I'm Rory Stewart and I grew up wanting to be a hero and I'm still fascinated by the ideas of heroism.

In my new series, I'm taking in the long sweep of history from Achilles to Zelensky and asking, what is a hero?

Simply doing your job, being a decent human being.

A true hero is someone who just kind of shines by

their own light and that light is to be recognized by others. The long history of heroism

with me, Rory Stewart. Listen on BBC Sounds. This is the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Jordan Dunbar.

In December 1993, the hunt for the world's most infamous drug trafficker, Pablo Escobar, came to a dramatic end.

I'm bringing you an interview from our archives with one of the people who helped to track him down.

Pablo Escobar Gaviria, good heavens. It seems like a long time ago.

Pablo Escobar had risen from poverty to become one of the richest men in the world. The kingpin of the

world's cocaine trade, running the drug from Colombia to the US and Europe, he was making billions,

and by 1993, was one of the most wanted men on the planet. Central to the conflict is Pablo

Escobar, leader of the Medellin cartel and Colombia's most feared criminal.

Cocaine dealing transformed him from car thief into one of the world's richest men.

I think for one thing, just between you and I, he was smarter, and he was able to intimidate

the people that worked for him. You can't get to his powerful position without being pretty damn smart.

Elizabeth Zilli was an intelligence agent for the American Drug Enforcement Agency based in the

Colombian capital, Bogota. Columbia had become the number one cocaine producer in the world,

and it was said that for every person snorting lines of cocaine in the US, four out of five

of those lines came through Escobar's cartel. Elizabeth was part of the US government's efforts

to monitor and shut down the drug trade. She first worked in Colombia in the 1970s and then a second

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