“Pablo Escobar was one of the most powerful and richest men in the world in the 1980s. Through terror and a web of corruption, he came to have almost total control over the police, the army, and much of the Colombian government while operating a gigantic international cocaine-trafficking network. At the end of the 1980s, after a series of savage attacks involving the shooting down of commercial planes, rewards for killing policemen or bombings of government offices in broad daylight, the government of César Gaviria negotiated with the capo his surrender in exchange of a series of concessions such as operating the prison of his confinement: the enclosure called 'the Cathedral' located in his hometown Envigado,” reads he synopsis of the documentary podcast recently released exclusively on Spotify platform. 

The production called Pablo Escobar: Escape from the Cathedral recounts, based on telephone espionage tapes of the time and conversations that remained unknown until now, the convulsive months between the delivery, escape and life of the Colombian drug lord in a luxury mansion until his subsequent assassination on Dec. 2, 1993.

“Playing an eerie set of historical audio tapes, the podcast transports the listener back to a time when Colombia was known as the cocaine capital of the world as a result of the actions of this ruthless and fearless individual, and the elaborate effort that it was done to finally bring him to justice,” said Alejandro Uribe, CEO of Candle Media's Exile Content Studio, a company that along with Detective produces the Spotify original podcast.

The eight-episode series is narrated in Spanish by journalist Daniel Coronell, and in English by Univision news anchor Jorge Ramos.

“Myths devour people. This podcast allows us to meet the person called Pablo Escobar, sadistic and familiar, brilliant and perverse, at a time one of the most wanted people in the world,” commented Diego Rabasa, scriptwriter and director of Detective company, in a statement. 

The 20-to-30-minute eight episodes of Pablo Escobar: Escape from the Cathedral are available in both languages ​​exclusively on Spotify.

A week after its premiere, the podcast is one of the most listened podcast of the platform in Colombia.