An Australian YouTuber has filmed the harrowing moment he was forced to flee after the military raided a drug house he had been visiting in Colombia for his channel.
Anthony Lees, known as Spanian, had been invited by drug traffickers to visit the hideout in Medellin, a city once known as the “murder capital of the world” in the 1990s.
Spanian, 37, visits dangerous neighbourhoods in Australia and abroad and shares his adventures with his 775,000 subscribers.
Images from his last visit show him standing in a dilapidated apartment in front of “drug bricks”, guns and ammunition strewn across a bed.
“So here’s basically the inside of your business,” he said.
“Tusi is the product we move,” said one of the alleged drug traffickers, referring to a new form of ketamine, also known as “pink cocaine.”
“In order for us to be able to do this, we have guards on all the streets,” said a man whose face was blurred.
Tensions visibly rose as the room fell silent due to an unexpected visitor outside the apartment.
In a video made by Australian YouTube star Spanian, drugs and weapons are shown in an abandoned and dilapidated apartment in the famous city of Medellin, Colombia.
Spanian, 37, visits dangerous neighbourhoods in Australia and abroad and shares his adventures with his 775,000 subscribers
“Why are they whispering? I’m getting paranoid,” Spanian said.
The middleman who arranged the visit to the drug house was then seen putting a finger to his lips, using the international abbreviation for “keeping quiet.”
Then a voice was heard saying the word that no one would ever want to hear in a drug den.
‘Policemen.’
Several people jumped over a back wall with Spanian following close behind.
He ran across roofs made of asbestos-cement sheets before escaping down a staircase and past bricks of drugs that the traffickers had dropped on the road.
He appeared in a graffiti-covered alley, visibly shaken.
“This is crazy, I’m going to turn off the camera for a minute, okay? This is no joke,” he said.
Spanian cut off the camera before resuming the video when he was safely out of harm’s way.
“If it wasn’t clear what happened, while we were in the middle of all that, bricks of drugs on the bed, weapons on the bed, the military arrived,” he said.
“I saw a soldier. I saw his head. He was looking at me.
“I hid in the house and the boys started running, grabbing bricks of drugs, throwing them everywhere, hitting the roofs.”
Spanian claims he was “running for my life” when he got caught in a police raid while filming at a drug house in the notorious city of Medellin, Colombia.
Suspected drug dealers in Medellin, Colombia, are seen standing next to huge bricks of drugs they have just packaged for sale
Spanian said he was running for his life and feared what would have happened to him if the military had caught him.
“I have no idea and I don’t want to know. But it’s probably the end of the Spanish language, you know what I mean?” he said.
‘I was raided in a drug house in Colombia.’
Spanian had previously been talking to drug traffickers, who explained to him how they weighed the contraband and what they used to wrap it.
They said they were dealing cocaine and marijuana and offered Spanian a taste of tusi when he asked what it was.
—No, I’m fine —he replied, laughing nervously.
“It’s a mixture of different types of pills to make you happy,” his guide told him.
“It is a very addictive, very bad drug, consumed by many young people. It was supposed to be the luxury drug consumed by the rich.
‘But now the recipe is very widespread and each (drug dealer) makes his own.’
