The explosive memoir of legendary DEA agents and the subject of the hit Netflix series Narcos, Steve Murphy and Javier F. Peña

MANHUNTERS
How We Took Down Pablo Escobar, the World’s Most Wanted Criminal
by Javier F. Peña and Stephen E. Murphy
St. Martin’s Press, November 2019

In the decades they spent at the DEA, Javier Peña and Steve Murphy risked their lives hunting large and small drug traffickers. But their biggest challenge was the hunt for Pablo Escobar in Colombia. Now, for the first time ever, they tell the real story of how they brought down the world’s first narco-terrorist, the challenges they faced, and the innovative strategies they employed to successfully end the reign of terror of the world’s most wanted criminal. Readers will go deep inside the inner workings of the Search Bloc, the joint Colombian-US task force that resulted in an intensive 18-month operation that tracked Escobar. Between July 1992 and December 1993, Steve and Javier lived on the edge, setting up camp in Medellin at the Carlos Holguin Military Academy. There, they lived and worked with the Colombian authorities, hunting down a man who was thought by many to be untouchable. Their firsthand experience coupled with stories from the DEA’s recently de-classified files on the search for Escobar forms the beating heart of MANHUNTERS, an epic account of how two American agents risked everything to capture the world’s most wanted man.

Javier F. Peña was hired by the DEA in 1984 as a special agent, and spent four years tracking Pablo Escobar with partner Steve Murphy. Steve Murphy worked undercover sting operations in Miami, and was eventually dispatched to Colombia where he worked with partner Javier Peña to track Escobar.