Colombia Videos - The Documentary Network

The Gangs That Inherited Pablo Escobar’s Drug Empire: Cooking with Cocaine

Documentary.net staff — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 07:09:14 +0000

In Colombia, the heirs to Pablo Escobar's drug empire are conducting business as usual — though with a somewhat lower profile. Today's Medellin drug cartels are highly structured and run much like multinational corporations. But violent gangs operating in the city's slums provide the muscle; known as combos, they’ve carved Medellin into fiefdoms, imposing invisible borders between gang territory — borders that, when ignored, often get people killed. VICE News travelled to Medellin to meet gang members — along with top cartel leaders and assassins — who revealed the inner workings of the city's modern-day cocaine industry.

Colombia’s Hidden Killers

Documentary.net staff — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 17:13:48 +0000

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was founded five decades ago as a Marxist people's army fighting against capitalist imperialism and Colombia's often-brutal government. And they've been fighting a protracted bloody war ever since. In recent years, FARC has devolved into a guerrilla force that threatens the very people it originally sought to protect. Why? Because in order to secure their dwindling territory and lucrative coca fields, FARC has buried thousands of land mines in civilian areas. Since 1990, there have been over 10,000 land mine victims in Colombia, the second-most in the world behind Afghanistan. FARC and the government have been negotiating peace for the past six months, and FARC's potential demobilization could yield a transformative moment in Colombian history. But the scars of 50 years of conflict, and 50 years of land mines, can't be so easily erased. We traveled to Colombia to speak with land mine victims and to see first hand how around 7,000 FARC guerilla have held off over 300,000 Colombian soldiers for so many years.

Colombia’s Coke-Smuggling Submarines

Documentary.net staff — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 17:18:56 +0000

In the never-ending game of cat and mouse that’s spurring the drug trade’s most ridiculous innovations, this has to take the cake: The new generation of Narco submarines, those sneaky, DIY cocaine-smuggling vessels, is now fully submersible. As Brian Anderson explained recently, subs that once promised a low profile amidst the ocean’s waves can now totally disappear under the Caribbean. That means the DEA and Coast Guard just saw their job get a whole lot harder. In 2009, the film team went to Colombia to hang out with Dr. Miguel Angel Montoya, a nautically-minded former trafficker who led one of the Cali cartel’s first narco sub projects. His early designs, based on torpedos, were unmanned. With radio transmitters attached, the drug-filled tubes would be towed behind the cartel’s towboat of choice. Should authorities hail the vessel, the torpedo could be jettisoned and picked up later by a following vessel tracking the radio signal. Because the huge tube was made of fiberglass, it was difficult to detect with sonar or radar. Since then, submarines have become powered, manned, air-conditioned, and now fully submersible. The narco sub’s speedy development is the perfect example of the old “where there’s a will, there’s a way” adage that’s fueled all aspects of the drug war, and stands as proof that no matter how much jail time is threatened or how many armed guards line our borders, people who want Colombia’s finest are going to find traffickers who can get it.

World’s Scariest Drug: Scopolamine – The Devil’s Breath

Documentary.net staff — Sat, 12 May 2012 11:22:29 +0000

Ryan Duffy went to Colombia to check out a strange and powerful drug called Scopolamine, also known as "The Devil's Breath." It's a substance so intense that it renders a person incapable of exercising free will. The first few days in the country were a harrowing montage of freaked-out dealers and unimaginable horror stories about Scopolamine. After meeting only a few people with firsthand experience, the story took a far darker turn than he ever could have imagined.

Life inside Colombia’s FARC

Documentary.net staff — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:00:34 +0000

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's oldest rebel group, has been embroiled in conflict with government forces for nearly five decades. The cat-and-mouse violence had been believed to be coming to an end after government troops killed several of FARC's leaders in recent years - but the rebels have proven far from defeated, staying in mountainous and jungle regions and using guerrilla styles reminiscent of Che Guevara's.

Part 2: A column from Latin America's longest lasting revolutionary army, Colombia's FARC, is bringing social services to Colombians in rural jungle and mountainous regions of the long conflicted country.

Colombia Fashion Week in Medellin

Documentary.net staff — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 08:53:36 +0000

Fashion Week Internationale heads to Medellin for Colombia Fashion Week. Formerly the old stomping ground of Pablo Escobar, the city is now trying to throw off its powdery legacy and push fashion up the noses of the world. Medellin is also fast becoming the plastic surgery capital of South America; people are flying in from all over the world to sample the city's budget body enhancement. We look at how the legacy of the narco-aesthetic inspired by the heady days of the Escobar era is being pushed out in favor of a more European silhouette, i.e. less tits and ass. Along our journey we meet Escobar's brother, Roberto, and Charlet tries her hand (and legs) at the national sport of pole dancing. We also find out just how far one woman will go to plump her buns.

Nohelia – Fight against Drug Barons, Guerrilla and Political Lawlessness in Colombia

Documentary.net staff — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 10:24:21 +0000

Nohelia draws the life of a school director in a village in the colombian rainforest. School is the antithesis to political lawlessness. In every day life ruled by poverty and political despotism, Nohelia teaches her students in Afrocolombianism. Nohelia: „In order to know where we´re going we have to know where we come from. What do you want to become when you´re grown up? Children: Football player, soldier or drug baron. Subtitles available.