Pablo Escobar Tried to Kill Me – DEA Agent Behind Narcos | Steve Murphy

Locked In with Ian Bick

Ian Bick

Society & Culture

4.9 • 606 Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 121 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Former DEA Agent Steve Murphy reveals the untold story behind the manhunt for Pablo Escobar. From his early days as a police officer to going undercover in Miami and eventually being deployed to Colombia, Murphy walks us through the real events that inspired Netflix’s Narcos. He shares what it was like tracking the world’s most dangerous drug lord, how the day of Escobar’s death really went down, and the truth vs. fiction in Hollywood’s version of the story. If you think you know the story of Pablo Escobar, think again. #Narcos #PabloEscobar #DEAAgent #TrueCrime #SteveMurphy #LockedInPodcast #DrugWars #Colombia #Cartel #NetflixNarcos #EscobarTruth Connect with Steve Murphy: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEUxmx5tbdX1fI5Zx7NdldQ Website 1: https://gameofcrimespodcast.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GameOfCrimesPodcast Instagram: https://Instagram.com/gameofcrimespodcast TikTok: tiktok.com/@gameofcrimes Patreon: patreon.com/gameofcrimes LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenmurphydea Website 2: www.DEAnarcos.com Book: "Manhunters - How We Took Down Pablo Escobar" - available on Amazon, or can purchase autographed and personalized copies at www.DEAnarcos.com/shop - I ship those out myself. Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Get 50% off the Magic Mind offer here: https://www.magicmind.com/IANB50. #magicmind #mentalwealth #mentalperformance Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Use code LOCKEDIN for 20% OFF Wooooo Energy Buy Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00:00 The Story of Steve Murphy: From Local Cop to DEA Agent 00:07:17 Early Influences on a Law Enforcement Career 00:14:45 Early Career in Law Enforcement 00:21:54 Transition to Norfolk: Career and Personal Life Changes 00:29:02 Tense Standoff and Police Response 00:36:11 Journey to Becoming a DEA Agent 00:43:41 Undercover Operation in Miami 00:51:00 Violence and Hierarchies in the Narco World 00:58:48 Pablo Escobar's Luxurious Prison Deal 01:06:56 Working with Colombian National Police 01:14:40 Daily Operations Against Pablo Escobar 01:22:21 Colombian High School Memories 01:29:47 The Final Pursuit of Pablo Escobar 01:36:52 Pablo Escobar's Family Confrontation 01:45:43 The Unseen Heroes of the Escobar Investigation 01:51:27 The Decision Against Glorifying Pablo Escobar 01:58:17 Embracing Change and Support Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	He put a $300,000 bounty on each of us. I got to tell you what, Ian, that was one of the most
0:05.3	disconcerting moments of my entire time in Columbia, was to hear the world's first narco
0:10.8	terrorists, or to know that he knows your name. Steve Murphy wasn't recruited by the DEA.
0:15.8	He built his credentials as a local cop, fought railroad crime, and earned his spot through hard-earned
0:21.6	grit. After more than a decade in law enforcement, he joined the DEA. Soon enough, he was going
0:27.4	undercover in Miami smuggling cases and tracking hundreds of kilos of cocaine from Cuba. Then he was
0:34.1	abruptly deployed to Colombia, where he and partner Javier Peña teamed up with the Colombian national police to take down Pablo Escobar.
0:43.1	From the moment Escobar escaped his custom prison to that day, the narco terrorist was finally gunned down.
0:49.3	This is the real story.
0:50.9	Forget narcos.
0:52.0	Let the man who lived it tell you how fact and fiction diverge.
0:58.8	Steve, welcome to Lockton, man. This has been months in the making. And I'm so glad we finally
1:03.7	got to do this. Thank you very much, Ian. I appreciate you having me up here. And I appreciate
1:08.3	you being on my podcast. It was, I told you before, my wife thinks you're the best guest I've had so far. Well, tell the audience the name of it, too, so they could find it. It's Game of Crimes with Murph in the morning. You can find it on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, anywhere you can find audio podcast, plus the video is on YouTube. And you're also the author of Manhunters. Correct. My partner,
1:28.0	have your opinion now. I would like to say we wrote it, but we had a ghost writer.
1:33.8	Hey, all the greats have a ghost writer. Well, thank goodness, because, you know, a funny story with
1:38.8	that. I tried to write it myself because I'm in law enforcement terms, I'm a pretty good writer.
1:45.8	Because, you know, you've got a chronological order that you have to follow so I sat down one day after I first
1:50.5	retire back in 2013 and started making an outline and jotting notes down and I wrote for about
1:55.5	six hours and then I waited a day or two and came back and I read it and I'm like what a bunch
1:59.6	of crap so I gave up on that idea. Yeah, well, without the book, there wouldn't be a Narcos, right? Or do you think that would have developed without if the book didn't exist? Believe it or not, we did it backwards. We did Narcos and then wrote the book. But the book came out around the same time as Narcos?
2:20.0	Gosh, let's see.
	...

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