Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (1 December 1949-2 December 1993) was a Colombian drug lord and narcoterrorist who was the founder and sole leader of the Medellín Cartel.
Dubbed the King of Cocaine, Escobar is the wealthiest criminal in history, having amassed an estimated net worth of US$30 billion by the time of his death -equivalent to $64 billion as of 2021- while his drug cartel monopolized the cocaine trade into the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Born in Rionegro and raised in Medellín, Escobar studied briefly at Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana of Medellín, but left without graduating; he instead began engaging in criminal activity, selling illegal cigarettes and fake lottery tickets, as well as participating in motor vehicle theft. In the early 1970s, he began to work for various drug smugglers, often kidnapping and holding people for ransom.
In 1976, Escobar founded the Medellín Cartel, which distributed powder cocaine, and established the first smuggling routes into the United States. Escobar's infiltration into the U.S. created exponential demand for cocaine and by the 1980s it was estimated Escobar led monthly shipments of 70 to 80 tons of cocaine into the country from Colombia.
As a result, he quickly became one of the richest people in the world, but constantly battled rival cartels domestically and abroad, leading to massacres and the murders of police officers, judges, locals, and prominent politicians, making Colombia the murder capital of the world.
More information: The Mob Museum
In the 1982 Colombian parliamentary election, Escobar was elected as an alternate member of the Chamber of Representatives as part of the Liberal Alternative movement. Through this, he was responsible for community projects such as the construction of houses and football fields, which gained him popularity among the locals of the towns that he frequented. However, Escobar's political ambitions were thwarted by the Colombian and U.S. governments, who routinely pushed for his arrest, with Escobar widely believed to have orchestrated the DAS Building and Avianca Flight 203 bombings in retaliation.
In 1991, Escobar surrendered to authorities, and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment on a host of charges, but struck a deal of no extradition with Colombian President Cesar Gaviria, with the ability of being housed in his own, self-built prison, La Catedral.
In 1992, Escobar escaped and went into hiding when authorities attempted to move him to a more standard holding facility, leading to a nation-wide manhunt. As a result, the Medellín Cartel crumbled, and in 1993, Escobar was killed in his hometown by Colombian National Police, a day after his 44th birthday.
Escobar's legacy remains controversial; while many denounce the heinous nature of his crimes, he was seen as a Robin Hood-like figure for many in Colombia, as he provided many amenities to the poor. His killing was mourned and his funeral attended by over 25,000 people. Additionally, his private estate, Hacienda Nápoles, has been transformed into a theme park. His life has also served as inspiration for or has been dramatized widely in film, television, and in music.
More information: The New Yorker
Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was born on 1 December 1949, in Rionegro, in the Antioquia Department of Colombia.
He was the third of seven children of the farmer Abel de Jesús Dari Escobar Echeverri (1910-2001), with his wife Hermilda de Los Dolores Gaviria Berrío (d. 2006), an elementary school teacher.
Raised in the nearby city of Medellín, Escobar is thought to have begun his criminal career as a teenager, allegedly stealing gravestones and sanding them down for resale to local smugglers.
In The Accountant's Story, Roberto Escobar discusses how Pablo rose from middle-class simplicity and obscurity to one of the world's wealthiest men. Beginning in 1975, Pablo started developing his cocaine operation, flying out planes several times, mainly between Colombia and Panama, along smuggling routes into the United States.
When he later bought fifteen bigger airplanes, including a Learjet and six helicopters, a close friend of Pablo's died during the landing of an airplane along with the plane being destroyed, according to his son. Pablo reconstructed the airplane from the scrap parts that were left and later hung it above the gate to his ranch at Hacienda Nápoles.
In 1982, Escobar was elected as an alternate member of the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia, as part of a small movement called Liberal Alternative.
Earlier in the campaign he was a candidate for the Liberal Renewal Movement, but had to leave it because of the firm opposition of Luis Carlos Galán, whose presidential campaign was supported by the Liberal Renewal Movement.
Escobar was the official representative of the Colombian government for the swearing-in of Felipe González in Spain.
Escobar quickly became known internationally as his drug network gained notoriety; the Medellín Cartel controlled a large portion of the drugs that entered the United States (including Puerto Rico), Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Spain.
The United States Joint Special Operations Command, consisting of members of DEVGRU (SEAL Team Six) and Delta Force, and Centra Spike joined the manhunt for Escobar. They trained and advised a special Colombian police task force known as the Search Bloc, which had been created to locate Escobar.
Later, as the conflict between Escobar and the governments of the United States and Colombia dragged on, and as the numbers of Escobar's enemies grew, a vigilante group known as Los Pepes (Los Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar, People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar) was formed. The group was financed by his rivals and former associates, including the Cali Cartel and right-wing paramilitaries led by Carlos Castaño, who would later fund the Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá.
More information: BBC
Los Pepes carried out a bloody campaign, fueled by vengeance, in which more than 300 of Escobar's associates, his lawyer and relatives were killed, and a large amount of the Medellín cartel's property was destroyed.
Members of the Search Bloc as well as Colombian and United States intelligence agencies either colluded with Los Pepes or moonlighted as both the Search Bloc and Los Pepes simultaneously in their efforts to find Escobar. This coordination was allegedly conducted mainly through the sharing of intelligence 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 Los Pepes death squads.
One of the leaders of Los Pepes was Diego Murillo Bejarano, also known as Don Berna, a former Medellín Cartel associate who became a rival drug kingpin and eventually emerged as a leader of one of the most powerful factions within the Self-Defence of Colombia.
More information: The Sun
Pablo Escobar died in a shootout on 2 December 1993, amid another of his attempts to elude the Search Bloc.
Soon after Escobar's death and the subsequent fragmentation of the Medellín Cartel, the cocaine market became dominated by the rival Cali Cartel until the mid-1990s when its leaders were either killed or captured by the Colombian government.
The Robin Hood image that Escobar had cultivated maintained a lasting influence in Medellín. Many there, especially many of the city's poor whom Escobar had aided while he was alive, mourned his death, and over 25,000 people attended his funeral. Some of them consider him a saint and pray to him for receiving divine help.
More information: The Guardian
The guerillas, the paramilitary, the narcos…
Everybody’s burying cash.
Pablo Escobar
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