An Angus podcaster has gone from interviewing “local hardmen” to associates of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in a matter of months.
Decca Heggie hasn’t been resting on his laurels as his The Official All or Nothing Podcast goes from strength to strength.
The former bareknuckle boxer has been knuckling down to bag some notorious figures from the criminal underworld as he sees his YouTube subscriptions soar into the thousands.
In recent months the actor and podcaster has been conducting interviews with John Alite, a former Gambino crime family associate in New York, among others.
Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami
With the recent release of Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami on Netflix, Decca saw an opportunity to approach one of the docuseries’ central characters, Jorge Valdes.
Valdes started off his working life for the Federal Reserve Bank before becoming a Miami drug kingpin during the lucrative years for the cartels in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
The Cuban native was head of operation in the US for the Medellín Cartel and worked closely with drug lord Pablo Escobar — earning as much as a million dollars per month.
After being sentenced to over 10 years imprisonment on cocaine related charges, the former drug mogul turned his life around following his release in the mid-nineties.
Decca said the prospect of interviewing Valdes live on YouTube on Tuesday August 17 is something he is “relishing”.
‘I’m absolutely thriving off it’
He added: “I’d actually just watched the docuseries on Netflix and I saw the role Valdes had played in the Miami drug scene.
“I literally just emailed him about coming on the show and within an hour he’d responded and agreed to come on.
“From interviewing local hardmen to the one of America’s biggest drug dealers has just shown me how the series has grown.
“I’ll be going live with him and the fact it is live is something I’m absolutely thriving off. During recent interviews we’ve had some great raw moments — anything can happen.
“I’m relishing hearing Jorge Valdes’ story. I’ve done a lot of research into his backstory and I can’t wait to have him on.
“Jorge has told us the movie Scarface, starring Al Pacino, was based on his life so I think this will be a really fascinating interview.”
Switching to TV
He added: “One thing we’ve been working on for all our recent interviews is kind of diversifying what we are doing.
“We’ve transformed more into a ‘podumentary’ with some of our recent offerings. Mixing historical content with live interviews is a format that has really worked for us.
“It has been really exciting to see the work the editing team have been able to do to help this all come together.
“The podcast series now has over 13,000 subscribers and we really are planning on taking this to the next level.
“I always believed we had a great format and the appetite is there for people who want to hear these people’s stories.
“Our ambition would be to try and transfer the format into a television offering in the future.”