How A USC Football Star Became A Cocaine Kingpin With The Sinaloa Cartel: The Legend Of Owen Hanson

The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell

Johnny Mitchell

True Crime

4.3 • 563 Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2025

⏱️ 135 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this explosive episode, former USC football standout Owen Hanson—once living the dream on the field—reveals how he plunged into the dark underworld of the Sinaloa Cartel, moving hundreds of millions in cocaine across continents. Known as “O-Dog”, Hanson opens up about his journey from campus celebrity and sports bookmaker to international drug trafficker working directly with El Chapo’s network. Host Johnny Mitchell dives deep into Hanson’s transformation—from selling steroids to teammates at USC, to orchestrating high-level cartel deals spanning Peru, Mexico, Australia, and the U.S. Hanson recounts the lavish highs, the paranoia of living double lives, and the eventual FBI sting that brought it all crashing down. Now a free man and entrepreneur, Hanson shares how he rebuilt himself after prison, founding California Ice Protein and using his story to warn others about ego, greed, and the illusion of power. This episode blends crime, redemption, and raw honesty—a gripping story of how a promising athlete became a global kingpin, and how he’s now rewriting his legacy. Go Support Owen! Movie: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/Cocaine-Quarterback-Signal-Caller-for-the-Cartel/0ITIO5AR39FDEY5RIG7APVMWF9 Book: https://www.thecaliforniakid.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/theofficialcakid/ YouTube: @theofficialcakid This Episode Is #Sponsored By The Following: GLD! Work Hard and Change the Game. For a limited time only, new customers are getting an insane deal. Use code MITCHELL to get 50% Off plus a Free Chain at https://gld.com BetterHelp! This World Mental Health Day, we’re celebrating the therapists who’ve helped millions of people take a step forward. If you’re ready to find the right therapist for you, BetterHelp can help you start that journey. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at https://betterhelp.com/CONNECT Rag & Bone! Upgrade your denim game with Rag & Bone! Get 20% off sitewide with code CONNECT at https://rag-bone.com #ragandbonepod Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow 00:00 Intro: The Rise and Fall of Owen Hansen 01:00 College Football Glory & Wild USC Parties 04:41 Owen Hansen's Documentary & Rebuilding Trust 07:00 From Prison to Entrepreneur: Life After Release 11:00 Logistics of the International Drug Trade 17:00 Creative Smuggling: Wine, Chocolate & Global Routes 18:22 Get A Great Deal From GLD! 20:58 Bookmaking Millions: The Sports Betting Business 35:00 The Art of Collecting Debts & Avoiding Trouble 44:00 Law Enforcement Evasion and Daily Operations 46:58 Today's Sponsors 49:33 Cartel Connections & The Power of Payouts 01:00:00 Scaling Up: Canada, Australia & Moving Big Loads 01:11:00 Money Laundering and Gold: Schemes & Shell Companies 01:19:00 The Fall: Informants, Raids, and Indictments 01:31:00 Warehouse Operations, Canada, and High Volume Moves 01:40:00 High Life Burnout and Personal Toll 01:54:00 Sentencing, Cooperation, and Prison Life 02:03:00 Extradition, Testimony, and Sentence Reduction 02:08:00 Prison Reflections and Survival 02:12:00 Reinvented: Ice Cream Kingpin & The Road Ahead 02:13:00 Final Thoughts: Redemption and New Beginnings Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	What I've dedicated my life to is revenge. A brand new drama based on the best-selling novel. They think they're better than us. Who do you think you are? I'm going to prove to them that they're wrong. She's punishing me. You destroyed my family. I will not rest until I've destroyed yours. A woman of substance on Channel 4 starts tonight at 9. In Sinoloa, the families are all connected in some way. You'd call me sometimes North Carolina, I'd have to drop off 100 grand for some stash house over there. I said, how would you like $50,000 cash every month? And that's when we go hard. I would literally fill up the wine bottles with that liquid cocaine and ship from the same city that wine came from. I was telling my fraternity brothers, my teammates, dude, we partied.
0:39.7	When you go to USC, you party.
0:41.3	Owen Hansen is back on the podcast this week to promote his new Amazon documentary, Cocaine
0:46.8	Quarterback.
0:47.6	Owen is a star athlete from Southern California who played football for the USC Trojans when they
0:52.6	won back-to-back national championships in 2003 and 2004.
0:57.0	After college, Owen opened up a profitable sports betting business and was making millions of dollars a year taking money from degenerate gamblers all over the United States.
1:06.0	This is how he got connected with the Sinolea cartel. One of Chappo Guzman's sons started betting on sports
1:11.6	with him. You can guess what happens next. Owen started transporting money and then cocaine for the
1:16.6	Chapo Guzman faction of the cartel. In his 10-plus year career in the game, Owen's organization
1:21.9	moved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cocaine for the Sinaloa cartel, to the East Coast,
1:27.1	to Canada, and as far away as
1:28.9	Australia. Now, after spending almost a decade in federal prison, Owen is back in the world. You can
1:34.8	buy his book, The California Kid, and of course watch his documentary Cocaine Quarterback, produced by
1:40.1	Mark Wahlberg, on Amazon right now. And his billion dollar baby, California Ice Protein,
1:46.2	a protein ice cream bar Owen invented while he was in prison. I've tried them. They're the best
1:50.8	ice cream bars I've ever tasted. That is not an exaggeration. Those are in select states right now
1:55.9	and soon to be all over the country. You can order them online at California iceprotein.com.
2:01.7	This dude lived a movie.
2:03.9	One of the greatest stories we've heard on this podcast, the cocaine quarterback himself,
2:08.6	Owen Hanson, right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell.
2:15.2	Dude, I think it's number three. I think cocaine quarterback is number-
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Johnny Mitchell, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Johnny Mitchell and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.