| “ | Gentlemen... I'm going to tell you who I am. I am Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria. My eyes are everywhere. That means you guys can't move a finger in all of Antioquia without me knowing about it. Do you understand? Not a finger.
|
„ |
| ― Pablo Escobar |
Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (December 1, 1949 – December 2, 1993) was a Colombian drug lord and narcoterrorist who led the Medellín cartel, and amassed a fortune of $30 billion at the time of his death (equivalent to $70 to $75 billion USD in 2024).
Pablo began his criminal career during his teenage years, and became a well-known smuggler by the 1970s. He began smuggling cocaine into the United States in 1973, and founded The Medellín cartel in 1976 by entering into an alliance with other Medellín-based smugglers. Using his drug wealth, he began engaging in social charity to cement his political career. He was elected as an alternate representative in the Chamber of Representatives, but his political career came to an abrupt end when he was outed as a drug trafficker.
After his resignation, Escobar ordered several kidnappings, assassinations and bombings across Colombia; starting a war with the Colombian government. He ordered the Avianca Flight 203 bombing, resulting in the death of 106 civilians, and also ordered the Palce of Justice siege. Concurrently, he also fought a war with the Cali cartel, Colombia's second largest drug cartel. On June 19, 1991, Escobar surrendered to the Colombian authorities, and struck a no-extradition deal with President César Gaviria, and was subsequently imprisoned in his self-built prison, La Catedral.
After Escobar murdered two of lieutenants inside his prison, President Gaviria attempted to move him into a standard prison. Escobar refused, and held Eduardo Sandoval hostage in the prison, prompting the Colombian special forces to lay siege upon the prison, resulting in Escobar's escape on July 22, 1992. Following his escape, a nation-wide manhunt was organized by the government. The Medellín cartel was also targeted by the Los Pepes, a paramilitary vigilante organization financed by the Cali cartel. The Medellín cartel crumbled by the middle of 1993; and Escobar was killed in action while attempting to escape from the Colombian police.
Escobar was one of the wealthiest drug traffickers, and left a controversial legacy in Colombia. While he is vilified for his terrorism campaign against the government, he was considered as a "Paisa Robin Hood" by many of Colombia's poor.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Pablo Escobar was born on December 1, 1949 to farmer Abel de Jesús Escobar Echeverri and school teacher Hermilda Gaviria in the town of Rionegro. His parents separated a few years after his birth, and he moved to Medellín with his mother and cousin Gustavo Gaviria. Pablo took part in small-time criminal activities during his childhood to support his family.
Criminal career[]
Rise to prominence[]
Pablo and Gustavo continued their criminal activities throughout their adolescence, and established a smuggling operation in which they smuggled consumer electronics, cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana across Colombia. By 1973, his organization became one of Colombia's three most powerful smuggling operations.
Starting the cocaine empire[]
In October 1973, Gustavo introduced him to Mateo 'Cockroach' Moreno, a Chilean drug chemist who fled the Pinochet regime. Moreno wanted to produce and sell Cocaine in Colombia, however, Pablo called him out for his lack of ambition, and proposed to sell the cocaine in Miami.
Pablo and Gustavo standing outside The Kitchen.
Pablo and Gustavo established their cocaine smuggling operation, in which taxis owned by Escobar would ship cocaine paste from Peru into a processing lab in Medellín called The Kitchen, and the finished product would be smuggled to the United States by Gustavo's friend The Lion using commercial airliners, where marijuana smuggler Carlos Lehder would sell it and The Lion would bring the profits back to Colombia. This operation proved to immensely successfull, and soon, Pablo replaced his taxis with trucks, had Lion use pilots and pregnant women as drug mules. After a few trips, Pablo closed The Kitchen and established a bigger cocaine lab in the jungle. At the dawn of the new decade, pretty much every legitimate Colombian export had cocaine stashed inside. Efficieny further improved when Lehder quit the marijuana business and began filling up his fleet of planes completely with cocaine.
Escobar introducing other smugglers to the cocaine business.
Pablo's success attracted the attention of other smugglers, including infamous emerald smuggler José Rodríguez Gacha and the Ochoa brothers: Jorge Luis and Fabio. Pablo called all smugglers together and invited them into the cocaine business to lower production, refining and smuggling costs. As per their agreement, Pablo would smuggle cocaine produced by the other smugglers to the United States, in exchange for 30% of the sales value.
However Cockroach was displeased at Pablo inviting more smugglers into his organization, and was indignant that he had to spend months living in a cocaine lab in the jungle while Escobar and Gaviria bought mansions for themselves.
Sometime in 1979, Gustavo informed that DAS (Administrative Department of Security) Colonel Jose Luis Herrera seized 390 kilos of cocaine paste worth over $4 million. When Pablo stormed into Herrera's office, he was arrested, and Pablo's infamous mugshot was subsequently taken. Afterwards, he was freed and Herrera demanded a renogotiation. Escobar deduced that someone in his own organization leaked the street value to the police, and offers Herrera $1 million in exchange for the source of the leak. Herrera accepts and reveals that it was Cockroach. Pablo discovered that Cockroach also stole cocaine from him and sold it separately in Miami with German Zapata. Pablo sent La Quica to kill Zapata, unaware that Zapata was walking into a DEA sting operation. Quica was captured by DEA Agent Steve Murphy after he killed Zapata and DEA Agent Kevin Brady. Pablo paid Quica's bail money, helping him escape unpunished. Pablo then personally executed Cockroach, along with Herrera and several other DAS officers; cementing his strength over the country's law enforcement.
With the flow of cocaine into Miami, the city hosted a drug war that lasted from 1979 to 1988 that claimed more than 2000 lives. American businessmen feared that the cocaine would destroy the city's formal economy, and urged US President Ronald Reagan to start a war on drugs. This led the DEA to send Murphy to investigate the drug trade.
Escobar hired journalist Valeria Velez to cultivate an image of the 'Paisa Robin Hood'.
Escobar began pulling in $5 million a week, and after Gustavo informed him that their 3-car taxi company can't act as a front any longer, Escobar ordered Gustavo to bury the excess cash which couldn't be laundered across Colombia. However, the cartel leader's excessive show of opulence got them featured in the Forbes magazine. M-19, a communist guerilla group kidnapped Marta Ochoa on March 13, 1981; the same day The Lion completed 100 trips to Miami. Pablo and Gustavo refused to pay the ransom money; and called for a meeting at the Las Margeritas hotel in Medellín, where they officially proclaimed the formation of the Medellín cartel. Escobar took advantage of the kidnapping, and united all of the narcotraffickers to form the Muerte a Secuestradores, an organization led by Escobar which aimed to end the kidnapping. Using his army of sicarios, Pablo clamped down on M-19, forcing them to release Marta. Despite this, Pablo continued on with the bloodshed until Iván Torres, the leader of the M-19, presented Escobar with the sword of Simón Bolívar, a historical relic which they had stolen earlier.
At some point in the early 1980s, Escobar met with Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela of the Cali cartel, a rival drug enterprise whereupon they came up in an agreement in which the Cali cartel would sell cocaine in New York City, while Miami would be held by the Medellin cartel.
A few years later, the Cali cartel grew up to be second-largest drug cartel in Colombia. After Mexican drug trafficker Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo finalized an agreement in which he would smuggle cocaine through Mexico for the Cali cartel, Escobar had Blackie kidnap him and his associate Isabella Bautista. At the Hacienda Napoles, he introduced Félix to his hippos, heard his backstory and had him smuggle an equal amount of cocaine for the Medellin cartel too.
Political career[]
Pablo, after being revealed as a narcotrafficker by Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara.
With a large inflow of cash, Pablo decided to fulfill his lifelong ambition of becoming a politician. He also wanted to use his power to provide protection to his allies. In the Colombian general election in the early 1980s, he ran as alternative for former Congressman Jairo Ortega as a part of the New Liberalism party. Pablo hired lawyer Fernando Duque to donate massive amounts of money to the New Liberalism party to get them to overlook his drug career.
Escobar campaigned for Ortega across the poor districts of his electorates, and built schools, houses and hospitals for the poor. His men distributed money to the poor as bribes. This resulted in a landslide victory for Ortega, who immediately resigned from his post and appointed Escobar as his successor.
However, at his first parliamentary session, Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla ousted Escobar as a drug trafficker by displaying Escobar's 1979 mugshot to the entire room and claimed that the fortune he made from his taxi company was a lie. Escobar aggressively stared down Lara, and walked out of the hall. Lara did not stop there, and actively went after the cartel. He fined Escobar for the illegal importation of elephants, denied flying permits to 57 planes of the Ochoa brothers' air fleet, and revealed that six of the country's eight soccer teams were owned by narcotraffickers, prompting Gacha to give up ownership of Los Millonarios (The Millionaires). Escobar attempted to slander Lara, but his attempts were in vain, and he finally resigned from his post.
Escobar retaliated by ordering his men to assassinate Rodrigo Lara On April 30, 1984.
Palace of Justice siege[]
The M-19 agreed to help Escobar.
Escobar was indicted for the murder of Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, and the Colombian government agreed to an extradition treaty with the United States for anyone related to narcotic trafficking charges. Escobar feared extradition the most, and formed Los Extraditables with his partners to fight extradition.
Escobar began buying off or scaring politicians to repeal the extradition treaty during the next elections, but was unable to do neither to Luis Carlos Galán. Pablo sent out hostile letters to politicians and judges, but his efforts were in vain; and ultimately resorted to violence by assassinating lawyers and judges; beginning his history of terrorism against government.
Pablo is informed by La Quica that the police are on their way to Hacienda Napoles, his ranch. Pablo orders an immediate evacuation. Gustavo blamed Pablo's political ambitions for ruining their organization, but they reconcile. DEA Agent Murphy found the address of Fernando Del Valle, one of Pablo's top accountants and the one who knew where most of Pablo's buried cash was, and the CNP quickly arrested him. Fernando testified against Escobar in custody, and tons of evidence related to Escobar recovered from Fernando's safehouse were stored at the Palace of Justice. This threatened Pablo's empire, which at that point made $60 million a day.
The DEA captured Barry Seal, an ex-CIA pilot who worked as a pilot for the cartel. Seal provided photographs which showed Pablo loading a plane full of cocaine along with Nicaraguan officials, who were a part of the left-wing Sandinista movement. When the narco-communist connection reached Washington D.C., the US government roped in the US Armed Forces and the CIA with the DEA's fight against the cartel. Escobar responded by sending hitmen to assassinate Seal, who was killed in Baton Rouge on February 19, 1986.
The DEA tracked a shipment of ether to Tranquilandia, one of Escobar's biggest labs, and soon raided the complex and captured Lehder, who was immediately extradited to the United States. Fearing the same would happen to them, in November 1985 Escobar and his allies paid $2 million dollars to Ivan Torres to attack the Palace of Justice and destroy evidence related to the cartel. The M-19 were successful, and destroyed over 6000 pages of evidence against Escobar. Escobar expressed his gratitude by killing all of the surviving M-19 members, including Torres.
Pablo, Gustavo, Gacha, the Ochoa brothers and their families then fled to Panama in 1989, which was then under the control of General Manuel Noriega, an important CIA ally. Pablo offered to pay the national debt of Colombia in exchange for repealing the extradition treaty, though his offer was turned away. Pablo planned to move to Europe, but his wife convinced him to return back to their home country. On August 18, 1989, under Pablo's orders, Galán was assassinated at one of his rallies. The assassination triggered a rift between Pablo and Fabio Ochoa, who felt that Escobar was taking erratic decisions without consulting others members of the cartel. At Galán's funeral, his son named his campaign manager César Gaviria as his successor. Escobar sent Duque and Velez to force Gaviria into repelling the extradition treaty once he came into power, else promised all-out war. Pablo began doubting the loyalty of the Ochoa brothers.
Pablo began recruiting children in hope for a possible war against the government.
While waiting for Gaviria's response, Pablo began ordering the assassinations of judges, politicians, editors and journalists who opposed him. Escobar's men began recruiting children from the slums to work as scouts, delivery boys and killers for the cartel. In the meantime, Colonel Horacio Carrillo began recruiting an army of incorruptible men to form the Search Bloc; the organization dedicated to bring Escobar down.
War against extradition[]
| “ | Lies are necessary when the truth is difficult to believe. Right?
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| ― Escobar to Eduardo Sandoval, during his surrender. |
| Narcos Season 1 | ||||
| "Descenso" Appears |
"The Sword of Simón Bolivar" Appears |
"The Men of Always" Appears |
"The Palace in Flames" Appears |
"There Will Be a Future" Appears |
| "Explosivos" Appears |
"You Will Cry Tears of Blood" Appears |
"La Gran Mentira" Appears |
"La Catedral" Appears |
"Despegue" Appears |
| Narcos Season 2 | ||||
| "Free at Last" Appears |
"Cambalache" Appears |
"Our Man in Madrid" Appears |
"The Good, the Bad, and the Dead" Appears |
"The Enemies of My Enemy" Appears |
| "Los Pepes" Appears |
"Deutschland 93" Appears |
"Exit El Patrón" Appears |
"Nuestra Finca" Appears |
"Al Fin Cayó!" Appears |
| Narcos Mexico Season 1 | ||||
| "Camelot" Absent |
"The Plaza System" Absent |
"El Padrino" Absent |
"Rafa, Rafa, Rafa!" Absent |
"The Colombian Connection" Appears |
| "La Última Frontera" Absent |
"Jefe de Jefes" Absent |
"Just Say No" Absent |
"811 Lope de Vega" Absent |
"Leyenda" Absent |