Murphy felt deep guilt over Lila's death. After the killer who murdered Lila was arrested, he confessed and named Escobar as the mastermind behind the murder. Subsequently, the Colombian government launched a full-scale manhunt for Escobar and agreed to the extradition treaty proposed by the U.S. government, which would send the drug lord to the United States to face justice—this made the drug lords nervous.
Murphy and Peña hoped to persuade Carrillo to help them capture Escobar, but Carrillo was not interested in the extradition treaty. He also said his superiors would not approve of him arresting Escobar, noting that Escobar had superior resources and an intelligence network that always allowed him to escape before the police could find him. Most importantly, Escobar would never submit willingly and would surely make Colombia bleed.
The drug lords were furious about the extradition treaty between Colombia and the United States and tried every means to oppose it. Gacha hired Israeli mercenaries, the Julio brothers hired a public relations firm to design an anti-extradition icon, and Red ranted daily on the radio about U.S. interference in Colombia's political affairs. Escobar even wrote directly to presidential candidates, protesting that the extradition treaty was unfair U.S. meddling in Colombia.
The U.S. ambassador wanted to secure presidential candidate Gaviria's support for the extradition treaty. Although Gaviria was willing in his heart, he said he would act in Colombia's best interests. Peña took 100,000 U.S. dollars allocated by the ambassador to General Haramio of the Colombian Anti-Narcotics Unit, convincing him to put Carrillo in charge of capturing Escobar.
But soon after, Haramio sent a message saying Peña had bribed him for the opposite effect—what he wanted was to fire Carrillo, which would leave Murphy and Peña without the most trustworthy policeman they had. Murphy vaguely felt that because of Escobar's arrogance, he had been waiting for the DEA agents to come for him all along. Escobar owned more than 800 properties, and capturing him would not be an easy task.
Finally, the police learned that Escobar was at an estate called "Cake" and immediately dispatched a large force. But Escobar got wind of the operation in advance, left with his family, and the police only arrested the estate's servants and gardeners.
This was exactly the result Murphy wanted. He hoped Escobar would realize that no matter how many properties he owned, he would spend the rest of his life on the run. Fortunately, in the documents Escobar had failed to completely destroy, Murphy found an address in downtown Medellín, where they arrested Escobar's top accountant.
Evidence of Escobar's crimes filled the archives of Colombia's Supreme Court, but Haramio refused to let Murphy and Peña copy the evidence. While going through the materials, Murphy discovered that a U.S. pilot had been smuggling drugs for Escobar, and Peña told Murphy to stuff the evidence down his pants and take it away.
Murphy and Peña tracked down Suárez, who told them the pilot had originally been a CIA agent. The two found the former CIA pilot Barry, and through coercion and inducement, Barry handed over photos of Escobar loading drugs in Nicaragua. At that time, Nicaragua was led by communists, which the U.S. Reagan administration strongly opposed, stating that fighting drug lords was just as important as fighting communism.
Barry ultimately met a tragic end at Escobar's hands, but the Anti-Narcotics Unit received a steady stream of weapons, funding, and manpower. They soon destroyed cocaine worth billions of dollars and arrested Red at Medellín's largest drug manufacturing base. In Escobar's eyes, all this was a declaration of war by the U.S. government. Escobar approached Iván of the M-19, bribing him with 2.5 million U.S. dollars to attack Colombia's Supreme Court and burn all the evidence.
Elisa of the M-19 leaked the plan to Connie, who handed her over to Peña and called Murphy, but it was too late. Peña said Elisa could testify that Escobar was the mastermind behind the tragedy, but insisted she must not be handed over to the military. The M-19 suffered heavy losses in the attack. Escobar arrived as promised with the 2.5 million U.S. dollars and also gave Iván the Sword of Bolívar, leaving Iván deeply moved. But Escobar's men took advantage of their distraction, quickly killed them, and made off with the money and the sword.