BLUEFIELD — A new Netflix series called “Narcos” asks its audience to imagine the overlord of an organization that makes him so rich, he literally can’t count his money. He thinks his wealth and power will let him bend an entire nation to his will.

Former police officer Steve Murphy doesn’t have to imagine it. He saw that situation firsthand when he was an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He was among hundreds of American and Colombian agents and soldiers tasked with a dangerous mission: dismantle the Medellin Drug Cartel and end the career of its leader, Pablo Escobar.

Murphy, 58, now lives in the Washington, D.C. area. He spoke with the Bluefield, West Virginia Daily Telegraph about his career, how it led him to Colombia and what was then the biggest manhunt in history. His experiences there helped inspire “Narcos,” which stars Boyd Holbrook as Murphy, is available for online streaming Aug. 28.

Working in law enforcement was something Murphy has wanted to do all his life.

“I’ve never wanted to be anything else, and I don’t know why. I was always intrigued by police and law enforcement,” he said. “You know the old saying. If you find a job you like, you never work a day in your life, and I did it for over 37 years.”

Steve Murphy is shown taking inventory of cash and jewelry seized while he was working with law enforcement in Miami. His experiences in Colombia helped inspire the Netflix series “Narcos.”

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After years as a police officer in West Virginia and Virginia, Murphy used contacts he had developed with other police officers to begin his career with the DEA.

After graduating from the DEA’s academy, Murphy’s first assignment was Miami, Florida. The drug problem was already serious in the city and the violence it was generating was everywhere.

“When I got there, cocaine was the king down there,” he recalled. “It was very violent. There were drug-related murders every day. It was very challenging, but it was very exciting.”

Murphy was soon doing undercover work.

Murphy spent four years in Miami before he was transferred to Bogota, Colombia. It was ground zero in the war against drugs, and the Medellin Cartel had a $300,000 price tag for any DEA agent. 

While the DEA didn’t have legal jurisdiction in Colombia — the Mansfield Act prohibited American law enforcement from enforcing laws in foreign countries — the team joined a special unit of the Colombian National Police (CNP) known as the Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Interpol.

Murphy was partnered with Colombian agent Javier Pena, the same Javier Pena featured in “Narcos,” to recruit informants and collect information for the CNP. It was dangerous work.

“You don’t know good guys from bad guys,” Murphy said. Then they were assigned to the force working to dismantle the Medellin Cartel and arrest its leader, Pablo Escobar.

Steve Murphy is shown here with a large stash of contraband. His experiences in Colombia helped inspire the Netflix series “Narcos.”

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“He was so big,” Murphy recalled. “He was actually the first narco terrorist; even Forbes Magazine estimated his gross income was $8 billion to $30 billion. He was stinking rich … it was just a greed thing. At that time, he was the biggest narcotics trafficker in the world.”

Escobar was also incredibly brazen. At one point, he surrendered to the government and built his own custom prison with luxury accommodations. He even ran for congress in Colombia and won a seat as an alternate congressman, though it didn’t last long. Escobar resigned after being called out for his illegal activities.

“The guy who accused him was killed shortly afterward,” Murphy said.

Escobar arranged for guerrillas to attack the ministry of justice, and he was responsible for the death of a leading presidential candidate. He even had an airliner blown up to kill one person.

Extradition became a real possibility when Escobar escaped his customized prison in 1992. When he fled, Colombia’s president contacted the American ambassador and told him all restrictions had been lifted, and agents would have whatever resources they needed to bring him in.

“They brought in the Army’s Delta Force and the Navy’s Seal Team Six,” Murphy said. “Those guys are super. These are the people you want to come save you if you’re kidnapped.”

Murphy and his partner split time between two cities. One would be in Medellin, and the other in Bogota, each agent ready to move if Escobar appeared.

“This was the biggest manhunt in the history of the world. It was such a big deal that ‘America’s Most Wanted’ came down and did an episode of ‘The World’s Most Wanted,'” Murphy said. 

Escobar had been very careful about how long he stayed on a cellphone to make tracking him difficult. In some cases, his pursuers missed him by minutes. His coffee would still be hot when they raided a house. But finally, he slipped staying too long on the phone with his son.

“We were able to intercept Escobar talking on the phone with his son and we triangulated his position. Direction finding equipment was able to triangulate the signal, and we were able to locate him in an apartment, more of a road house than an apartment, in the city of Medellin,” Murphy stated.

Police raided the home. There was a gun battle and Escobar along with a bodyguard jumped out of a third-story window to the roof only to be killed in the crossfire with waiting CNP agents.

The drug lord was responsible for the deaths of 143 CNP officers during the 18 months he was on the run, said Murphy, who attended many of those agents’ funerals. 

In June 2013, Murphy retired from the DEA. He soon found other ways to apply his experience.

“I’ve got a little consulting business, and Javier and I are still partners,” he said.

Murphy and his partner are also technical consultants for “Narcos.” They spent “hours and hours” speaking to Netflix writers on the telephone and via emails, telling story after story. In another step, Murphy and Pena arranged for the actors playing them, Holbrook as Murphy and Pedro Pascal as Pena, to receive actual DEA training in Quantico, Virginia. 

Embedded with a class, Holbrook and Pascal went to gun ranges and used the Hogan’s Alley practice field designed to teach agents when to shoot and when to hold their fire. They also learned about surveillance and undercover operations. The lessons helped prepare the actors for their “Narcos” roles. Both actors came away appreciating the DEA agents’ skills and their level of dedication.

“They said it was one of the most valuable things they had ever done,” Murphy said.

Jordan writes for The Bluefield Daily Telegraph in Bluefield, West Virginia.