PT 1 The War Crimes of Macaco and Memo Fantasma Cartel

*ep starts at min 30

Guest Nicole Aimee Schreiber

Producer Gray Livingston

: Buried within the many stories that exist about Pablo Escobar, there exist two men that took what he started and ran with it in the worst way imaginable. Carlos “Macaco” Jiminez and Guillermo Giraldo aka “Memo Fantasma” aka “Will the Ghost” were some of the highest ranking officials in the right-wing paramilitary organization known as United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC for short). Imagine the worst stories you’ve heard about crimes committed by any cartel anywhere, and the AUC has done it or something worse. They terrorized Colombia for nearly a decade, fighting both the left-wing guerrillas and anyone who they considered remotely connected to them, and in their wake there rose the largest and most successful drug trafficking empire in the world. The AUC is the best example of what a “narco-state” looks like, and sitting at the top are Macaco and Memo Fantasma.

Sources:

https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/former-warlord-back-colombia-will-drug-empire-follow/

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/05/07/colombia.extradition/

https://insightcrime.org/news/accused-drug-trafficker-guillermo-acevedo-memo-fantasma-captured-in-bogota/

https://insightcrime.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/The-Invisible-Drug-Lord-Hunting-The-Ghost-InSight-Crime-March-2020.pdf

https://www.hrw.org/report/2005/07/31/smoke-and-mirrors/colombias-demobilization-paramilitary-groups#

https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/reports98/colombia/Colom989-04.htm

https://insightcrime.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/The-Invisible-Drug-Lord-Hunting-The-Ghost-InSight-Crime-March-2020.pdf

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-flsd-1_10-cv-21951/pdf/USCOURTS-flsd-1_10-cv-21951-1.pdf