribbean coast at a port. The one who finds it is this drug-sniffing dog. She's called sombra, shadow. The police pick up interceptions that say the order has been given by Otoniel himself to assassinate the dog, right?

Too far. It's too far. Everything else is like questionable. Until now, too far. If this was made into a film, this is when everyone just turns off. I'm not going to watch a dog be killed. Exactly.

The CIA and the Fed, they're not going to, like, in America, that's like the worst thing you can do. I mean, they're not going to stand for this. Imagine with Peter takes a stand against Ottone. He's finished. It's over. It's over. But so, I mean, but this is the lunacy.

He's so enraged by it. So the Colombian government, the Colombian police go into emergency, emergency mode. So they immediately take somber out, shadow. They immediately evacuate this, like, I think she's like four or five-year-old German Shepherd. She's a very beautiful dog. They bring her to Bogota. The best summer memories are made outside. An L.L. Bean has the clothing and gear you need to make these memories.

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I spent a day with Shadow and we went around the airport and there she was and she detected a couple of kilos of cocaine in front of us as we were taking photos of her. She found this, someone had tried to send out. I think it was two kilos inside of a kind of machine. It was picked up in the airport. But, you know, the lunacy of the drug war, trying to kill dogs. Another dog story is Otoniel would train these dogs to bark at anyone in uniform, or certainly the police or army uniform.

I think it was like a beagle or something. So the police rock up. And this dog has been yapping, yapping, yapping, obviously giving away that the police have arrived. So the police, and this just shows you how the drug war is sometimes fought, the police just stole the dog. They just took the dog and turned him into a drug-sniffing dog. And they kind of thought that was a funny joke to pull on Otoniel.

But yeah, this is people in the jungle often have a lot of time to think and they end up making very strange decisions. I think a lot of the history of Colombia's illegal armed groups is men and women have spent too much time alone in the jungle with too much time to think. And they come out with the absolute most lunatic ideas and they just think it's normal. And this is, speaking of jungle groups, this is right around the time the FARC is demobilizing, right? And they're laying down their weapons and they create this vacuum of power. And it seems like the Gulf cartel, the Gulf clan was able to move into their territories and take over some of their operations. Exactly. And again, what's the common theme here? We've now talked about this is our third piece process we're talking about. And again, the third time that the Colombian government will fail to, the Colombian state, this is not blaming one government at the time. It's the Colombian state consistently fails to turn up and just impose a minimum of law and order. So yes, the FARC, again, the FARC, I want to go back to this, the

FARC had been eaten in part because of the AUC, because of the brutal, dirty, sadistic, torturous war that was committed against its civilian base. That was what in part pushed the FARC to the negotiating table. It was also an improvement in the Colombian armed forces, their complete domination of the sky. But, you know, that was a part of it. So anyway, the FARC have this peace process. They say to the government, look, we're going to lower our weapons, but you have to take over. And the government says, of course, of course, that's our plan. And they just simply don't. But what's even worse is by the time of 2016, when the FARC lowered their weapons, in their territory was much of the coca that was being grown to be used to turn into cocaine. So the land that the FARC were giving up was tremendously valuable to these mafia groups. And the Gulf Clan just absolutely flooded into different parts across the country and really expanded all the way down to parts of Southern Columbia. Remember, up to this point, it had largely been in northwestern Colombia. Now it was down in Southern Columbia because it was just taking advantage of these vacuums.

And this is when it truly becomes the absolute largest cocaine trafficking organization. I also do want to mention that, like many of these criminal organizations in Colombia, they've diversified. These men, and they tend to be men in Colombia, will look to make money in the underworld wherever they can. The Gulf clan was also involved in illegal gold exploitation, was also involved in human trafficking. So when you see these stories of people crossing from Colombia to Panama in one of the most impenetrable jungles on the planet, the Darian Gap, much of that is overseen by the Gulf Clan, that they oversee some of those illegal. human traffickers. As I say, the gold, the illegal gold industry, which when you just see what they do to this pristine Colombian environment, it genuinely breaks your heart. I mean, it just destroys it. These guys are throwing in mercury into the streams. They tear up the earth so much. It's useless. You can't recover

that. I'm sure you can't recover it. It's just too much damage has been done. They take all of the gold out and then they move on. There's something interesting that happens here. Now that Otoniel is the number one trafficker in Colombia with the largest cocaine operation. This is what these traffickers always like to do. Remember, the kind of culture up to now in cocaine has been is typified by this saying that says, better to live for 10 years like a lion than live 100 years like a sheep, right? That's essentially the philosophy. I'll get into cocaine. I may not see 50, but, you know, I'll live an amazing life. What happens to Oth Donnelli, is he decides he wants to hand himself in. So he starts making these videos and saying, I want to

hand myself in. I want to negotiate a surrender. What he's really saying is he wants to negotiate terms. He's saying he's prepared to spend some time in prison. He's prepared to pay some of the money he's accumulated. But what he really wants is to spend a minimum amount of time in prison, have his record cleaned and then keep some of the money. Maybe it's 10 million, maybe it's 50 million. I don't know, but he wants and to live out his life. His children don't have to work. His grandchildren don't have to work. That's what he aims for. So he sends out this video to the government. He also... To the Pope, right? Yes. He requests that the Pope also get involved. Like, I don't know, like the Pope has nothing better to do than just, I don't know, negotiate on behalf of

Mafia orso's. But, you know, maybe the Pope had a free afternoon and Othoniel was thinking, you know, why not? He was going to be in Colombia, right? Exactly. Yeah, it was time to this kind of historic visit. Now, interestingly, a trafficker I follow in my book is thinking along the same lines. And what he's thinking, he wants exactly what Otanyel thinks. And remember, this is completely upending the philosophy of cocaine up to this point. The philosophy of cocaine, live like a king, but die early. Now these guys are trying to change the rules because cocaine is always a handshake with the devil.

You kind of, cocaine offers you a chance to get everything you want. but when you're neck deep and there's no way out, all of these guys end up with tremendous regret. They want out. They want to renegotiate the time. I mean, that's the story for so many bathroom stalls in Bushwick, you know? Exactly. And so what happens is the trafficker, I was following and interviewing a lot in Medellin. He wanted to declare, he wanted to push for a war, a quick war because he said, with no overarching power in Medellin. remember, there's two cartels. That gives a lot of shadow for small traffickers to operate in the shadows, right? With no overarching boss, it means there's too many traffickers. He said, we need a

quick war, get rid of all of these small-time traffickers, come together those of us who are left behind under a single figure. And under that single figure, we need to negotiate with the government. Now, this also goes back to the fact that the Colombian government says it won't negotiate with pure criminals. It only negotiates those with political ideologies. So throughout this time, the organization that O'Doniel has been running has kind of pretended to have a political ideology. And I think it probably does, but it's much closer to the far right death squads. But its real motivation is trafficking cocaine. But they have been killing social leaders. They have been killing social activists out in the countryside, those who have been pushing for a more equitable distribution of

land, those who have been campaigning against the illegal gold industry, the Gulf Clan will kill them. But nothing really comes of it. You know, I mean, well, that's not true. The government did authorize people to kind of reach out and have some sort of discussion with the organization, but nothing really came of it. And then 2018, they launched Agamemnon too, which I I think the army joins, right? And it's 3,000 soldiers. And they're just capturing dozens of, you know, tons of cocaine, thousands of members of the Gulf clan. And then October this year, a couple weeks ago, Colombian intel allegedly zeroes in on a region where he is, apparently by tracking other cartel members, bringing him this specific kidney medication that he needed.

And it should be said by then, like Toby was saying, he's kind of worn down, bad health, living like a peasant. And he's also, you know, they say that he's not maybe in complete control of the Gulf clan that things have fractured a Brit. and grown disorganized, he couldn't really maintain control over everything, especially while on the run. The morning of October 22nd, 20 helicopters, a bunch of unmanned surveillance drones, hundreds of troops, they all fall out and surround this area where he's supposed to be. They block the entire thing off, rivers, roads, they even have the Navy put ships out to sea nearby to prevent an escape that way.

And then, you know, the next afternoon, they go in and they capture him, and the president declares it the biggest penetration of the jungle ever seen in the military history of our country. Indeed. And the Colombian government also says that US intelligence was involved, the UK intelligence was involved. And the Colombian president, Ivan Dukke, is not very popular. And it's really considered by most people outside of his most ardent supporters that he has really let the issue of security in Colombia really slip through his fingers. And that's important because his, party has really opposed this peace process. And what's been heartbreaking about Columbia over the past five years or something is that when we had that peace process with the FARC, in 2016, 2017,

there was such optimism in that country. There really was the beginning, the feeling of the beginning of a new Columbia, a potential about what could happen, about people who were able to live in the countryside and live in peace and just go on with their life. And I saw it in so many different parts of the country. But because we've had this government that really doesn't believe in the peace process, you've just seen securities slip through their hands. It's getting worse and worse by the day. So then the president comes out and says, well, this is the biggest hit against the drug traffickers since Pablo Escobar. And that rubbed people, a lot of people the wrong way. In terms of the biggest trafficker in South America at this moment, compared to Pablo being the biggest

trafficker in South America at the moment, yes, the comparison is legitimate. But the war Pablo Escobar was declaring against the entire of Colombia. It just doesn't compare. Yes, Otoniel was an extremely dangerous person, extremely depraved person, distorted, but he wasn't launching the types of attack Escobar was launching. It's not clear-cut, but Escobar could have brought down an airplane. He set off bombs that destroyed the secret police's headquarters. You didn't see that ability to cause that much damage in the case of Otoniel. And yes, the Gulf clan has certainly been hammered over these years by Operation Agamemnon, but there's certainly no sense that it is on its way out.

You know, it kept kind of just, it kept trafficking, it kept control of territory. But it is an interesting point you make about the idea of, was Otoniel in complete control of this organisation by the end? nobody, you know, nobody next to Or Thoniel was using a phone. He wasn't using internet because it would be too easy to trace. So he was using human messengers. Well, if you're using human messengers, how are you keeping control of ambitious men who are 600 kilometers away from you? You know, these guys in Southern Columbia, they may say, we'll use the franchise. We'll use the name, the Gulf Clan, because that inspires fear. But in terms of who's boss, maybe I'm boss here. So if that is the case, we could see a fracturing within the Gulf clan as it tries to figure out its existence after this capture of Otonell. I think what a lot of our listeners want to know is like how is this going to affect their weekend plans? Like it is cocaine's finished now, right? Like no more? That's it. Yeah. Everyone go home. We won the drug war. Finally. I mean, you know, didn't you see the ticket tape parade? Yeah. I mean, it's no. I mean, for anyone who's planning on enjoying cocaine this weekend or next.

cocaine has been growing ever since we are in the golden age of cocaine. There's more cocaine being produced than ever before. And so I think these people who have been advocating this never-ending drug war, let's say this is a victory. You have taken out someone who is likely to be extradited, to just finish up on this guy, he's likely to be extradited very soon. The Colombian government has expressed its concern about what will happen

if he remains in Colombia. He's extradited to the US, I mean. The Colombian government has expressed some concern about whether there will be an attempted jail break or, you know, will there be an attempt to really pressure people, pressure the government by launching a mass kidnapping or maybe, you know, killing people? There's already been retaliation, killing police officers.

Will they kind of step up that campaign in an effort to get their boss freed? It's never going to happen, but they could cause a lot of damage. The problem with that being is that Otoniel has caused tremendous damage to Colombians more than anybody. When it comes to the damage he's done to the US, sure, he's done some damage, you know, whatever damage you want to see about the introduction of cocaine into the US, he's done that damage to the US. But he's committed so many crimes in Colombia.

And we've seen this consistently that these massive kingpins who have so many crimes to answer to their own people get whisked away to America where they only stand trial for drug trafficking. If Otoniel, if there was a functioning legal process that the Colombians had faith in, Otoniel could reveal contacts with the military, with politicians, with trafficking routes, with business owners. He has so much information. The prosecutors in New York, that's not their business to find out what bribes he was paying to local politicians. They don't, they're not interested and understandably so. They want to just focus in on these cocaine. cocaine shipments. So we're going, I fear we're going to lose an opportunity for many of these

Colombians to get some closure. But in terms of cocaine, there's more cocaine out there than ever before. And the drug warriors have their, have their, have their victory. They've been saying the kingpin strategy ever since Pablo Escobar, right? Well, right now, let's all just say, in six months' time, let's look again at the cocaine industry. If Otoniel has, had any impact, well, then the strategy is working. But if, as in every other case in the past, it makes not one piece of difference to the flow of cocaine, then surely it's time to rethink this strategy. We take down these kingpins. Did drug trafficking slow for one second when they took down El Chapo? No, because there's always someone ready to step in and take over. What we're going to

see in Colombia, I fear, is possibly increased fighting, possibly within the Gulf clan as someone tries to take over. The media is saying it's likely to be someone called Chiquito Malo, which is kind of like evil small guy. I guess, you know, yeah, the surnames are, the nicknames in the Colombian conflict are very strange. He's likely to be the new head of this. But there's also going to be other rival organizations will sense a weakness in the Gulf clan and may pound. Medellin? Is the office of Embigado strong enough that they could try to push out the Gulf clan from the city? The crown jewel of narco traffickers has always been to control that city. Many of them have come out of that city or they've kind of grown up looking up to it.

They've grown up in and around the city. So this is just something they all want to control. And there's just a tremendous amount of money to be made controlling micro-trafficking in Colombia in Medellin, the human trafficking, the prostitution, gambling, all of that, extortion. So could we see another gang war in Medell? All of this is possible. But the capture of Otonell is is not going to slow cocaine by one second. Everyone, Toby's book is called Kilo. His name is T-O-B-Y-M-U-S-E. Definitely one of the best books ever on the drug war. Definitely get it. Again, patreon.com slash the end of world podcast to support us and to get bonus episodes. I just want to thank Toby again for coming on here and taking the time to tell this story and listen to my terrible jokes.

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