A BRIT who spent 15 years with Colombia’s deadliest drug cartels has described a world of blood, cocaine and a strange mix of black magic and “holy” hitmen.
He also described the moment when a narcos gunman threatened to kill him while covering the country’s bloody drug wars.
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Investigative journalist Toby Muse won the trust of key cartel members and offered him unparalleled access to the bloodthirsty gangs that run Colombia’s cocaine trade with military efficiency and brutal force.
Toby, whose book Kilo: Inside the Deadliest Cocaine Cartels was published in 2020, told The Sun Online how he got close to the men and women at every level of the drug gangs, from the lowest-ranking coca farmers to the cocaine queens, and the cold-blooded killers. who perform their hits.
In the process, I also gained insight into the cocaine “tsunami” that is sweeping the world, from the jungles of Colombia to the streets of London.
And he described how the killers have a strange mix of spirituality and black magic, often using witch doctors to summon “demons” to help them fight rivals — and with hitmen who sometimes believe they are doing God’s work.
He described his most terrifying experiences, recalling the time he was in a remote area of Colombia near the border with Venezuela with a group of armed narco-militias.
“We were at the Catatumbo River Friday night,” he said. “This is one of the places where they grow the coca. The whole local economy revolves around it.
“Everyone had cracked open the beers and were on fifth or sixth. We were sitting in the dirt outside someone’s house around a fire, the music blaring.
“Suddenly one of the militia gunmen, who was drunk, exclaimed, ‘Hurry up, I’m going to kill that gringo son of ab****.’
“He didn’t look at me, but screamed so loud he knew I could hear it.
“I think he said they wouldn’t necessarily kill me now, but they could kill me tonight.”
The group was in such a remote and inaccessible part of the country at the time that had they decided to kill Toby, it was unlikely he would ever have been found.
The nearest town of Tibu, home to only 30,000 people, was only about 30 km away, but to reach it would have taken about six hours, including walking, riding a lift on the back of a motorcycle, crossing a river in a truck, and then take a taxi along the last stretch of highway.
To this day, Toby says he doesn’t know why they didn’t kill him.
“It would have been difficult for them to justify killing me,” he said. “I was there with a community organizer who invited me. They wanted me to see the reality of the situation of Colombian coca farmers.”
Like being in a casino where everyone makes money and sex is offered to everyone, but at any moment someone can stand up and put a bullet through your head
Toby Muse
He added that tourists will never see this world and that if he hadn’t had people to vouch for him, he probably would have been sent back or kidnapped before ever reaching the coca farms.
On another occasion, the cartel he reported on hosted a welcome party for a group of foreigners who came to Colombia as part of a major cocaine deal.
They told Toby the nationality of the foreigners and the next day the group was coincidentally arrested and paraded on the TV news.
“When you’re around these people as a journalist, you don’t want to hear about future plans,” he said.
“If something goes wrong, they’ll see you as a snitch.”
In the days following the arrest, Toby said he tried to avoid the cartel members as much as possible until he was approached late at night by an old friend in the underworld who said he had to see him.
“I thought he was coming to kill me,” he admitted. Instead, I helped him escape.
BLACK MAGIC KILLERS
One of the most bizarre features of the Colombian drug cartels was their obsession with ghost religion, including black magic.
The Clan del Golfo, by far the largest and most powerful cocaine syndicate in the country, regularly hired witches and wizards to exorcise the cartel.
A particularly dark spell would “chase” rival cartel members or law enforcement officers and lead them to commit suicide.
“It would be like having a demon on your back telling you to ‘kill yourself, kill yourself’ all day long,” he said.
Another spell described to Toby was a so-called “invisibility” spell.
“The witch took dust from the bone of a cat that had been killed in a specific way,” he said.
“That dust would be introduced into the shipment of drugs and presumably the port inspectors will not notice it.
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Unsurprisingly, in a world where death could come at any moment, religion plays a huge role in the lives of many narcos.
For his book, Toby interviewed a man named Alex, a cartel hit man who prayed to the Virgin Mary for every contract murder.
He would travel to the infamous sanctuary in Medellin that Pablo Escobar’s men would visit prior to a mission.
It is called the Virgin of the Mystical Rose, but it has a darker nickname – the Virgin of the Assassins.
Toby asked Alex how he combined his faith with his job as a hit man.
“He said to me, ‘If God really doesn’t want me to kill someone, he will stop me. So if I kill someone, God wanted them to be punished because he didn’t protect them. If I fail, he didn’t’ wants them to be punished.'”
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Describing what it felt like to be in the world of the drug cartels, Toby said, “It’s like being in a casino where everyone makes money and is offered sex for everyone, but at any moment someone can stand up and put a bullet through. shoot your head. into your brain.”
He added: “You cannot separate sex from the cocaine trade. If young men in Colombia want to get involved, yes, they think about the money, but also about the models and actresses.
“For young people in slums run by the drug gangs, posters are their Hollywood.”
In the 1980s, Colombia’s most prominent newscaster Virginia Vallejo had an affair with Pablo Escobar and went on to write the book Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar about their relationship.
It was made into a movie in 2018.
Many of Colombia’s leading models have had very public affairs with narcos.
Reflecting on his time with Colombia’s drug gangs, Toby described what he called “a constant sense of dread, like an anchor around your neck.”
He added: “Death is always close. There is a very dark atmosphere, with violence never more than a finger click away.”
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