Pablo Escobar

Colombian drug smuggler and trafficker

Major offenses: Drug trafficking, bribery, murder, and bombings

Active: 1960s–1992

Locale: Colombia

Sentence: Turned himself in to the Colombian government in 1991; was jailed for a mandatory five-year sentence and guaranteed no extradition to the United States; escaped and was killed before he completed his sentence.

Early Life

Pablo Escobar grew up in Rionegro, a small town close to Medellín, Colombia. His family was not poor by Colombian standards and eventually moved to Envigado, a suburb of Medellín, where his father worked as a neighborhood watchman and his mother as a schoolteacher. Escobar did well in school, and his parents were well known in the community. However, the early 1960s in Colombia were similar to the counterculture movement in the United States occurring at the same time, and Escobar and his friends began rebelling, showing lack of respect for authority, and doing drugs. In Colombia, marijuana was potent and easily available. Escobar’s marijuana smoking and rebelliousness eventually led him to drop out of school and begin his life of crime as a small-time gangster.

Criminal Career

Escobar’s first true criminal activities are somewhat indefinite, but there is no doubt that he was adept at hustling. He entered the narcotics world in the 1960s, dealing marijuana and then moving to cocaine in the 1970s. Eventually, through his ruthless and murderous ways, Escobar would become the head of the notorious Medellín Cartel.

Escobar bribed everyone from police to judges and politicians and assassinated anyone who got in his way. His brutal but effective practice was known as plata o plomo, literally “money or lead,” which meant that if one did not accept a bribe from Escobar, death by lead bullet was the outcome. Escobar was so influential that he was even voted into Colombia’s congress as an alternate. He was responsible for many bombings, including that of Avianca flight 203 in 1989, and was allegedly behind the deaths of presidential candidates and justices of the Colombian Supreme Court in 1985. These callous murders were committed to maintain control of the drug trade and as a defense against his foremost competitors, the Cali Cartel. His methods, and Americans’ cocaine habit, made Escobar the most powerful man in Colombia and one of the richest men in the world.

Money and Drugs

At the height of his power, Escobar was said to be the seventh richest man in the world. He owned twenty houses in and around the Medellín area as well as scores of vehicles, boats, planes, and helicopters. Escobar was a multibillionaire and used some of his money to help the poor. He built soccer stadiums, schools, hospitals, and even a whole neighborhood in Medellín—Barrio Pablo Escobar, which consisted of twenty-five hundred houses. It is said that he and his brother, Roberto Escobar, had bank accounts in excess of $24 billion.

This money was the payoff of smuggling cocaine to the United States, said to total roughly 80 tons monthly, using jet airplanes filled with as much as 10 tons of cocaine per flight. Escobar apparently had two remote-controlled submarines that he also used for cocaine transportation. Escobar and the Medellín Cartel had power over 80 percent of the world cocaine market.

Legal Action and Outcome

By the late 1980s, both the Colombian government and the citizenry were tired of violence. The government wanted to put Escobar away but feared the retaliation it would bring. The only way it could stop the violence was to make a deal with Escobar. Fearing extradition to the United States, in 1991, Escobar turned himself over to the Colombian government in an arrangement that had him serving a five-year sentence, in a “prison,” La Catedral, which he had built in the hills in Envigado.

La Catedral, however, was no ordinary prison: it had a swimming pool, soccer field, big-screen televisions, and scores of drugs, alcohol, and women. Escobar frequently left La Catedral to visit shops or attend soccer games, nightclubs, and parties. After learning that Escobar was not adhering to the terms of his sentence, the Colombian government tried to move him to another prison, but he escaped.

Escobar became a wanted man. The Colombian and US governments began to cooperate, and the US Delta Force trained a specialized team put together by the Colombian government. The Search Bloc, as it was known, had the task of finding and capturing Escobar. A clandestine Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) surveillance team, known as Centra Spike, which used airborne equipment, also aided the Search Bloc in locating Escobar. However, another group, known as Los Pepes (People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar), were more threatening to Escobar because they were not tied to any government organization. Los Pepes, through their hunt for Escobar, were responsible for the deaths of more than three hundred of Escobar’s partners, friends, and relatives, and the destruction of many of Escobar’s properties. Although the US and Colombian governments would never claim association with Los Pepes, this group was integral in the Search Bloc’s efforts to find Escobar and in his final downfall.

After sixteen months of being on the run, Escobar’s outlaw days came to an end on December 2, 1993. The Search Bloc, with help from Centra Spike, located him in a barrio in Medellín, and the ensuing gunfight that broke out on the Medellín rooftops, as Escobar tried to escape, claimed his life.

Impact

Pablo Escobar was not afraid to appear in public, and to some he was a hero. At the same time that he funneled drugs and destruction to a willing market, he also invested heavily in the people and businesses of Medellín, and in return, the people of Medellín kept watch on him and almost never cooperated with authorities about his whereabouts. However, to the Colombian government and US authorities, Escobar was one of the world’s greatest outlaws. Many years, many millions of dollars, and many lives were exhausted in the hunt for him.

Years after his death, the world remained fascinated with him. The film Escobar: Paradise Lost, released in 2014, stars Benicio Del Toro as Escobar and provides insight into his life through the fictional story of a love affair between a surfer and Escobar's niece. In 2015, the dramatic series Narcos, produced by Brazilian filmmaker José Padilha, began streaming on Netflix to popular and critical acclaim. Renewed for a second season, the show begins in 1989 and presents a fictionalized account of the final years of Escobar's turbulent life. Brazilian actor Wagner Moura was cast to play the infamous antihero Escobar, reportedly gaining 40 pounds and learning Spanish to accurately portray the role. During his research for the part, which involved spending time in Colombia, Moura interviewed many people who had been impacted by the kingpin and even found some homes that still had a picture of Escobar hanging on the wall.

Bibliography

Bowden, Mark. Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw. New York: Atlantic Monthly, 2001. Print.

Dudley, Steven. Walking Ghosts: Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.

Katz, Jesse. "Pablo Escobar Will Never Die." GQ. Condé Nast, 25 Aug. 2015. Web. 21 June 2016.

Kirk, Robin. More Terrible than Death: Massacres, Drugs, and America’s War in Colombia. Cambridge: Public Affairs, 2002. Print.

Marroquín, Sebastián. Pablo Escobar, My Father. New York: Dunne, 2016. Print.