Mark Wahlberg’s Unrealistic Ideas In Early Works On Documentary About Convicted Drug Kingpin Owen Hanson

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson and Archie Gips’ production company Unrealistic Ideas is teaming with producer Van Echeverri for a documentary feature about the FBI’s takedown of USC football player turned drug kingpin Owen Hanson.“Unrealistic Ideas has a strong track record in the true crime space and the story of Owen Hanson jumped out at us.

This is a working class guy who worked hard to get into USC and then used the business skills he gained through his education there to create a global drug empire.

We’re looking to explore how that happened and how it all fell apart,” said Unrealistic Ideas President/Partner Archie Gips.Hanson began dealing recreational drugs and steroids to teammates in college during the early 2000s, ultimately building a violent empire that operated in U.S., Central and South America and Australia.

Arrested in September 2015, and sentenced in late 2017 in a U.S. district court in San Diego to more than 21 years in federal prison, Hanson was ordered to pay a $5M criminal forfeiture, which included $100K in gold coins, luxury vehicles, jewelry, vacation homes, a sailboat, and interests in several businesses.The FBI teamed with the New South Wales Police Force in Australia to nab Hanson and uncovered an illegal sports gambling, money laundering and drug-trafficking enterprise of thousands of kilograms of illegal narcotics that led to Hanson; while also arresting more than 21 of his associates.The FBI employed an array of sophisticated investigative techniques, court-authorized electronic surveillances, informants, and undercover agents to bring down Hanson.