USC Athlete Turned Cocaine Kingpin | The Hidden Third with Mariana van Zeller

This week on The Hidden Third, I sit down with Owen Hanson, known as “O-Dog” — a former USC athlete whose hunger to win at all costs spiraled into a criminal operation spanning sports betting, drug trafficking, and money laundering.

Hanson’s story was recently featured in Mark Wahlberg’s docu-series Cocaine Quarterback. But this conversation goes deeper than the headlines. He tells me how it started with his own performance-enhancing drug use — and how, in his early twenties, it escalated into a high-stakes enterprise with international routes and ties to a major Mexican cartel.

For a while, the operation felt untouchable. He lived in luxury, operated at the highest stakes, and wielded real power — until it all came crashing down. I wanted to understand how a decorated student-athlete became a drug kingpin, and what it’s like to rebuild after losing everything. In one of the most intense conversations I’ve had on the show, Hanson opens up about his upbringing, the illegal enterprise he built, his trips into Mexico’s cartel territory, life inside federal prison, and what comes next.

About The Hidden Third: From Emmy and Peabody Award–winning journalist Mariana van Zeller comes THE HIDDEN THIRD, a weekly dive into the underground markets that quietly power a third of the global economy. Every episode, Mariana sits down with people who know these worlds firsthand - the hustlers, smugglers, scammers, kingpins, and those trying to shut them down. The series reveals how they function, why they endure, and the profound ways they impact us all.

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