Pablo Escobar
Encyclopedia
Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (December 1, 1949December 2, 1993) was a Colombian
Colombian people
Colombian people are from a multiethnic Spanish speaking nation in South America called Colombia. Colombians are predominantly Roman Catholic and are a mixture of Europeans, Africans, and Amerindians.-Demography:...

 drug lord
Drug lord
A drug lord, drug baron or kingpin is the term used to describe a person who controls a sizable network of persons involved in the illegal drugs trade. Such figures are often difficult to bring to justice, as they might never be directly in possession of something illegal, but are insulated from...

. He was an elusive cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...

 trafficker and rich and successful criminal. He owned numerous luxury residences, automobiles, and even airplanes. In 1986, he had a short-lived career in Colombian politics.

Early life

Escobar was born in the village of Rionegro
Rionegro, Antioquia
Rionegro is a city and municipality in Antioquia Department, Colombia, located in the subregion of Eastern Antioquia. The official name of the City is "Ciudad Santiago de Arma de Rionegro" but is named after the Negro River which is the most prominent geographical feature of the municipality...

 in Antioquia
Antioquia Department
Antioquia is one of the 32 departments of Colombia, located in the central northwestern part of Colombia with a narrow section that borders the Caribbean Sea. Most of its territory is mountainous with some valleys, much of which is part of the Andes mountain range...

, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

, the third of seven children to Abel de Jesus Escobar, a farmer, and Hemilda Gaviria, an elementary school teacher. This was when he began his criminal career
Career
Career is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person's "course or progress through life ". It is usually considered to pertain to remunerative work ....

, allegedly stealing gravestones and sanding them down for resale to smugglers. His brother, Roberto Escobar, denies this, claiming that the gravestones came from cemetery owners whose clients had stopped paying for site care and that they had a relative who had a legitimate monuments business. He studied for a short time at the University of Antioquia
University of Antioquia
The University of Antioquia , also called UdeA, is a public, departmental, coeducational, research university based primarily in the city of Medellín, Antioquía, Colombia. It is the largest higher education institution by student population in the northwest of the country, and the second in...

.

Pablo was involved in many criminal activities — running petty street scams, selling contraband cigarettes and fake lottery tickets, and stealing cars. In the early 1970s, he was a thief and bodyguard, and he made a quick $100,000 on the side kidnapping and ransoming a Medellín executive before entering the drug trade. His next step on the ladder was to become a millionaire by working for the multi-millionaire contraband smuggler, Alvaro Prieto. Pablo's childhood ambition was to become a millionaire
Millionaire
A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. It can also be a person who owns one million units of currency in a bank account or savings account...

 by the time he was 22.

Rise to power

In The Accountant's Story, Pablo's brother, Roberto Escobar, discusses how Pablo rose from poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...

 and obscurity to become one of the wealthiest men in the world. At the height of it's power, the Medellín drug cartel was smuggling 15 tons of cocaine a day, worth more than half a billion dollars, into the United States. According to Roberto, Pablo's accountant, he and his brother's operation spent $2,500 a month just purchasing rubber bands to wrap the stacks of cash—and since they had more illegal money than they could deposit in the banks, they stored the bricks of cash in their warehouses, annually writing off 10% as "spoilage" when the rats crept in at night and nibbled on the hundred dollar bills.

In 1975, Escobar started developing his cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...

 operation. He even flew a plane himself several times, mainly between Colombia and Panama, to smuggle a load into the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. When he later bought 15 new and bigger airplanes (including a Learjet) and 6 helicopters, he decommissioned the plane and hung it above the gate to his ranch at Hacienda Napoles
Hacienda Napoles
Hacienda Nápoles is the luxurious estate built and owned by Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in Puerto Triunfo, Antioquia...

. His reputation grew after a well known Medellín dealer named Fabio Restrepo was murdered in 1975 ostensibly by Escobar, from whom he had purchased 14 kilograms. Afterwards, all of Restrepo's men were informed that they now worked for Pablo Escobar. In May 1976 Escobar and several of his men were arrested and were found in possession of 39 pounds (18 kg) of white paste after returning to Medellín with a heavy load from Ecuador. Initially, Pablo tried unsuccessfully to bribe the Medellín judges who were forming the case against him. Instead, after many months of legal wrangling Pablo had the two arresting officers bribed and the case was dropped. It was here that he began his pattern of dealing with the authorities by either bribing them or killing them. Roberto Escobar maintains Pablo fell into the business simply because contraband became too dangerous to traffic. He could make more money with one truck loaded with cocaine than 40 carrying booze and cigarettes. There were no drug cartels then and only a few drug barons, so there was plenty of business for everyone. In Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

, they bought the cocaine paste, which they refined in a laboratory in a two-story house in Medellín. On his first trip, Pablo bought a paltry £30 worth of paste in what was to become the first step towards the building of his empire. At first, he smuggled the cocaine in old plane tires and a pilot could earn as much as £500,000 a flight depending on how much he could smuggle.

Soon the demand for cocaine was skyrocketing in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Pablo organized more smuggling shipments, routes, and distribution networks in South Florida, California and other parts of the USA. He and Carlos Lehder
Carlos Lehder
Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas or simply Carlos Lehder is a German-Colombian drug dealer currently imprisoned in the United States, having been co-founder of the Medellín Cartel....

 worked together to develop a new island trans-shipment point in the Bahamas, called Norman's Cay
Norman's Cay
Norman's Cay is a small Bahamian island in the Exumas, a chain of islands south and east of Nassau, that served as the headquarters for Carlos Lehder's drug-smuggling operation from 1978 to around 1982.-Drug smuggling history:...

. Carlos and Robert Vesco
Robert Vesco
Robert Lee Vesco was a fugitive United States financier. After several years of high stakes investments and seedy credit dealings, Vesco was alleged guilty of securities fraud. He immediately fled the ensuing U.S...

 purchased most of the land on the Island which included a 3,300 foot airstrip, a harbor, hotel, houses, boats, aircraft and even built a refrigerated warehouse to store the cocaine. From 1978–1982, this was used as a central smuggling route for the Medellín Cartel
Medellín Cartel
The Medellín Cartel was an organized network of "drug suppliers and smugglers" originating in the city of Medellín, Colombia. The drug cartel operated in Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Central America, the United States, as well as Canada and Europe throughout the 1970s and 1980s. It was founded and...

. (According to his brother's account, Pablo did not purchase Normans Cay. It was, instead, a sole venture of Carlos Lehder.) Escobar was able to purchase the 7.7 square miles (19.9 km²) of land, which included Hacienda Napoles, for several million dollars. He created a zoo, a lake and other diversions for his family and organization. At one point it was estimated that 70 to 80 tons of cocaine were being shipped from Colombia to the U.S. every month. At the peak of his power in the mid-1980s, he was shipping as much as 11 tonnes per flight in jetliners to the United States (the biggest load shipped by Pablo was 23,000 kg mixed with fish paste and shipped via boat, this is confirmed by his brother in the book Escobar). In addition to using the planes, Pablo's brother, Roberto Escobar, said he also used two small remote-controlled submarines as a way to transport the massive loads (these subs were, in fact, manned and this is again documented in Roberto's book).

In 1982, Escobar was elected as a deputy/alternative representative to the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia's Congress
Congress of Colombia
The Congress of the Republic of Colombia is the name given to Colombia's bicameral national legislature.The Congress of Colombia consists of the 102-seat Senate , and the 166-seat Chamber of Representatives ...

, as part of the Colombian Liberal Party
Colombian Liberal Party
The Colombian Liberal Party is a center-left party in Colombia that adheres to social democracy and social liberalism.The Party was founded in 1848 and, together with the Colombian Conservative Party, subsequently became one of the two main political forces in the country for over a century.After...

. During the 1980s, Escobar became known internationally as his drug network gained notoriety; the Medellín Cartel
Medellín Cartel
The Medellín Cartel was an organized network of "drug suppliers and smugglers" originating in the city of Medellín, Colombia. The drug cartel operated in Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Central America, the United States, as well as Canada and Europe throughout the 1970s and 1980s. It was founded and...

 controlled a large portion of the drugs that entered into the United States, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

, and the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...

 with cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...

 brought mostly from Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 and Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

, as Colombian coca
Coca
Coca, Erythroxylum coca, is a plant in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. The plant plays a significant role in many traditional Andean cultures...

 was initially of substandard quality. Escobar's product reached many other nations, mostly around the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

, although it is said that his network reached as far as Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

.

Corruption and intimidation characterized Escobar's dealings with the Colombian system. He had an effective, inescapable policy in dealing with law enforcement and the government, referred to as "plata o plomo," (literally silver or lead, colloquially [accept] money or [face] bullets). This resulted in the deaths of hundreds of individuals, including civilians, policemen and state officials. At the same time, Escobar bribed countless government officials, judges and other politicians. Escobar was allegedly responsible for the murder of Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán
Luis Carlos Galán
Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento was a Colombian journalist and liberal politician who ran for the presidency of Colombia on two occasions, the first time representing the Liberal Party in 1982 which he lost to Belisario Betancur...

, one of three assassinated candidates who were all competing in the same election
Colombian presidential election, 1990
In May 1990, presidential elections were held in Colombia. The elections were characterized by the extreme violence by the drug traffic mafia, headed by Pablo Escobar...

, as well as the bombing of Avianca Flight 203
Avianca Flight 203
Avianca Airlines Flight 203 was a Colombian domestic passenger flight from El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá to Alfonso Bonilla Aragón International Airport in Cali. It was destroyed by a bomb over the municipality of Soacha on November 27, 1989....

 and the DAS Building bombing
DAS Building bombing
The DAS Building bombing was a truck bomb attack in Bogotá, Colombia, at 7:30 am on December 6, 1989. The bomb targeted the Administrative Department of Security headquarters....

 in Bogotá
Bogotá
Bogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...

 in 1989. The Cartel de Medellín was also involved in a deadly drug war with its primary rival, the Cartel de Cali, for most of its existence. It is sometimes alleged that Escobar backed the 1985 storming of the Colombian Supreme Court
Palace of Justice siege
The Palace of Justice siege was a 1985 attack against the Supreme Court of Colombia, in which members of the M-19 guerrilla group took over the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, Colombia, and held the Supreme Court hostage, intending to hold a trial against President Belisario Betancur...

 by left-wing guerrillas from the 19th of April Movement
19th of April Movement
The 19th of April Movement or M-19, was a Colombian guerrilla movement. After its demobilization it became a political party, the M-19 Democratic Alliance , or AD/M-19.The M-19 traced its origins to the allegedly fraudulent presidential elections of 19 April 1970...

, also known as M-19, which resulted in the murder of half the judges on the court. Some of these claims were included in a late 2006 report by a Truth Commission of three judges of the current Supreme Court. One of those who discusses the attack is "Popeye", a former Escobar hitman. At the time of the siege, the Supreme Court was studying the constitutionality of Colombia's extradition treaty with the U.S. Roberto Escobar stated in his book, that indeed the M-19 were paid to break into the building of the supreme court, and burn all papers and files on Los Extraditables - the group of cocaine smugglers who were under threat of being extradited to the US by their Colombian government. But the plan backfired and hostages were taken for negotiation of their release, so Los Extraditables were not directly responsible for the actions of the M-19.

Height of power

Pablo Escobar said that the essence of the cocaine business was "simple - you bribe someone here, you bribe someone there, and you pay a friendly banker to help you bring the money back." In 1989, Forbes magazine estimated Escobar to be the seventh-richest man in the world with a personal wealth of close to US$25 billion while his Medellín cartel controlled 80% of the global cocaine market.

While seen as an enemy of the United States and Colombian governments, Escobar was a hero to many in Medellín (especially the poor people); he was a natural at public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....

 and he worked to create goodwill among the poor people of Colombia. A lifelong sports fan, he was credited with building football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

 fields and multi-sports courts, as well as sponsoring children's football teams.

Escobar was responsible for the construction of many hospitals, schools and churches in western Colombia, which gained him popularity inside the local Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

. He worked hard to cultivate his "Robin Hood
Robin Hood
Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....

" image, and frequently distributed money to the poor through housing projects and other civic activities, which gained him notable popularity among the poor. The population of Medellín often helped Escobar serving as lookouts, hiding information from the authorities, or doing whatever else they could do to protect him.

Despite his popular image among Medellín's impoverished community, Escobar was well-known among his business associates to be a calm and sensible negotiator, that preferred to use money before the gun . Many of the wealthier residents of Medellín also viewed him as a threat. His brother said that Pablo knew that money generated more loyalty than fear, so violence was often unnecessary . At the height of his power, drug traffickers from Medellín and other areas were handing over between 20 and 35% of their Colombian cocaine-related profits to Escobar, because he was the one who shipped the cocaine successfully to the US.

The Colombian cartels' continuing struggles to maintain supremacy resulted in Colombia's quickly becoming the world’s murder capital with 25,100 violent deaths in 1991 and 27,100 in 1992. This increased murder rate was fueled by Escobar's giving money to his hitmen as a reward for killing police officers, over 600 of whom died in this way.

Personal life

In March 1976 at the age of 26, Escobar married Maria Victoria who was 15 years old. Together they had two children: Juan Pablo and Manuela. Escobar created and lived in a luxurious estate called Hacienda Nápoles
Hacienda Napoles
Hacienda Nápoles is the luxurious estate built and owned by Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in Puerto Triunfo, Antioquia...

(Spanish for Naples Estate) and had planned to construct a Greek-style citadel
Citadel
A citadel is a fortress for protecting a town, sometimes incorporating a castle. The term derives from the same Latin root as the word "city", civis, meaning citizen....

 near it. Construction of the citadel was begun but never finished. The ranch, the zoo and the citadel were expropriated by the government and given to low-income families in the 1990s under a law called extinción de dominio (domain extinction). The property has been converted into a theme park.

La Catedral prison

After the assassination of Luis Carlos Galán
Luis Carlos Galán
Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento was a Colombian journalist and liberal politician who ran for the presidency of Colombia on two occasions, the first time representing the Liberal Party in 1982 which he lost to Belisario Betancur...

, a presidential candidate, the administration of César Gaviria
César Gaviria
César Gaviria Trujillo is a Colombian politician and a Latin American statesman. He served as President of Colombia from 1990 to 1994, and Secretary General of the Organization of American States from 1994 until 2004.-Early life:...

 moved against Escobar and the drug cartels. Eventually, the government negotiated with Escobar, convincing him to surrender and cease all criminal activity in exchange for a reduced sentence and preferential treatment during his captivity.

After declaring an end to a series of previous violent or terrorist
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

 acts meant to pressure authorities and public opinion, Escobar turned himself in. He was confined in what became his own luxurious private prison, La Catedral
La Catedral
La Catedral was a prison overlooking the city of Medellín in Colombia. The prison was built to specifications ordered by Medellín Cartel leader Pablo Escobar, under agreement with the Colombian government. Escobar would surrender to authorities, serve a maximum term of five years, and the Colombian...

. Before Escobar gave himself up, the extradition of Colombian citizens had been prohibited by the newly approved Colombian Constitution of 1991
Colombian Constitution of 1991
The Political Constitution of Colombia, better known as the Constitution of 1991, is the current governing document of the Republic of Colombia. Promulgated on July 4 of 1991 , it replaced the Constitution of 1886...

. That was controversial, as it was suspected that Escobar or other drug lords had influenced members of the Constituent Assembly.

Accounts of Escobar's continued criminal activities began to surface in the media. When the government found out that Escobar was continuing his criminal activities within La Catedral, it attempted to move Escobar to another jail on July 22, 1992. Escobar's influence allowed him to discover the plan in advance and make a well-timed, unhurried escape. He was still worried that he could be extradited to the United States.

Search Bloc and Los Pepes

In 1992 United States Operator
Special forces
Special forces, or special operations forces are terms used to describe elite military tactical teams trained to perform high-risk dangerous missions that conventional units cannot perform...

s from Delta Force
Delta Force
1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta is one of the United States' secretive Tier One counter-terrorism and Special Mission Units. Commonly known as Delta Force, Delta, or The Unit, it was formed under the designation 1st SFOD-D, and is officially referred to by the Department of Defense...

, Navy SEALs and Centra Spike joined the all-out manhunt for Escobar. They trained and advised a special Colombian police task force, known as the Search Bloc
Search Bloc
The Search Bloc was a Special Operations unit of the National Police of Colombia .-History:...

, which had been created to locate Escobar. Later, as the conflict between Escobar and United States and Colombian governments dragged on and the numbers of his enemies grew, a vigilante
Vigilante
A vigilante is a private individual who legally or illegally punishes an alleged lawbreaker, or participates in a group which metes out extralegal punishment to an alleged lawbreaker....

 group known as Los Pepes
Los Pepes
Los Pepes , was a short-lived vigilante group composed of enemies of narcotics kingpin Pablo Escobar who waged a bloody war against Escobar and his associates in the early 1990s.-Name:While the name suggested that all, or most, members of Los Pepes were previously persecuted by...

(Los Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar, "People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar") financed by his rivals and former associates, including the Cali Cartel
Cali Cartel
The Cali Cartel was a drug cartel based in southern Colombia, around the city of Cali and the Valle del Cauca Department. The Cali Cartel was founded by the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers, Gilberto and Miguel, as well as associate José Santacruz Londoño...

 and right-wing paramilitaries led by Carlos Castaño
Carlos Castaño
Carlos Castaño Gil was the founder of the Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá , an extreme right paramilitary organization in Colombia...

, who would later found the Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá
Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá
Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá , Spanish for Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá, was a paramilitary group formed in northwestern Colombia, operating mainly in the Antioquia Department and Córdoba Department...

. Los Pepes carried out a bloody campaign fueled by vengeance in which more than 300 of Escobar's associates and relatives were slain and large amounts of his cartel's property were destroyed.

Rumors abounded that members of the Search Bloc, and also of Colombian and the United States intelligence agencies, in their efforts to find and punish Escobar, either colluded with Los Pepes or moonlighted as both Search Bloc and Los Pepes simultaneously. This coordination was allegedly conducted mainly through the sharing of intelligence in order to allow Los Pepes to bring down Escobar and his few remaining allies, but there are reports that some individual Search Bloc members directly participated in missions of the Los Pepes death squads. One of the leaders of Los Pepes was Diego Murillo Bejarano
Diego Murillo Bejarano
Diego Fernando Murillo Bejarano, also known as Don Berna or Adolfo Paz, is a former leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia paramilitary group operating in Colombia. He started working for the Medellín Cartel and was ultimately to lead its militia wing...

 (also known as "Don Berna"), a former Medellín Cartel associate who became a drug kingpin and eventually emerged as a leader of one of the most powerful factions within the AUC
United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia
The United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia was created as an umbrella organization of regional far-right...

.

Death and afterward

The war against Escobar ended on December 2, 1993, amid another attempt to elude the Search Bloc. Using radio triangulation
Triangulation
In trigonometry and geometry, triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by measuring angles to it from known points at either end of a fixed baseline, rather than measuring distances to the point directly...

 technology provided as part of the United States efforts, a Colombian electronic surveillance team, led by Brigadier Hugo Martinez, found him hiding in a middle-class barrio
Barrio
Barrio is a Spanish word meaning district or neighborhood.-Usage:In its formal usage in English, barrios are generally considered cohesive places, sharing, for example, a church and traditions such as feast days...

 in Medellín. With authorities closing in, a firefight with Escobar and his bodyguard, Alvaro de Jesús Agudelo AKA "El Limón", ensued. The two fugitives attempted to escape by running across the roofs of adjoining houses to reach a back street, but both were shot and killed by Colombian National Police. Escobar suffered gunshots to the leg, torso, and the fatal one in his ear. It has never been proven who actually fired the final shot into his head, or determined whether this shot was made during the gunfight or as part of possible execution, and there is wide speculation about the subject. Some of the family members believe that Escobar could have committed suicide. His two brothers, Roberto Escobar and Fernando Sánchez Arellano, believe that he shot himself through the ears: "He committed suicide, he did not get killed. During all the years they went after him, he would say to me every day that if he was really cornered without a way out, he would shoot himself through the ears."

After Escobar's death and the fragmentation of the Medellín Cartel the cocaine market soon became dominated by the rival Cali Cartel
Cali Cartel
The Cali Cartel was a drug cartel based in southern Colombia, around the city of Cali and the Valle del Cauca Department. The Cali Cartel was founded by the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers, Gilberto and Miguel, as well as associate José Santacruz Londoño...

, until the mid-1990s when its leaders, too, were either killed or captured by the Colombian government.

The Robin Hood image that he had cultivated continued to have lasting influence in Medellín. Many there, especially many of the city's poor that had been aided by him while he was alive, lamented his death.

Exhumation

On 28 October 2006, Escobar's body was exhumed by request of his nephew Nicolás Escobar, two days after the death of mother Hermilda Gaviria (who opposed exhumation) to verify that the body in the tomb was in fact that of Escobar and also to collect DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 for a paternity test claim. According to the report by the El Tiempo newspaper, Escobar's widow Maria Victoria was present recording the exhumation with a video camera.

Virginia Vallejo's version

On July 4, 2006, Virginia Vallejo, the television anchorwoman who was romantically involved with Escobar from 1983 to 1987, offered her testimony in the trial against former Senator Alberto Santofimio
Alberto Santofimio
Alberto Santofimio Botero is a Colombian politician member of the Colombian Liberal Party. He has been Minister of Justice, a two-time presidential candidate and a Senator. He was considered to be a sure bet for president in 1982, but he decided to let his boss, Alfonso Lopez Michelsen who had...

, accused of conspiracy in the 1989 assassination of Presidential Candidate Luis Carlos Galán
Luis Carlos Galán
Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento was a Colombian journalist and liberal politician who ran for the presidency of Colombia on two occasions, the first time representing the Liberal Party in 1982 which he lost to Belisario Betancur...

, to the Colombian Attorney General Mario Iguaran. Mr. Iguaran acknowledged that, although Vallejo contacted his office on the 4th, the judge had decided to close the trial on the 9th, several weeks before the prospective closing date and, in (Iguaran's) opinion, “too soon”.

On July 16, 2006, Vallejo was taken to the United States in a special flight of the Drug Enforcement Administration
Drug Enforcement Administration
The Drug Enforcement Administration is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Justice, tasked with combating drug smuggling and use within the United States...

. According to the American Embassy in Bogotá, this was done for "safety and security reasons" because Ms. Vallejo’s cooperation was needed in high-profile criminal cases. On July 24, 2006, a video in which Virginia Vallejo accused former Senator Alberto Santofimio of instigating Escobar to eliminate presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán in her presence was aired on Colombian television. In 2007, Vallejo published her book Amando a Pablo, odiando a Escobar (Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar), where she describes her relationship with the drug lord during the early years of the cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...

 boom and his charity projects for the poor when he was a deputy congressman. She gives her account of Escobar’s relationship with Caribbean governments and dictators and his role in the birth of the M.A.S (Death to Kidnappers
Muerte a Secuestradores
Muerte a Secuestradores or MAS, was a Colombian paramilitary group supported by drug cartels, U.S. corporations, Colombian politicians, and wealthy landowners during the 1980s, in order to protect their economic interests, assassinate political opponents and community organizers, and wage...

) and Los Extraditables (The Extraditables). Vallejo also gives her account of numerous incidents throughout Escobar's political and criminal career, such as the assassination of Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla
Rodrigo Lara Bonilla
Rodrigo Lara Bonilla was a Colombian lawyer and politician, who served as Minister of Justice under President Belisario Betancur, and was assassinated by orders of Pablo Escobar because of his work as Minister in prosecuting cocaine traffickers mainly belonging to the Medellín Cartel.Lara's death...

 in 1984, her lover’s feud with the Cali Cartel
Cali Cartel
The Cali Cartel was a drug cartel based in southern Colombia, around the city of Cali and the Valle del Cauca Department. The Cali Cartel was founded by the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers, Gilberto and Miguel, as well as associate José Santacruz Londoño...

 and the era of narcoterrorism
Narcoterrorism
Narcoterrorism is a term coined by former President Fernando Belaúnde Terry of Peru in 1983 when describing terrorist-type attacks against his nation's anti-narcotics police...

 that began after the couple's farewell in September 1987.

Among Escobar’s biographers, only Virginia Vallejo has given a detailed explanation of his role in the 1985 Palace of Justice siege
Palace of Justice siege
The Palace of Justice siege was a 1985 attack against the Supreme Court of Colombia, in which members of the M-19 guerrilla group took over the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, Colombia, and held the Supreme Court hostage, intending to hold a trial against President Belisario Betancur...

 and the atrocities that took place before, during and after the tragedy. (“Amando a Pablo, odiando a Escobar”, “Aquel Palacio en llamas”, pages 227-264). The journalist stated that Escobar financed the operation, committed by the rebel M-19 group, but blamed the army for the killings of the Supreme Court Justices and the detained after the coup. In 2008 she was asked to testify in the reopened Palace case, and in 2009 most of the events that she had described in her book and testimonial were confirmed by the Commission of Truth. In 2010 and 2011, a high-ranking former colonel and a former general were sentenced to thirty and thirty-five years in prison for forced disappearance of the detained after the siege.

In August 2009, Virginia Vallejo testified in the case of Luis Carlos Galán's assassination, which had also been reopened. She also accused several politicians, including Colombian presidents Alfonso López Michelsen
Alfonso López Michelsen
Alfonso López Michelsen was a Colombian politician, lawyer and journalist. Lopez Michelsen was President of Colombia from 1974 to 1978. He was the son of Alfonso López Pumarejo, who was also president of Colombia from 1934 to 1938, and once again from 1942 to 1945...

, Ernesto Samper
Ernesto Samper
Ernesto Samper Pizano is a Colombian politician. He served as the President of Colombia from August 7, 1994 to August 7, 1998, representing the Liberal Party. He was involved in the 8000 process scandal, which takes its name from the folio number assigned to it by the chief prosecutor's office...

 and Álvaro Uribe
Álvaro Uribe
Alvaro Uribe Vélez was the 58th President of Colombia, from 2002 to 2010. In August 2010 he was appointed Vice-chairman of the UN panel investigating the Gaza flotilla raid....

 of links to the drug cartels. Uribe denied Vallejo's allegations.
On June 3, 2010 the journalist was granted political asylum in the United States of America.

Relatives

Escobar's widow, Maria Victoria Henao (now Maria Isabel Santos Caballero), son, Juan Pablo (now Juan Sebastian Marroquín Santos), and daughter, Manuela, fled Colombia in 1995 after failing to find a country that would grant asylum. Argentinian filmmaker Nicolas Entel's documentary Sins of My Father
Sins of My Father
Sins of My Father is a 2009 Argentine documentary film directed by Nicolas Entel. It tells the story of the notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar from the inside perspective of his son, now living in Argentina under the name Sebastián Marroquín.-Synopsis:...

chronicles Marroquín's efforts to seek forgiveness from the sons of Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, Colombia's justice minister in the early 1980s, who was assassinated in 1984, as well as the sons of Luis Carlos Galán, the presidential candidate, who was assassinated in 1989. The film was shown at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and premiered in the US on HBO on October 2010.

Quotes

Some of Pablo Escobar's memorable quotations are:
  • "I prefer to be in the grave in Colombia than in a jail cell in the United States."
  • "I'm a decent man who exports flowers."
  • "All empires are created of blood and fire."
  • "I can replace things, but I could never replace my wife and kids."
  • "Everyone has a price, the important thing is to find out what it is."
  • "There can only be one king."
  • "Sometimes I am God, if I say a man dies, he dies that same day."
  • "There are two hundred million idiots, manipulated by a million intelligent men."

Popular depiction

Two major feature films on the Colombian drug lord, Escobar
Escobar
-People:*Anasol Escobar, Colombian singer*Alcides Escobar, a professional baseball player.*Alex Escobar, a professional baseball player.*Alexander Escobar, a professional Salvadoran footballer.*Andrés Escobar, a murdered Colombian football player....

and Killing Pablo, were announced in 2007, around the same time. Escobar has been delayed due to producer Oliver Stone's involvement with the George W. Bush biopic W.
W. (film)
W. is a 2008 American film based on the life and presidency of George W. Bush. It was produced and directed by Oliver Stone, written by Stanley Weiser, and stars Josh Brolin as Bush, with a cast that includes Ellen Burstyn, Elizabeth Banks, James Cromwell, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Scott...

The date of Escobar’s release is still unconfirmed. Regarding the film, producer Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...

 said "This is a great project about a fascinating man who took on the system. I think I have to thank Scarface
Scarface (1983 film)
Scarface is a 1983 American epic crime drama movie directed by Brian De Palma, written by Oliver Stone, produced by Martin Bregman and starring Al Pacino as Tony Montana...

, and maybe even Ari Gold
Ari Gold (Entourage)
Ariel "Ari" Gold is a fictional character on the comedy-drama television series Entourage. He was played by Jeremy Piven.-Biography:Ari Gold is Vincent Chase's neurotic movie agent. He is a product of the public school system. He was an undergrad at Harvard University before earning his J.D./M.B.A....

."

Killing Pablo, in development for several years and directed by Joe Carnahan
Joe Carnahan
Joseph Aaron "Joe" Carnahan is an American independent film director, screenwriter, producer and actor best known for his films Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane, Narc, Smokin' Aces and The A-Team...

, is based on Mark Bowden
Mark Bowden
Not to be confused with Mark Bowden, U.N. Resident & Humanitarian Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative for Somalia.Mark Robert Bowden is an American writer and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he is a 1973 graduate of Loyola University Maryland...

’s book Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw. The plot tells the story of how Escobar was killed and his cartel dismantled by US special forces and intelligence, the Colombian military and Los Pepes, controlled by the Cali cartel
Cali Cartel
The Cali Cartel was a drug cartel based in southern Colombia, around the city of Cali and the Valle del Cauca Department. The Cali Cartel was founded by the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers, Gilberto and Miguel, as well as associate José Santacruz Londoño...

. The cast was reported to include Christian Bale
Christian Bale
Christian Charles Philip Bale is an English actor. Best known for his roles in American films, Bale has starred in both big budget Hollywood films and the smaller projects from independent producers and art houses....

 as Major Steve Jacoby and Venezuelan actor Édgar Ramírez
Edgar Ramirez
Édgar Filiberto Ramírez Arellano is a Venezuelan actor. He played Carlos in the 2010 French-German biopic series Carlos, a role for which he won the César Award for Most Promising Actor at the César Awards 2011. He also played "Paz", a CIA assassin in the movie The Bourne Ultimatum.Ramírez...

 as Escobar. In December 2008, Bob Yari
Bob Yari
Bob Yari is an Iranian-American film producer.He grew up in New York City, and studied cinematography at the University of California, Santa Barbara...

, producer of Killing Pablo, filed for bankruptcy.

Escobar has been portrayed in several films already. Played by Cliff Curtis
Cliff Curtis
Clifford Vivian Devon "Cliff" Curtis is a New Zealand actor who has had major roles in film, including The Piano, Whale Rider, and Blow, and most recently has appeared in NBC's television series Trauma. He is also co-owner of independent film production company Whenua Films...

, he is depicted in the 2001 George Jung
George Jung
George Jacob Jung , nicknamed "Boston George", was a major player in the cocaine trade in the United States in the 1970s and early 1980s. Jung was a part of the Medellín Cartel which was responsible for up to 85 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States . He specialized in the...

 biopic Blow
Blow (film)
Blow is a 2001 biopic about the American cocaine smuggler George Jung, directed by Ted Demme. David McKenna and Nick Cassavetes adapted Bruce Porter's 1993 book Blow: How a Small Town Boy Made $100 Million with the Medellín Cocaine Cartel and Lost It All for the screenplay. It is based on the real...

. In the HBO television series Entourage
Entourage (TV series)
Entourage is an American comedy-drama television series that premiered on HBO on July 18, 2004 and concluded on September 11, 2011, after eight seasons...

, actor Vincent Chase
Vincent Chase
Vincent "Vince" Chase is a fictional character on the comedy-drama television series Entourage. He is played by Adrian Grenier.-Personal life:...

 (played by Adrian Grenier
Adrian Grenier
Adrian Grenier is an American actor, musician and director. He is best known for his lead role on the HBO original series, Entourage, as Vincent Chase.-Early life:...

) plays Escobar in a fictional film entitled Medellin.

Escobar has also been the subject of several books, including photographer James Mollison's book The Memory of Pablo Escobar, which tells Pablo's story with over 350 photographs and documents. Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...

' book, News of a Kidnapping, details the series of abductions that Escobar masterminded to pressure the then Colombian government into guaranteeing him non-extradition if he turned himself in.

In the 2010 ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....

 broadcast 30 for 30
30 for 30
30 for 30 is the umbrella title for a series of documentaries airing on ESPN and its sister networks. The series, which premiered in October 2009 and concluded in December 2010, chronicles 30 stories from the "ESPN era," each of which detail the issues, trends, people, teams, or events that...

, a series of sports-themed documentaries timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Entertainment and Sports Network. The Two Escobars by directors Jeff
Jeff Zimbalist
Jeffrey Leib Nettler Zimbalist is an American filmmaker best known for his films Favela Rising, The Two Escobars, and The Scribe of Urabá....

 and Michael Zimbalist looked back at Colombia's World Cup run in 1994 and the relationship of sports and the country's criminal gangs—notably the Medellín narcotics cartel run by Escobar. The other Escobar in the film title refers to former Colombian National Team defender Andrés Escobar
Andrés Escobar
Andrés Escobar Saldarriaga , nicknamed "The Gentleman of Football", was a Colombian footballer who was shot and killed in Medellín. It is widely believed that he was murdered due to his own goal in the 1994 FIFA World Cup, which supposedly would have caused gambling losses to several powerful drug...

 (no relation to Pablo), who was shot and killed one month after an own goal that cost Colombia in the 1994 FIFA World Cup
1994 FIFA World Cup
The 1994 FIFA World Cup, the 15th staging of the FIFA World Cup, was held in nine cities across the United States from June 17 to July 17, 1994. The United States was chosen as the host by FIFA on July 4, 1988...

.

In 2010 ZORBA began Pablo Escobar tours in Medellin to cater for the hundreds of tourists who visit his grave each year.

Books

  • Bowden, Mark (2002). Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw. Penguin Pub.
  • Escobar, Roberto (2009). The Accountant's Story: Inside the Violent World of the Medellín Cartel. Grand Central Pub.
  • McAleese, Peter (1993, 2001). No Mean Soldier. Cassell Pub.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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