Narcos

"The man standing over Escobar when this is over needs to be a Colombian police officer." (25.07.2019)

"I read in a book somewhere about a rich guy goes broke. When he's asked how it happened, how he had lost everything, he answered: "Slowly at first. And then... all at once." For Pablo Escobar, "all at once" had finally come. His empire in shambles, his army all dead or in jail, Escobar did the one thing he could still do: a disappearing act." (25.07.2019)

"Look up "magical realism" in the dictionary, and it'll describe a literary style incorporating fantastic or mythical elements into otherwise realistic fiction. Colombia is where it began. And anyone who's spent real time here knows why. It's a place where the bizarre shakes hands with the inexplicable on a daily basis. But just like in the novels of Gabriel García Márquez, the weird shit usually pops off at certain critical moments. When the whole place is on edge. When everything's about to change." (26.07.2019)

"The day Pablo went down, the Cali cartel became Public Enemy Number One. And the fact that they helped us bring him down didn't mean shit. Many observers fear Colombia's other large cartel, the Cali cartel, will now simply step up its own drug production. And that's exactly what happened. While the world was focused on Escobar, Cali's operations had grown exponentially, differing from their rival in every possible way. Where Pablo sought the love and protection of the masses of Medellín, these guys rubbed shoulders with Colombia's elite and called themselves "the Gentlemen of Cali." And whereas Escobar craved the spotlight, these guys stayed in the shadows, perfecting the game, building complex smuggling and distribution networks through Mexico, Europe, and the Far East, without leaving so much as a fingerprint. Even the people working for them didn't know it was Cali coke they were moving. It was fucking Cocaine, Incorporated. And they ran it like a Fortune 500 company." (28.07.2019)

"We do Cali differently. No swallowing the spider to catch the fly this time. America's got plans for Colombia. Another bloodbath complicates them." (28.07.2019)

"If you don't play, you're going to watch others score." (28.07.2019)

"Money makes the world go round. Legal or illegal, good guys and bad guys, we all chase money. For the DEA, it's about budget meetings and kissing the right ass to keep the funding flowing. But if you're a trafficker, getting the money is easy. It's holding onto it that's hard." (28.07.2019)

"I don't give Gilberto Rodríguez credit for much, but I have to hand it to him he was a man in control. He was married to three women. At the same time. And he managed them the same way he ran his business. Scheduled down to the minute. Wife number three got him Monday and Tuesday. Number two got him Wednesday and Thursday. And wife number one got him on Friday and Saturday. Sundays were for football. All the wives were invited if they wanted to come. They usually did. And they all got along. That was the deal. And he made it work. He insisted on it. He made far more friends than enemies. And he would count on those friends to protect him. His retirement was going to go his way, too. He wasn't going to die on some shitty rooftop. Nobody was stabbing him in the back, nobody forcing him out. Like I said, he was a man in control. The guy who never made a wrong move in his life. A guy who built a billion-dollar empire, brick by brick. A guy who owned every cop in town. A guy with a get-out-of-jail-free card burning a hole in his pocket. And you want to go after him? Shit. You'd have to be crazy, stupid, brave, and lucky all at the same time." (28.07.2019)

"I'm not sure murderers negotiating their own punishment qualifies as justice." (29.07.2019)

"No plan is perfect. Especially when you deal with a substance as volatile as cocaine. At some point you're gonna make a mistake. And your enemies are watching and waiting. They're gonna see your weakness and make a move. See, that's the thing about plans. No matter how perfect you think they are, however brilliant or audacious they may be, well, they can still go to shit when that one thing goes wrong. And once that happens, there's no going back. It's all downhill from there." (29.07.2019)

"Through intimidation and corruption the Cali Cartel had effectively taken much of the Colombian National Police force and bent them to its will. But there was one force it couldn't bend: A man named General José Serrano whose faith and integrity were exactly what we needed. He took two things seriously: His service to God and his belief in the rule of law. He expected the same from his men. For him, it began at an early age. He was a campesino, the son of a dirt farmer He had never owned a pair of shoes. One day, a group of mounted policemen rode into his village. It reminded him of the holy knights that he had read about, religious warriors on a mission from God. He knew then that he would be one of them. He joined the force expecting to find other like-minded men. But instead, he found corruption. From where he could, he rooted it out. When he became chief of his first small town, he fired over two-thirds of the department for being on the take, declaring war on corrupt cops and traffickers alike." (29.07.2019)

"War makes for strange alliances, putting you into business with people that, under other circumstances, you wouldn't even shake hands with. The same is true of your enemies. They will unite when they need to." (29.07.2019)

"In law enforcement, your only real power comes the strength of the system you represent. You gotta believe it has your back. But sometimes... Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it's so compromised, so corrupt, that you can't trust it. What do you do then? When it tries to play you? You for a way to play it right back." (29.07.2019)

"Another deal. A compromise. A charade. A way for governments who don't give a shit about the war they're supposed to be fighting, to go on pretending they're winning it. But it can't be won. It'll never be won. At least not until people see it for what it is. Not until they know the truth." (29.07.2019)