For Owen Hanson, the thrill of victory was nothing compared to pulling a fast one on a federal agent.
As a 19-year-old USC student freshly cut from the school’s volleyball team, the Redondo Beach native “was so determined to get back on that volleyball team,” he made the risky move to visit Mexico to score himself performance-enhancing drugs. “As soon as I strapped them to my leg — and other places in my body that we won’t talk about — I crossed that [line],” he says. “And I’ll tell you what, that rush, when I lied to US customs when they said, ‘Are you bringing anything back?’ and I lied for the first time….I said, ‘No sir, I’m not,’ and he says, ‘Welcome to America.’ That rush I had? I’ve been chasing my whole life.”
As anyone who’s watched Prime Video’s similarly addictive Cocaine Quarterback: Signal-Caller for the Cartel knows, that chase took Hanson from the highest of highs to the lowest of lockdowns. Charting his rise from modest beginnings, this three-part documentary series from Mark Wahlberg‘s Unrealistic Ideas instantly hooks you into the Bachelorette-handsome Hanson’s wild ride from a spot on the legendary USC football team to small-time steroids dealer to illegal sports bookie to coke smuggler for the Mexican cartel, laundering their money out of Australia.
Prime Video
Along the way, there’s a shadowy Vegas rival, secret identities, a desecrated gravestone, hot takes from famous former teammates, sidekicks, undercover agents, and investigations across the globe. It’s both a mind-blowing profile of a young man dripping with ambition and potential as well as a cautionary tale of hubris and the allure of fast cash.
“My good business skills ended up biting me in the ass,” admits Hanson of how he was so easily recruited into the drug-trafficking scene. “I think the key point was the time I started to take bets from the cartel,” he continues. “Obviously, I didn’t know it was the cartel at that time. But [it all started] once I accepted those bets and started paying the cartel in a timely matter…because most bookies don’t usually pay on a Monday.”
“I was one of the largest bookies in the United States at the time, so, for me, it was just a phone call away to drop off a hundred mil or pick a million dollars up. And when [they] started paying me that 10%, I was like, ‘Wow, this is the easiest money I’ve ever made!’”
From there, the spiral was fast and furious. More drugs, more guns, more girls, more risks, all followed by less and less control, ultimately leading to a fateful trip to a golf course where Hanson finally faced the music at the business end of a DEA operation. The ensuing trial and incarceration (his 21-year-sentence was reduced after assisting with a high-profile Australian case connected to his dealings) seem to have been just as life-changing: The now-43-year-old has turned his jail-cell hustle of creating and selling a protein-packed ice cream to fellow inmates into a legitimate business, California Ice Protein, and he proudly reveals that he’s clean and sober.
Prime Video
“I spent the last 10 years [inside] the Federal Bureau prisons, and my daily routine was literally working out twice a day, drinking water, eating fish, and I felt so good,” he shares, while also accepting accountability for the fallout several of his associates suffered. “Even at my lowest point, I’m like, ‘If I feel this good right now and I haven’t had a sip of alcohol, a line of cocaine…why don’t I just keep it going?’ And I wake up every day at four in the morning, I take an ice bath, I start my day, I’m out of the gym by seven, and I’m literally working from seven in the morning with my East Coast customers all the way till midnight and I feel great.”
Watch the full video interview above for more.
Cocaine Quarterback: Signal-Caller for the Cartel, Streaming Now, Prime Video