The Cocaine Quarterback Owed the Cartel $4 Million… How He Made It Out Alive
All The Smoke
The Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartPodcasts
4.7 • 7.6K Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2026
⏱️ 90 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Former University of Southern California athlete Owen “O-Dog” Hanson lived a double life.
Known as the “Cocaine Quarterback,” Hanson went from popular college athlete to the leader of a massive international criminal operation involving drug trafficking, sports gambling, and money laundering across the U.S., Australia, and Latin America.
At one point, Hanson owed a cartel $4 million, a debt that could have cost him his life.
In this episode of ATS Unplugged, Hanson tells the unbelievable story of how a USC Trojans football walk-on ended up moving millions for a cartel, running an international gambling network, and eventually facing a 21-year federal prison sentence after a joint investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
From partying with pro athletes and celebrities to running a global trafficking empire, this is the wild true story of how he survived the cartel, the streets, and federal prison.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:04.3 | Welcome back to Unplugged. |
| 0:06.0 | This week is a special show. |
| 0:08.4 | I'm excited about this. |
| 0:10.5 | I was scrolling on Amazon and came across the cocaine quarterback. |
| 0:16.9 | So I did what I normally do. |
| 0:18.8 | Hopped in his DMs and told him I need to talk. |
| 0:21.0 | And lo and behold, we have him here today. Welcome to the show, the cocaine quarterback, Owen Hanson. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. So question, how did it was the cocaine, because you weren't a quarterback, right? Was not a quarterback. So just the name ended up flowing. Is that how it worked? How did the name come about? You know how it came? It was originally supposed to be the California kid. That was the name, I'm from California, right? |
| 0:40.6 | Right. |
| 0:41.3 | And I am. up flowing. Is that how it worked? How did the name come about? You know how it came? It was originally supposed to be the California kid. I'm from California, right? And Amazon looked at it and it's like, that just doesn't tell us what it is. Right. And then they're like, well, technically he played football. Cocaine, yeah. So how do we tie in the quarterback? Well, guess what? I was the signal caller. Okay. |
| 0:54.8 | For the cartel. And the signal caller is the guy that's calling the plays, right? So they use that |
| 1:00.3 | name with a asterisk signal caller for the cartel. So that's why I'm a quarterback. So when you saw, |
| 1:06.6 | obviously, Coteen quarterback on Amazon, when you saw kind of your story being depicted, |
| 1:12.8 | I mean, what was that like? |
| 1:13.7 | I mean, obviously, you've been able to see yourself before, but to see your story kind of |
| 1:17.6 | play out for the world, what was that feeling like? |
| 1:21.1 | Man, it was, I remember that Walberg's team had me view it before it went public, right? |
| 1:27.2 | And I was like, man, i lived a fucking crazy life man |
| 1:30.7 | like what the fuck was i thinking and uh man i'm glad i'm not i'm not ever going to go back to that |
| 1:38.0 | life because i'll tell you what i should have died a long time ago and watching it and like how did |
| 1:42.2 | i get man how did i make it out alive you know at the end of |
... |
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