Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw
by Mark Bowden · 1 Dec 2007 · 193pp · 55,721 words
They served their two- or three-year stints in Bogota, living behind high, well-patrolled walls, and then returned home. For Colombians, the menace of Pablo Escobar and the other narco killers was constant. Between January and May of 1991 alone, Pablo's sicarios killed four hundred police in Medellin. He killed
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They served their two- or three-year stints in Bogota, living behind high, well-patrolled walls, and then returned home. For Colombians, the menace of Pablo Escobar and the other narco killers was constant. Between January and May of 1991 alone, Pablo's sicarios killed four hundred police in Medellin. He killed
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the request of the Colombian government, U.S. military and spy forces helped fund and guide a massive manhunt that ended with the killing of Pablo Escobar, the richest cocaine trafficker in the world. While portraying the pursuit of Escobar as essentially a Colombian operation, the United States secretly spent millions of
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the world. The hunt for Escobar took an ugly turn in February 1993, when a vigilante group calling itself Los Pepes (Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar, or People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar) embarked on a campaign of murder and bombings. The vigilantes burned Escobar's mansions and luxury cars and began methodically killing off lawyers
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terrorized by Escobar. The vigilantes hung a sign around the neck of one victim that read: "For working with the narco-terrorist and baby-killer Pablo Escobar. For Colombia. Los Pepes." The Search Bloc's methods were no less brutal. So many of its targets were killed, rather than arrested, that
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the Ministry of Defense, said in an interview that Los Pepes had worked closely with the Search Bloc. "The Pepes were a desperate option after Pablo Escobar had generated so much violence in Medellin," Naranjo said. "Old partners of Escobar's got together to offer their services to the government. For
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dispatch to DEA headquarters on Feb. 22, 1993, DEA agent Javier Peña in Bogota identified Castano as "a cooperating individual who was once a trusted Pablo Escobar associate." Peña noted that Castano had valuable connections with the Colombian drug underworld. The cable went on to detail a recent Search Bloc raid on
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involvement with the vigilantes ever reached him. A senior Pentagon official said of the manhunt: "There's no question that things down there got ugly. Pablo Escobar was like a man standing on top of a mountain . . . consisting of every family member, business associate, friend and admirer he had built up
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he believed the hunt for Escobar actually helped create the alliances that today bedevil the country. Gaviria said that from his standpoint, "the battle against Pablo Escobar was never primarily about stopping drug smuggling. "He was a very serious problem because he was so violent," the former president said. "He was
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such professionalism and efficiency. I'm really proud of that, and, let me tell you, at that point I would not have wanted to be Pablo Escobar." Pablo Escobar was arguably the richest and most violent criminal in history. Forbes Magazine in 1989 listed him as the seventh-richest man in the world. A
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. From the rondos of blame taking place in the government palaces to the furious caterwauling of the Colombian press, the July 22 prison escape of Pablo Escobar had set off a great storm in Bogota. There were hourly contradictory reports: Pablo had been captured; Pablo had been killed; Pablo had surrendered;
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a fax on the day of Escobar's escape - an ugly threat issued politely: "We, the Extradictables declare: That if anything happens to Mr. Pablo Escobar Gaviria, we will hold President Gaviria responsible and will again mount attacks on the entire country. We will target the United States embassy in the
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country, where we will plant the largest quantity of dynamite ever. "We hereby declare: The blame for this whole mess lies with President Gaviria. If Pablo Escobar or any of the others turn up dead, we will immediately mount attacks throughout the entire country. Thank you very much." The slightly adolescent flavor
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. Oscar Naranjo that he and his men would find Escobar within the week. The Delta soldiers who arrived in Colombia just four days after Pablo Escobar left his prison in July 1992 had initially hoped to hunt down the notorious narco-terrorist themselves. Given the clumsy track record of the Colombians
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Colombian search effort for Escobar. The Delta men inflated their ranks. They did not want the Colombians thinking a mission as important as hunting down Pablo Escobar would be relegated to midlevel soldiers. So Lt. Col. Gary Harrell, one of the largest line officers in the Army, with an aggressive personality
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to make the effort come together: the indefatigable, incorruptible Col. Hugo Martinez. Col. Hugo Martinez was delighted when he got the news, in Madrid, that Pablo Escobar had walked out of jail. No one knew better than the colonel what a charade that imprisonment had been. Martinez had spent nearly three years
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revealed that Escobar had been raising and using messenger pigeons to thwart electronic surveillance. They found little metal leg-bands for the pigeons neatly labeled: "Pablo Escobar/Maximum Security Prison/Envigado". There was also evidence of Escobar's fears. Any flat ground on the hillside complex had wires suspended overhead, attached to
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absolutely correct when he described for his lawyers a coordinated effort by the American and Colombian governments to eliminate for good their mutual problems with Pablo Escobar. (Over the next six months, the secret CIA operation in Colombia would swell to nearly 100 people, making it the largest CIA station in
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precisely this moment that the hunt for Escobar took a dramatic new turn. One day after the bookstore bombing, "La Cristalina," a hacienda owned by Pablo Escobar's mother, was burned to the ground. Two large car bombs exploded in Medellin outside apartment buildings where Pablo's immediate and extended family members
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new, homegrown resistance had emerged: "The CNP believe these bombings were committed by a new group of individuals known as 'Los PEPES' (Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar/ People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar). This group, which has only recently surfaced in the Medellin area, has vowed to retaliate against Escobar, his family, and his associates, each
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his enemies." Officially, the U.S. Embassy in Bogota was silent on the sudden emergence in early 1993 of Los Pepes (People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar), a vigilante group apparently dedicated to violent retribution against the fugitive drug lord. The gang in the steel vault on the fifth floor of the
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FARC - links that would justify pushing antidrug work from the realm of law enforcement into the realm of war. That would unleash against men like Pablo Escobar the kinds of forces and resources typically directed against communist insurgencies and outlaw states. He had top-level allies in this effort. Gen. Colin Powell
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with his mole. Whenever the Search Bloc was publicly responsible, the reports read: "Killed in a gun battle with Colombian police." The hunt for Pablo Escobar grew uglier in 1993. In his desk at the Search Bloc headquarters, Col. Hugo Martinez kept a growing pile of grisly photographs of the dead
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plane over Medellin one day, the Centra Spike operators were stunned by what they overheard. They had just picked up a brief radio transmission from Pablo Escobar. They plotted the coordinates, then sent the data to the Search Bloc headquarters. There, the unit's commander, Col. Hugo Martinez, shared the information
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was in this climate of frustration and fear that Los Pepes suddenly began to produce results. By January 1993, the Americans directing the search for Pablo Escobar had managed to produce elaborate organizational charts for his Medellin drug cartel. The charts were displayed in the secret vault at the U.S. Embassy
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would set three against Escobar's interests, his family, or the criminal group he headed. It was a black spot on the Search Bloc, because Pablo Escobar manipulated the media very well. Whether writing or speaking, he always publicly claimed that the Search Bloc was in fact Los Pepes. However, Los
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both parents, Pablo and Maria Victoria, showed up in person to apply at the embassy. By January 1993, the Americans directing the search for Pablo Escobar had managed to produce elaborate organizational charts for his Medellin drug cartel. The charts were displayed in the secret vault at the U.S. Embassy
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would set three against Escobar's interests, his family, or the criminal group he headed. It was a black spot on the Search Bloc, because Pablo Escobar manipulated the media very well. Whether writing or speaking, he always publicly claimed that the Search Bloc was in fact Los Pepes. However, Los
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in Bogota. In a statement issued by Los Pepes to the press, the vigilantes referred to Escobar's "demented attitude" and concluded, "We challenge Pablo Escobar and all his people to fight a frontal war which only affects the parties involved and doesn't incur the vile assassination of Colombians, under
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stunning allegation: Not only were Los Pepes and the Search Bloc working hand in hand, but Los Pepes had taken charge of the hunt for Pablo Escobar. De Greiff believed that Los Pepes, which surfaced with "harmless" attacks against residences of Escobar's relatives, later began murdering and kidnapping citizens whose
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a radio signal. The unit had been successful in recent cases, and was running tests in Bogota. The colonel believed it might help finally find Pablo Escobar, who was believed to be hiding somewhere in Medellin. The Americans in their surveillance planes could tell the Search Bloc what neighborhood and even what
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. As hard as they tried, Hugo knew that his little gray boxes were not yet working well enough to help him find a man like Pablo Escobar. Lt. Hugo Martinez and his team of electronic surveillance experts started getting better with their funny little boxes. They combined the various components, American,
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displayed and the sounds they emitted in his headphones. It was like learning a new language. He was not yet thinking about using it against Pablo Escobar. He assumed Escobar was too difficult a target. The kind of criminals he was after were unsophisticated people who never suspected that someone might
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he definitely intended to pass on to Col. Martinez and the Search Bloc. On one of his many visits to the apartment building that housed Pablo Escobar's wife and family in Medellin, the Colombian prosecutor Fernando Correa had noticed several cellular phones. On another visit, he discovered a radio transceiver hidden
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Martinez and his teams with great interest. Once or twice they launched raids, breaking into the houses of startled Medelliners who had no connection to Pablo Escobar. Very quickly, enthusiasm for this new tool dried up. The new little vans and CIA equipment were just another disappointment. Col. Martinez told them
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one member of the top brass at the Pentagon began to worry about how far the Americans in Colombia seemed willing to go to get Pablo Escobar. As the operations chief at the Pentagon, Maj. Gen. Jack Sheehan was director of all special operations overseas. Sheehan already suspected that Delta and
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a head inside Colombia. The special Colombian police squad sent to Medellin with its curious little portable direction-finding kits was having no luck finding Pablo Escobar. The Search Bloc was continuing to provide security for the men, but the unit itself was considered a joke. Things got so bad that
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round-the-clock shifts with the CIA's electronic-surveillance experts, monitoring the known frequencies on the radio used by Juan Pablo, the son of Pablo Escobar. Juan Pablo, holed up in an apartment building in Medellin with his mother and sister, used code words to communicate by radio with his
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the tone of his voice and the thrust of his conversation, Escobar gave no indication that anything untoward had happened. By the autumn of 1993, Pablo Escobar was in bad shape. His lifelong, fabulously wealthy organization had been dismantled and terrorized by the vigilantes of Los Pepes. In a single two-
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was the Fiscal General, Colombia's top federal prosecutor, and he was now working in open defiance of President Cesar Gaviria on the matter of Pablo Escobar. De Greiff had told Gaviria that he disagreed with effectively holding the Escobar family hostage. As an elected official - an "independent entity," he called
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was a man named Joel Deeb. "We are analyzing the developing situation for clues to the potential motivation of someone like Joel Deeb in providing Pablo Escobar with sanctuary," read a secret State Department cable written that weekend. While the embassy tried to verify Escobar's presence in Haiti, the cable concluded
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minutes to track down the president, so please wait a few more minutes and then call back." With that, the officer informed his superiors that Pablo Escobar was making calls to the palace. President Gaviria was notified; he refused to speak with Escobar. When the fugitive called back a third time,
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is now promoted to brigadier. What can be expected of people like you, who don't even show respect for honor and truth? Regards Pepes. Pablo Escobar Copy to national and foreign media, the President, Minister of Defense, Prosecutor . . . The Colombian police finally had members of Escobar's family exactly where
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by beeper." "OK." "OK." "Ciao," said Maria Victoria. "So long," her husband said. With the police Search Bloc listening in and recording the conversation, Pablo Escobar chatted on the phone with his wife and family as they holed up in a hotel in Bogota, trying desperately to get out of Colombia
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-class neighborhood of Medellin on Dec. 2, 1993. Electronic surveillance from the air and the ground had traced calls made by fugitive drug trafficker Pablo Escobar to this neighborhood. Hugo and his driver were trying to find the exact house. They drove down the street until the signal peaked and then
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and spoke directly to Col. Martinez, speaking loudly enough for even the men on the street below to hear: "Viva Colombia! We have just killed Pablo Escobar!" It is difficult to reconstruct precisely what happened on the rooftop. Each Search Bloc member interviewed for this story provided an account based on what
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ran an enormous page one headline that read "FINALEMENTE SI CAHO" (FINALLY, HE'S DOWN). Gaviria signed a copy for the ambassador. The death of Pablo Escobar may have been cause for celebration in official circles in Washington and Bogota, but for many Colombians, especially in Medellin, it was an occasion for
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selfless dedication and willing sacrifices, the world's most sought after criminal was located and killed. . . ." At the bottom were the signature and thumbprint of Pablo Escobar. In his briefings in Washington over the previous year, Toft had soft-pedaled evidence of links between his own agency and the vigilantes of Los
At the Devil's Table: The Untold Story of the Insider Who Brought Down the Cali Cartel
by William C. Rempel · 20 Jun 2011 · 337pp · 100,765 words
plant just outside Colombia’s third-largest city. “What I can tell you,” Mario went on, “is that these people have a serious problem with Pablo Escobar. He’s bombing their businesses, threatening their families—it’s a terrible situation.” Jorge’s expression abruptly hardened to a glare. “Don’t tell me
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gruesome accounts of bombings, dismemberments, and shootings. The number of innocent-bystander deaths mounted. Like most of his friends and cohorts, Jorge feared and loathed Pablo Escobar. The drug boss had declared war on the Colombian government in a campaign to overturn Bogotá’s extradition treaty with Washington. His paid assassins targeted
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, and leaders of the Medellín cocaine cartel. Primary funding for the mission came from José Rodríguez-Gacha, a major landowner and a trafficking partner of Pablo Escobar’s. With dissident military officials providing arms and munitions, the Brits were backed by a Faustian ensemble—what Colombians called la mesa del Diablo … “
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vote was unanimous, and his absence that night was telling. Jorge still wasn’t sure exactly what the Cali drug lords wanted until— “We want Pablo Escobar dead,” said Miguel. “And we want you and your British commandos to kill him,” added Gilberto. Jorge looked around the room. Everyone was waiting
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career paths took them to different worlds, their families remained neighbors in Neiva. The new minister was a reformer who immediately picked a fight with Pablo Escobar, then a member of the Colombian congress, and with the other drug barons of Medellín. He threatened them with the one thing they feared the
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He endorsed extradition to rid the country of its most violent traffickers. Nine days before Christmas 1986, Cano was interviewed about the dangers of provoking Pablo Escobar and his cohorts. “The problem with our business is that one never knows when one won’t return home one night,” he said. The
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of violence against the government clearly was working. Then, in late 1987, with Medellín drug bosses already at war with the Bogotá government over extradition, Pablo Escobar picked another fight—this one with his Cali cartel rivals. EL DOCTOR AND THE GENTLEMEN IT ALL STARTED IN NEW YORK CITY. A PAIR OF
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Miguel’s car passed taking him to his office. A premature explosion killed the spies. ON THE NIGHT that Jorge Salcedo joined the fight against Pablo Escobar, the four Cali bosses who recruited him operated the fastest-growing criminal enterprise on the planet—the Walmart, or the Google, of narco-trafficking.
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Santacruz and the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers started out as car thieves and kidnappers and moved into cocaine in the 1970s—about the same time as Pablo Escobar and his Medellín associates. Chepe spent considerable time in the United States establishing distribution networks, while the brothers developed coca-processing labs in Peru,
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own property. He wanted it; he bought it. That, too, was the cartel way. In January 1989, the godfathers wanted a private army to eliminate Pablo Escobar. So they arranged to buy Jorge Salcedo and his team of British commandos. WELCOME TO THE CARTEL JORGE THREW HIMSELF INTO HIS NEW ASSIGNMENT, EAGER
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That was the first mistake. None of the sergeants was from the Medellín region, so their Cali accents gave them away. And they drove around Pablo Escobar country in cars with Cali license tags. Inexcusably stupid intelligence work, thought Jorge. Before his scheduled departure for London, Jorge had to rush home to
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going after a terrorist. He’s one of the world’s most wanted outlaws—a drug trafficker, a killer, a threat to my country—Pablo Escobar,” Jorge said. McAleese had the physical profile and stubborn will of an American football noseguard—and what Jorge figured was a personal grudge against communists
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colonel Ricardo”—though the rank was as fictitious as “Ricardo,” or “Richard,” his cartel code name. Jorge’s suspense was brief. McAleese quickly declared that Pablo Escobar was “a big enough villain” to justify his services. In late February 1989, Tomkins and McAleese landed in Cali for contract talks with the cartel
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THE BRITISH COMMANDOS HAD BEEN TRAINING FOR ABOUT TEN weeks and were physically and mentally ready. It was May 1989. All they needed was for Pablo Escobar to pay a visit to Hacienda Nápoles. The edgy tedium was interrupted one morning when Jorge was summoned from camp. It sounded urgent. He
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to avoid snakes and insects. It was also the classroom, the infirmary, and an assembly hall for team meetings. It was papered with photographs of Pablo Escobar. Jorge had moments of doubt—not about the Brits or their fighting abilities or the battle plan. But he sometimes worried that Escobar would never
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Medellín defeated Paraguay to become the first Colombian team in forty-one years to win the Copa Libertadores de América, a prestigious South American tournament. Pablo Escobar was a jubilant team owner. Word came from Cali spies in Medellín that a party was scheduled—at Hacienda Nápoles. “Let’s go,” Gilberto
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Two blocks from the governor’s residence they passed a parked car rigged to explode at that very moment. Only the badly injured driver survived. Pablo Escobar was blamed, and political violence continued unabated. About two weeks later, three motorcycle gunmen intercepted the car of a judge riding through Medellín. They riddled
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pearls. Jorge worried constantly about mission security. Panama City was full of agents loyal to the dictator Manuel Noriega. The Panamanian strongman’s ties to Pablo Escobar and the Medellín cartel made Jorge especially wary. With Panama-U.S. tensions rising, Jorge was also concerned that his English-speaking commandos might be
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Bogotá. The Liberal Party candidate was the undisputed front-runner in the 1990 elections. He strongly supported extradition and was running as a crusader against Pablo Escobar and the drug cartels. Frequent news updates followed. Galán, forty-five, had been rushed to a hospital. Galán was in critical condition. Galán was
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to be unaffected. But now he had put those he loved most in such jeopardy that they needed Cali cartel protection. THE WITCH KNOWS BEST PABLO ESCOBAR WAS UNDERGROUND AND ON THE RUN, MAKING IT extremely difficult for Jorge and the Cali bosses to mount another military-style assault. Still, the godfathers
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thousand feet into the jetliner’s climb, a bomb in the passenger cabin ripped apart the Boeing 727. Early suspicions pointed to sicarios employed by Pablo Escobar, and evidence quickly mounted against the Medellín cartel. The apparent target of the attack, the presidential candidate Gaviria, wasn’t even on the plane.
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lives by killing Escobar. And 110 victims of Escobar’s terrorism merely reinforced Jorge’s personal calculation that Pablo’s end would justify whatever means. Pablo Escobar’s bloody terrorism continued in the days and weeks after the Avianca jetliner bombing. A truck with a half ton of explosives was detonated in
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could not hide forever. It had been very important to Jorge throughout that first year in Cali to believe that his bosses were different from Pablo Escobar—that they didn’t sabotage jetliners or target the innocent. Such a distinction made them morally superior to the Medellín gangs. Jorge had from
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decisions required a consensus of all four bosses. It was obvious that the Gentlemen of Cali, when properly provoked, could be just as ruthless as Pablo Escobar. JORGE SET UP TRAINING sessions to dissect the lessons of Los Cocos. He emphasized the necessity of altering routines and varying travel routes. “Never be
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each defense lawyer in every case: “This man is completely innocent. These charges are an insult. We are honest businessmen suffering from the sins of Pablo Escobar.” And Jorge noted that the U.S. lawyers were just as predictable. They nodded in agreement and promised the most aggressive defense possible. After translating
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had no way to measure Bilonick’s dollar value. He assumed that two million was wildly excessive. Even the Brits—with a dozen men invading Pablo Escobar’s heavily guarded estate—asked for only one million. And Jorge was right. The Cali godfathers dismissed Bilonick’s price tag without serious consideration. Chepe
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DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE CALI AND THE MEDELLÍN CARTELS were clearly evident in the campaign to end Colombia’s extradition arrangements with the United States. While Pablo Escobar spread violence, the Cali brothers spread pesos. Both had value in winning the day. But the Cali model had the added benefit of earning
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later in the year, but President Gaviria suspended extraditions immediately. In return, the Medellín cartel immediately released its prominent women hostages. And on June 19, Pablo Escobar turned himself in to Colombian authorities. The crime boss was tied to political assassinations, murders of judges and police officers, terrorist bombings, and kidnappings. Forbes
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his control. He portrayed himself as a family man forced to invest heavily in security measures to protect loved ones from that “sick … psycho … lunatic,” Pablo Escobar. Jorge took a photograph of the luncheon party. It caught the Cali godfather smiling, relaxed, and looking harmless. On the drive back to the hotel
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school … Natural curiosity?” “Please, Don Gilberto, I’m sorry. It was rude to be so nosy. I’m like that. I—” “You are working for Pablo Escobar,” Gilberto accused. “No! No, of course not,” Caliche protested, now clearly frightened. “I would never betray my family—your family. Never.” “Look, Caliche—I
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the man to share everything he knew about Escobar and the prison layout and its operation. Caliche seemed relieved. IN THEORY, THE COLOMBIAN government ran Pablo Escobar’s mountain prison. But Escobar controlled everything from its airspace to which guards won promotions. Military police provided perimeter security, supposedly checking all vehicles entering
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with the cartel. But in 1992, after more than three years with the cartel, Jorge still regarded himself as a short-timer. AS SUMMER APPROACHED, Pablo Escobar’s control of the Medellín drug organization was crumbling from the effects of internal strife. Some trusted allies were accused of taking financial advantage of
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Sensing vulnerability, Cali moved even more aggressively against Escobar, forming a vigilante group that Gilberto dubbed Los Pepes—the Spanish acronym for People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar. The Cali godfathers kicked in millions of dollars, provided a steady supply of getaway cars stolen in Venezuela, and turned over electronic eavesdropping data to
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should have been no surprise. While Pallomari was trusted with Miguel’s fortune, Jorge was trusted with his life. IN 1993, AS CALI dominance over Pablo Escobar grew, conversations in the cartel’s legal division turned to whether to explore negotiation with the United States. The godfathers asked Jorge to contact Joel
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at least in Jorge’s imagination, was an agreement by the governments of Washington and Bogotá to reward the Cali godfathers for their help stopping Pablo Escobar’s terrorism. The bosses could promise to stop running drugs, accept a slap on their collective wrists, and enter retirement with a clean slate and
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force major approached one of the bodies, turned it over, and immediately radioed Bloque de Búsqueda headquarters. “Viva Colombia!” he said. “We have just killed Pablo Escobar.” BEFORE THE WORLD heard the sensational news, Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela did. The Cali cartel boss received a phone call from someone at task force headquarters
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a dangerous mistake. A new realization haunted him: maybe he could never quit. PART TWO The Cartel’s Man 1993–1995 A LIFE SENTENCE WITH PABLO ESCOBAR DEAD AND EIGHT GUYS FROM THE BLOQUE de Búsqueda posing for pictures over the drug lord’s lifeless body, Jorge reassessed where he stood. The
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into a federal sting while inspecting the Dragonfly bomber. Jorge had little else to show for his efforts and personal sacrifice in the quest for Pablo Escobar—certainly not significant financial rewards. His monthly salary hovered around $1,000 a month, always paid in U.S. currency. It was a modest
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without any bodyguards. She wore a simple blue silk dress and carried only a small purse. Jorge, too, was alone. He was also unarmed. After Pablo Escobar was killed, Jorge put away his personal Walther pistol. Jorge held open the car door as María Victoria slipped into the backseat. He smiled, trying
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the ex-girlfriend’s execution, no doubt a personal favor to Memo Lara. Cartel-sanctioned killings had become almost routine occurrences during the war with Pablo Escobar. But Memo’s ex-girlfriend was no cartel combatant. Neither was one of the accountants from José Estrada’s warehouse business. He was gunned down
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the show,” said the air force officer. The C-130s were airborne moving vans of the anticartel task force, transferring the Bloque’s headquarters from Pablo Escobar country to Cali cartel country. Jorge grabbed his 35 mm motor-drive Canon camera and some lenses and rushed across town. As the cargo planes
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commander at the InterContinental hotel. The test came with dessert. The emissary talked about the Rodríguez Orejuela family. They weren’t bad people, not like Pablo Escobar, he said. They would like to meet the colonel, he said, raising the promise of generous future benefits—as much as $300,000 as
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the agents began spending nights inside the garrison. Despite their rapport with police, Feistl and Mitchell were wary. Colombian National Police had cornered and killed Pablo Escobar, but it was well-known that the cartel had many friends in the ranks of antinarcotics officers all over the country. To protect the security
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themselves in, promise to stop trafficking, and get a slap-on-the-wrist punishment. The bosses wanted treatment at least as favorable as that granted Pablo Escobar when he volunteered for prison in 1991. Five years or less of house arrest was probably acceptable, the four godfathers had agreed among themselves. The
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destroy it on his way out. And destroying the cartel seemed impossible. Jorge could begin by helping authorities capture the boss of the bosses. But Pablo Escobar had run the Medellín cartel quite effectively while in prison, and Jorge figured the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers would do the same. If getting Miguel arrested
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about the Cali cartel is Ron Chepesiuk’s The Bullet or the Bribe and its updated paperback version, Drug Lords. The most comprehensive coverage of Pablo Escobar and the rival Medellín cartel is in Mark Bowden’s Killing Pablo and Simon Strong’s Whitewash. Interviews and Correspondence Among sources other than Jorge
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s Prisoner: The Memoirs of Manuel Noriega. New York: Random House, 1997. Pollard, Peter. Colombia Handbook. Bath, U.K.: Footprint Handbooks, 1998. Strong, Simon. Whitewash: Pablo Escobar and the Cocaine Wars. London: Pan Books, 1996. Tomkins, David. Dirty Combat: Secret Wars and Serious Misadventures. Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2008. Vásquez Perdomo, María Eugenia. My
ZeroZeroZero
by Roberto Saviano · 4 Apr 2013 · 442pp · 135,006 words
. In Colombia, the rival Cali and Medellín cartels were in the midst of a full-blown war to control cocaine trafficking and routes. Massacres. But Pablo Escobar, lord of Medellín, also had problems outside Colombia: The U.S. police, whom he couldn’t manage to bribe, were sequestering too many of his
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birth pains, its principal path. What we experience today, the economy that regulates our lives, is determined more by what Félix Gallardo, El Padrino, and Pablo Escobar, El Magico, decided and did in the eighties than by anything Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev decided or did. Or at least that’s how
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fixed constant: white powder. Men die, armies disintegrate, but coke remains. This, in short, is the story of Colombia. • • • In the beginning there was Pablo, Pablo Escobar. Before Pablo, the drug trade was on the rise in Colombia, with its ideal conditions for producing, storing, and transporting cocaine. But it was in
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ran from Ciudad Juárez to El Paso, Texas, the private property of a millionaire who lived more than twenty-five hundred miles away. Colombia ruled; Pablo Escobar ruled. And the godfather of Medellín reached an agreement with the godfather of Guadalajara. Mexico looked, learned, pocketed its percentage, and waited its turn. By
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farm to farm about the young haciendero who defied the terrorist thugs in a way no one had ever dared to do before. Not even Pablo Escobar, who, when the daughter of Don Fabio Ochoa Restrepo, a big horse breeder and primogenitor of a high-ranking criminal family in the Medellín cartel
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hometown, offering gaiety and comfort. To the rest of the world it seems that Medellín has lost the one person who had made it famous—Pablo Escobar. But for those who live there, Natalia’s shining star attests to all things good and beautiful and eases the anxiety created by the death
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sense of fear. Fear of a vacuum. Not of the vacuum itself, but rather of who and how many will step forward to fill it. Pablo Escobar was killed in the same year as Major Fratini, Monkey’s fraternal friend. Now that the king is dead, all those who were his enemy
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to elbow their way in. The guerrillas come forward, Cali gains ground, and a vigilante group calling itself Los Pepes, for Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar, or People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar—which seems like a sarcastic response to MAS—puffs out its chest. The rival Cali cartel had bribed Los Pepes to get rid
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to pieces every human being they could find there to teach the people who supported those villains a lesson. They developed a good relationship with Pablo Escobar, and had Carlos, the youngest Castaño brother, join MAS, which educated him in every conceivable method of dirty war. But then the Castaño brothers broke
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, as she does every morning. Off to face her tragedy. Julio César Correa. A drug trafficker. He got his start as a hit man at Pablo Escobar’s side. His new last name, which replaces his original one, reflects his status as a killer: Fierro, Julio Fierro. All over Latin America fierro
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be useful to him. Mancuso oversees negotiations with the Calabrians, the biggest and most trustworthy buyers on the Colombian market since the days of Don Pablo Escobar. So for the moment everything seems the same as before. Better, in fact. After years of living in hiding Salvatore can now return to Martha
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of the two. There was Berlusconi and the Olive Tree Party, which was much more fragile than the ’ndrangheta tree. In Colombia, in the meantime, Pablo Escobar had been killed, and the Calabrians had redirected their middlemen toward Cali. Then the Cali cartel crumbled as well, and the ’ndrangheta had to do
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the Colombians’ trust when they are still at the height of their power. He travels with a bodyguard and a personal secretary, has learned from Pablo Escobar never to stay more than two nights in the same place, and changes cell phones as frequently as anyone else changes socks. But he’s
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indios thought were gods. During the era of the cocaine kings the handsomest and most famous horse is Terremoto de Manizales, a sorrel belonging to Pablo Escobar’s brother. But just at the time that the DEA infiltrator was getting close to Carlos Alberto Mejía an enemy group kidnapped Terremoto, killing his
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in jail. During his criminal career various epithets have been pinned on him— “prince of drug trafficking”; “the most wanted broker in Europe”; “the Italian Pablo Escobar”; “king of evasions”—but I prefer to call him “the Copernicus of cocaine,” because he was the first to understand that it’s not the
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, 2011, Time magazine put him first on its list of Top 10 Real-Life Mob Bosses of all time, followed by Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Pablo Escobar, and Totò Riina. American and European security agencies consider him one of the key Mafija leaders, the head of the Russian octopus, with tentacles all
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Fernando Birbragher, a Colombian on excellent terms with both the Cali cartel, for which he recycled more than $50 million in the early 1980s, and Pablo Escobar, for whom he purchased yachts and sports cars. Then there’s Juan Almeida, one of the biggest traffickers of Colombian cocaine in Florida, who keeps
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their widespread use can’t be reduced to simply a question of cost. It is a technological progress story whose pioneer was none other than Pablo Escobar, who boasted having two submarines in his immense naval fleet. Innovation is driven in part by the irrational desire to emulate some legendary figure, to
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), 94 Los Mañosos (the Clever Ones), 94 Los Mochis, Mexico, 102 Los Negros, 42–43 Los Niños Zetas, 96–97 Los Pepes (Persequidos por Pablo Escobar) (People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar), 140, 142 Los Zetas, 43, 48, 50, 64, 65–66, 69, 92–103, 185, 186, 252, 304, 368–70 Lo Zio (Uncle) (drug
Cocaine Nation: How the White Trade Took Over the World
by Thomas Feiling · 20 Jul 2010 · 376pp · 121,254 words
from there started running first ganja, then cocaine, and eventually heroin to New York City. The Shower Posse also moved into British drugs markets. When Pablo Escobar was killed in 1993, the Cali cartel took over many of the Medellín cartel’s cocaine-smuggling routes and contacts. The Cali cartel wanted to
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], my rooster [marijuana] and my goat [heroin]. Los Tucanes de Tijuana, ‘Mis Tres Animales’1 The most famous drug smuggler of all time must be Pablo Escobar, the founder of the Medellín cartel. But the cocaine-smuggling business has changed beyond recognition since Escobar’s day. ‘In the mid-1980s, Miami was
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the ‘cocaine wars’ between traffickers and police were at their height, perhaps 200 people were killed and 800 injured in terrorist attacks carried out by Pablo Escobar’s organization.27 Almost three quarters of the 5,700 political killings committed that year were the responsibility of the Colombian army and police, often
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the rule of law. The vitality of the guerrilla insurgency, paramilitarism and the cocaine business rests upon this fundamental disdain for the law. ‘We saw Pablo Escobar gunned down on television,’ US Republican Congressman Dan Burton said in an address he made to a congressional committee in 2002. ‘Everybody applauded and said
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continues to increase, and it continues to cost us not billions of dollars, but trillions. Trillions!’29 One of the traffickers waiting to step into Pablo Escobar’s shoes was Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, alias ‘Chupeta’ (Lollipop). Reading the details of his career and eventual arrest, you can’t help commiserating with
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an important source of income since the days when the country was part of the Spanish Empire. The city of Medellín was made notorious by Pablo Escobar, but even in the 1950s the city’s laboratories were producing heroin, morphine and cocaine to be smuggled across the Caribbean to Cuba, where it
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When demand for cocaine in the United States started to grow in the late 1970s, two cartels met it. The Medellín cartel was headed by Pablo Escobar, who was instrumental in bringing Mafia culture from the village to the comunas (shanty communities) of the city. Capos like Escobar took charge of communities
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that had until their arrival been completely lawless, imposing order and managing all types of criminal enterprise. Pablo Escobar built a neighbourhood for the poor of Medellín, which he named after himself, and football pitches for the children. On one occasion, he showered the
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Extraditables’ bombing campaign, the Constitutional Court rejected the extradition treaty in 1991. Sir Keith Morris, who was British ambassador to Colombia at the time of Pablo Escobar’s death in 1993, described the moment when he began to question his commitment to the war on drugs. ‘I started to have my doubts
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the DEA) is grossly underfunded, and functions at best as an incompetent estate agency. It took the DNE ten years to confiscate properties belonging to Pablo Escobar. One of the first signs that there might be an ulterior motive to Plan Colombia has been the US State Department officials’ glassy-eyed refusal
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kept widening: before long, more than sixty of Alvaro Uribe Velez’s supporters in Congress were under investigation for collusion with paramilitaries. In 1987, when Pablo Escobar was busily trying to turn Colombia into a narco-state, a scandal broke when it was revealed that one in ten members of Congress had
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on charges of cocaine trafficking, and has been associated with a paramilitary group known as the Twelve Apostles.74 José Ortulio Gaviria, a nephew of Pablo Escobar, is one of the president’s closest advisers. Alvaro Uribe Velez has brushed off all such talk as rumours and happenstance. What should we make
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the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency in 1991, in which one Alvaro Uribe Velez figures at number 82, described as ‘a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar’ and ‘dedicated to collaboration with the Medellín cartel at high government levels’?75 The rhetoric of the war on drugs might suggest that the president
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to living under the control of street gangs, some of which were involved in organized crime. During the 1990s, as the effort to take down Pablo Escobar loosened the drug lords’ grip on the comunas, the gang structure was taken over by the urban appendages of the guerrilla insurgency. These urban militia
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government minister. The only way to survive in such a violent, lawless place is by staying on the side of those apparently strong individuals. When Pablo Escobar was threatened with extradition to the United States, he went on a bombing spree and the threat was soon dropped. It was eventually restored, but
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estrictos controles en área de operaciones del Plan Patriota’, El Tiempo, 7 June 2005. 57. Joaquín Villalobos, ‘FARC: un amenaza transnacional, de Robin Hood a Pablo Escobar’, El País, 24 March 2008. 58. According to Alfredo Rangel, director of Fundación Seguridad y Democracia, cited in Marin, El Opio de los Taliban y
Lonely Planet Colombia (Travel Guide)
by Lonely Planet, Alex Egerton, Tom Masters and Kevin Raub · 30 Jun 2015
local guides who are serving a one-year compulsory service with the police (interesting tales to be heard). The best parts otherwise follow cocaine-kingpin Pablo Escobar's demise in 1993 – his Harley Davidson (a gift to a cousin) and his personal Bernadelli pocket pistol, otherwise known as his 'second wife.' Museo
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, Medellín had become a large metropolitan city. By the 1980s the city's entrepreneurial spirit was showing its dark side. Under the violent leadership of Pablo Escobar, Medellín became the capital of the world's cocaine business. Gun battles were common, and the city's homicide rate was among the highest on
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Medellín's largest market. You need to reserve online to secure your spot. Paisa RoadGUIDED TOURS (%317-489-2629; www.paisaroad.com) Runs the original Pablo Escobar–themed tour (COP$40,000) as well as sociable football tours (COP$50,000) on weekends where you'll sit among the most passionate supporters
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at a national league match. PROFITING FROM PABLO Even after his death, infamous cocaine warlord Pablo Escobar Gaviria keeps on making money. When backpackers started flowing back into Medellín – something only made possible by the fall of the Medellín Cartel boss – a
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) to see the sights on a private tour. Stops include a visit to a museum dedicated to the creation of the lake and, upon request, Pablo Escobar's abandoned farm, Finca La Manuela, where you can get a drink at the refurbished disco-bar. A canopy ride (per ride COP$10,000
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area. Hotel Balboa PlazaHOTEL (%682 7401; hotelbalboa@hotmail.com; Carrera 2 No 6-73; s/d from COP$70,000/110,000; s) Built by Pablo Escobar, the Balboa remains the largest hotel in town. It's a bit ragged around the edges but remains good value. The bright, spacious rooms feature
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. Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw (2002), by Mark Bowden, is an in-depth exploration of the life and times of Pablo Escobar and the operation that brought him down. While the book has some reputed small inaccuracies, it is a thrilling crime read. Cocaine & Cartels Colombia is
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for medicinal and recreational use. The cocaine industry boomed in the early 1980s, when the Medellín Cartel, led by former car thief (and future politician) Pablo Escobar, became the principal mafia. Its bosses eventually founded their own political party, established two newspapers and financed massive public works and public housing projects. At
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in Literature. In his acceptance speech he remarks that while Europeans value the continent's art, they have no respect for its political movements. 1982 Pablo Escobar is elected to the Colombian Congress; President Belisario Betancur grants amnesty to guerrilla groups and frees hundreds of prisoners; Colombia abandons plans to hold the
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a government building near the Paloquemao market in Bogotá is destroyed by a bomb. 1993 One-time Congress member – and a more famous cocaine warlord – Pablo Escobar is killed a day after his 44th birthday on a Medellín rooftop by Colombian police aided by the US. 1995 The towns of San Agustín
Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America
by Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall · 1 Jan 1991
, deported him in May 1988. (His attorney in that case, Josue Prada, was indicted a few months later in a huge drug conspiracy case with Pablo Escobar and Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, two leaders o f the Medellin cocaine cartel.)153 By the time he fell, however, Suarez M ason’s narcoterrorist
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States to Panama. They had seen we enjoyed a certain type o f ‘immunity.’ ” Carlton went with Chavez to Medellin, where he met drug lords Pablo Escobar and Gustavo Gaviria in person. They talked cocaine, not money. Carlton begged ·off, saying he would have to consult his boss—whom the Colombians knew
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, and intensification o f cocaine production in Colombia. The Cali traffickers apparently accepted a larger role for the rising Medellin syndicates o f the Ochoas, Pablo Escobar, and Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, who (after the death o f Torrijos in a 1981 plane crash) made the Colombians’ first direct contacts with Manuel Noriega
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43 noncoms, required 26 days.54 Lee also corroborated the military-drug collaboration in the Uraba massacre, reporting that the hitmen had been paid by Pablo Escobar and Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha on behalf o f a local association o f banana plantation owners, while “local military commanders in LTraba drew up lists
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new target for its War on Drugs: not the veterans o f the old Matta-Ocampo-International Connection, but their junior colleagues, the Ochoas and Pablo Escobar from Medellin. The New Target under Reagan and Bush: Medellin and Narcoterrorism In 1980, when Reagan was elected, the DEA considered the Cali traffickers more
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own airline, DEA had just missed arresting Jorge Ochoa in Miami for selling cocaine in the Dadeland Twin Theatres parking lot. As late as 1976, Pablo Escobar, a former car thief, was listed in Colombian drug files as a transporter, or “m ule.”76 Nevertheless, in 1983 the DEA had begun to
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the MAS agreements among top-level Colombian traffickers in 1981, “ an informal division o f labor among the drug kingpins began to take shape,” with Pablo Escobar specializing in security and the Ochoas o f Medellin and Rodriguez Orejuela o f Cali dividing the U.S. market geographically, Mafia-style.79 The
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addition to fourteen tons o f cocaine, the Colombian and DEA officials reported finding documents linking the lab to Fabio Ochoa and his son Jorge, Pablo Escobar, Carlos Lehder, and Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha—all the principals o f the Medellin cartel. U.S. accounts said nothing about Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela o f
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soon led to one o f the White House’s bigger propaganda efforts against the Sandinistas: photographs allegedly linking them to the Medellin cocaine trafficker Pablo Escobar.111 The DEA’s use o f its new informant is an instructive story in both the achievements and the limitations o f our current
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Gacha loading cocaine onto an airplane.” 118 Like most published accounts, Oliver N orth’s detailed notes on the photos at the time mention only Pablo Escobar and Federico Vaughan.119 The CIA was certainly involved in the preparations for Seal’s trip to Nicaragua: it was CIA that provided the cameras
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on to launder funds for the Colombian factions, including Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela o f the Cali group and relatives o f both the Ochoas and Pablo Escobar (Kerry report, 4 5 0 -5 1 ). 91The 1983 Customs report on Matta and Santiago Ocampo also shows the importance o f Matta to West
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hearings, IV, 157. 119North diary entry for July 31, 1984. One DEA-assisted book claims that the photos show Pablo Escobar and Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha (Gugliotta and Leen, Kings of Cocaine, 163), and another, Pablo Escobar alone (“Seal said th a t. . . Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha was off camera,” Shannon, Desperados, 152). 120Gugliotta and Leen
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in the San Francisco Frogman case Seal, Adler Berriman (“ Barry”): Convicted drug smuggler who took photographs allegedly showing Sandinista official Federico Vaughan and Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar loading cocaine onto Seal’s plane Sicilia Falcon, Alberto: Miami Cuban, allegedly trained as a U.S. government agent, who in 1972 emerged as a
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Opposition): Contra political coalition ereated under CIA pressure to facilitate Congressional support Vaughan, Federico: Official o f Nicaraguan Sandinistas whose picture was allegedly taken with Pablo Escobar by Barry Seal as part o f a U.S. Government-financed sting operation Vidal, Felipe (“ Morgan”): Miami Cuban and alleged CIA agent who took
The Rough Guide to South America on a Budget (Travel Guide eBook)
by Rough Guides · 1 Jan 2019 · 1,909pp · 531,728 words
Army (ELN) and Maoist People’s Liberation Army (EPL) are founded and civil war erupts. 1982 Gabriel García Márquez wins the Nobel Prize in Literature. Pablo Escobar is elected as a Congress member. 1984 The government intensifies efforts to do away with drug cartels, as violence by narco-trafficker death squads and
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built in preparation in Chiquinquirá. 1990 Drug cartels declare war on the government after it signs an extradition treaty with the US. 1993 Drug kingpin Pablo Escobar is shot dead evading arrest. 1995 San Agustin and Tierradentro are recognized as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. 1999 Plan Colombia, aimed at tackling the country
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just to hear about their experiences. The basement is largely given over to a display on the notorious 499-day police hunt for drug lord Pablo Escobar, and includes his Bernadelli pistol, also known as his “second wife”, and there’s a great view across the city from the roof. Museo Militar
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was rampaged by teenage hitmen, called sicarios, who, for as little as US$30, could be hired to settle old scores. But when cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar was snuffed out in 1993, Medellín began to bury its sordid past, though the notorious Mr Escobar remains an infamous attraction. These days, the increasing
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(daily 9am–5pm; 4 385 6966). Escobar’s legacy Few individuals have had as great (and negative) an impact on Medellín in recent history as Pablo Escobar Gaviria, the most successful of the cocaine barons. After years of inflicting violence on the city’s civilians because of the Medellín cartel’s rivalry
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the lake (which also claims to be a “boutique hotel”) has all sorts of activities on offer, including kayaking, cycling, visits to swimming spots and Pablo Escobar’s old finca, as well as dorms and private rooms, a roof terrace, and a good Thai restaurant on the roof. Dorms C$23,000
Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel
by Tom Wainwright · 23 Feb 2016 · 325pp · 90,659 words
prison in 1976, they set about changing that forever. Within a couple of years they were importing the drug by the ton, hooking up with Pablo Escobar’s Medellín cartel in Colombia to send planeloads of cocaine to the United States via Norman’s Cay, a small island in the Bahamas that
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generally have reputations for being diplomatic types. But smoothing over potential areas of conflict has been a factor in the success of many big cartels. Pablo Escobar devised a basic system of insurance against lost cocaine shipments, which helped to avoid disputes and persuade legitimate businesspeople in Medellín to invest in his
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in a romantic way that glosses over their crimes. Johnny Depp played a lovable Colombian American capo in Blow, a movie about the rise of Pablo Escobar’s Medellín cartel. Escobar’s son, Juan Pablo, has written a book about his dad, in which he describes his father’s early criminal business
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of philanthropy. Shorty Guzmán, who liked to strut around the poshest restaurants of Sinaloa, was known for the thousand-dollar tips he gave to waiters. Pablo Escobar gave out Christmas presents to the children of Medellín, built roller-skating rinks, and even housing for the poor. La Familia Michoacana provides cheap loans
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provided a convenient synergy with its core business of meting out violence to rival armed groups). Many organized criminal groups provide this sort of “protection.” Pablo Escobar funded a gang of thugs to do his dirty work, calling them “Muerte a Secuestradores” (Death to Kidnappers), in a weak attempt to convince people
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her. If the government of Medellín had spent a bit more on parks, swimming pools, or youth clubs, Colombians would have been less impressed by Pablo Escobar’s roller-skating rinks. If the government of Mexico provided proper pensions to the elderly, no one would line up to receive handouts from Shorty
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’s fantasy of a private island, free of national laws and governments, has already been tried out by Carlos Lehder, the Colombian American ally of Pablo Escobar, who bought an island in the Bahamas that he used for several years from 1978 as his base for flying cocaine into the United States
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the United States. But following a crackdown on crime in Colombia in the 1990s and the deaths of many of the country’s capos, including Pablo Escobar, the Mexicans managed to grab a larger part of the value chain. Rather than merely doing the bidding of the Colombians, they have come to
Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins
by Andrew Cockburn · 10 Mar 2015 · 389pp · 108,344 words
limited number of “cartels,” of which the two richest and most powerful were based in the cities of Cali and Medellín. Among these major traffickers, Pablo Escobar, the dominant figure of the Medellín cartel, was to become an object of obsessive interest to American law enforcement as he successfully evaded U.S
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, but this was a rare occasion in which the conclusion was based on hard data, undeniable facts. For example, in the last month of 1993, Pablo Escobar’s once massive cocaine smuggling organization was in tatters, and he himself was alone and being hunted through the streets of Medellín. If the premise
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really a victory for free enterprise. No more monopoly controlling the market and dictating what growers get paid. It’s just like when they shot Pablo Escobar: now money will flow to everybody.” This assessment proved entirely correct. As the big cartels disappeared, the business reverted to smaller groups that managed to
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, “No.”) For the HVT industry, the benefits of hunting down leaders of the “IED networks” appeared self-evident, as had assassinating Hitler, Patrice Lumumba, or Pablo Escobar in years gone by. Since the elimination of formerly critical nodes such as Saddam and Zarqawi had paid little dividend, the target list was expanding
McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld
by Misha Glenny · 7 Apr 2008 · 487pp · 147,891 words
. A few miles farther on, I am astonished to see a full-size bull ring belonging to the Ochoa brothers, erstwhile partners of the late Pablo Escobar in the Medellín cartel. Jamundí is a favored recreational destination for narco-traffickers (as they are universally known in Colombia), where they have built grand
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belonged to Cali. Anyone exporting there would have to link up with their operation. In 1981 and 1982, the Ochoa clan, partners in crime with Pablo Escobar in the Medellín cartel, convened a series of meetings at their ranch, Las Margaritas, to which the major cartel bosses from around Colombia were invited
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were blue for Los Angeles, and the Cali cartel was red for New York. Although he enjoyed a reputation as the most notorious narco-trafficker, Pablo Escobar was not in fact as successful as the Rodríguez-Orejuela brothers. These two had first come to the attention of the police for their role
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