On this week’s Finding Escobar’s Millions, former CIA operatives Doug Laux and Ben Smith investigate a hidden underground tunnel that was used by drug traffickers including Pablo Escobar.
In our exclusive clip, Smith explains how the tunnel was a relic of the Spanish rule in Colombia, built for battle before winding up being used centuries later for smuggling narcotics.
Its original purpose was to link two bunkers so that the Spanish could fire at ships coming into the nearby port from either direction. The tunnel held up and turned out to be really useful for narco-trafficking back in the glory days of Escobar’s reign.
The tunnel only stopped being used for drugs 15 years ago. In the clip, the pair are led into the tunnel by guides wearing bandanas on their faces to hide their identities, before Laux and Smith quiz the group about its past.
One of the guides explains how narcotics were ferried out of the port by offshoots from the main tunnel where docked boats were waiting at the ready to spirit away the contraband in the dark of the night.
It was the perfect place for Escobar to keep his operation both safe and well-oiled in production and exportation. The men who reveal the tunnel were somehow connected to the cartels, and hide their identity for fear of reprisal from those still loyal to Escobar’s memory.
Escobar endeared himself to the poor of Bogota and surrounding areas by buying homes and caring for people financially, and a sense of obligation from those who benefitted from his largesse still persists today.
Watch our exclusive clip below:
Finding Escobar’s Millions airs Fridays at 10/9c on Discovery.