The Real DEA Agent of ‘Narcos’ Breaks Down What Season 3 Got Right

[Warning: This story contains spoilers from the entire third season of Netflix's Narcos.]

Narcos viewers know Chris Feistl as the hungry DEA agent who helped dismantle the season-three villains, the Cali cartel.

On the Netflix drug cartel series, the agent (played by Michael Stahl-David) pushes his boss Javier Pena (Pedro Pascal) to let him leave Bogota, Colombia so he and his partner (Matt Whelan) can hunt the four Cali godfathers on the ground. Chris ultimately becomes the DEA contact for informant Jorge Salcedo (Matias Varela), the head of security for the Cali cartel who risks his life to help the agents capture and fry their biggest fish, Miguel Rodriguez (Francisco Denis).

In order to get the third season story right, Narcos enlisted the real Chris Feistl to serve as a consultant. Narcos previously had the real Javier Pena and partner Steve Muprhy (portrayed by Boyd Holbook) consulting on the two-season story of Pablo Escobar and when the show shifted its focus to Cali, Pena and Murphy recommended the showrunners reach out to Feistl.

"There were a number of ways that they came to me," Feistl tells The Hollywood Reporter in a lengthy and informative chat about his real-life experience and how it was portrayed on the show. "Both those guys said I would be a good resource to speak to, and also because of William Rempel’s book At the Devil's Table: The Untold Story of the Insider Who Brought Down Cali." The book tells the story of Salcedo, who is now in U.S. witness protection, and Feistl also served as a source. The trio — Salcedo, Feistl and Rempel — also appeared on a 2012 This American Life podcast on NPR, which caught the attention of Narcos showrunner Eric Newman. Feistl adds, "All of those things contributed to them then contacting me to give them a little bit of background on Cali."

As a result, Feistl, who is now retired, returned to Cali to meet up with the Narcos team for several days to show them the ropes. In addition to phone calls, where he says he mainly fielded questions to help solidify the timeline and accuracy of events, Stahl-David visited him at his home for several days.

Below, Feistl answers some of THR's most burning questions about the stranger-than-fiction, real-life events that played out on the season.