Into the sheriff’s office for work at night. He was going to school during the day and heading He says he didn’t know what the DEA was in 1977 when he started in law enforcement in the sheriff’s office in Laredo, Texas. Peña’s entrance into the world of narcotics started a little differently. “You want to talk about addicted? I was addicted to drugs, but in a different way after that.” “So, I went from two ounces to 880 pounds,” He and his partner, along with other agents, surreptitiously took a DEA boat to the Turks and Caicos Islands and picked up 400 kilos of cocaine. Murphy says the first case he worked on in Miami was undercover. “I got down there, here I am a new agent, and the most cocaine I’ve ever seen in almost 12 years as a cop is two ounces.” “The late 1980s, if you wanted to be a DEA agent, that was the place to be,” Murphy says. Murphy applied to the DEA and two years later (because of applicants’ backlog) the agency hired him to his first post in Miami, Florida. While working as a railroad police officer, another officer who’d worked as a Virginia State Trooper in the DEA task force out of Roanoke, Virginia, would tell Murphy stories of his time in the DEA and would encourage Murphy’s interest. Were involved in the cocaine business in any manner at all, you were directly or indirectly with or against the Medellín Cartel.” (Photo: Steve Murphy with an inventory of cash and jewelry seized while working in Miami. “The Cali Cartel had no influence whatsoever. “When I got to Miami, Pablo and the Medellín Cartel controlled South Florida,” Murphy says. So, it was always in the back of my mind.” To pull it off, and I liked the way the investigation went. It shocked all these other cops that these two rookies were able “In southern West Virginia, a pound of weed back then was a lot of dope. “It was 1976, and another young policeman and I, we were rookies, arrested a guy for a pound of weed,” he says. He worked another six years with the Norfolk Southern Railroad, but he was always interested in narcotics investigations. “I never wanted to do anything else in my life.” Murphy started his career as a uniform police officer in southern West Virginia in 1975, and after six years he moved on “You know, since I was a little kid, I just wanted to be a cop,” Murphy says. Investigational tenacity that captivates, even through a computer screen. Regardless of the setting, though, their telling of the investigation, capture and killing of Escobar - one of the world’s most-notorious narcoterrorists - and their time in Colombia leading up to Escobar’s demise, is one of murder, mayhem and downright Sound working and for Peña’s video feed to load. Instead of sharing coffee in person, Murphy briefly paused at the start of the interview as he struggled to get his Murphy and Peña later spoke to Fraud Magazine via Zoom from the Washington, D.C., area and San Antonio, Texas, respectively. Their backdrop included large “Narcos” posters - the hit Netflix show based on their time as DEA agents - on the wall behind them and their book, “Manhunters,” just over Murphy’s shoulder on a shelf. Murphy and Peña would have to regale attendees with stories of drug smuggling, money laundering, and the capture and killing of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar from the comfort of their homes, not a conference The backdropįor their presentation and subsequent Fraud Magazine interview would be impressive - more than 3,000 attendees gathered in one spot to hear them speak in a city rich with history, culture and cuisine.Īlas, a global pandemic changes everything. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents - were announced as keynote speakers at the 31st Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference to be held in Boston in June 2020. In late autumn 2019, Steve Murphy and Javier Peña - retired U.S.
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