Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was a pioneer in industrial-scale cocaine trafficking. Escobar, often known as “El Patrón,” was the leader of the Medellín Cartel from the 1970s to early 1990s. He managed every aspect of cocaine manufacture, from acquiring coca base paste in Andean countries to feeding a thriving US market. He also successfully challenged the State’s extradition policy, demonstrating that severe violence may drive governments to talk.
History Of Pablo Escobar
Escobar, like most of his accomplices in the Medellín Cartel, came from a modest background. He dropped out of school because his family could not afford his education and became engaged in petty criminality. His early illegal activities included importing radio equipment and stealing tombstones for resale.
Escobar founded the Medellín Cartel in the 1970s, together with the Ochoa Vásquez brothers (Jorge Luis, Juan David, and Fabio). Initially, the Ochoa brothers were the outfit’s business brains. Meanwhile, Escobar handled the group’s “protection” before becoming its uncontested head.
During the Medellín Cartel’s peak in the 1980s and early 1990s, Escobar dominated the cocaine supply chain. He managed the importation of enormous, multi-ton cargoes of coca base from Andean countries Peru and Bolivia into Colombia, where it was processed into cocaine in jungle laboratories. The criminal organization then kept the cocaine in Colombia before transporting it to the United States. In the 1980s, the group was claimed to have provided more than 80% of all cocaine transported to the nation, transporting around 15 tons per day.
During this time, kidnappings by guerrilla groups prompted the state to engage with criminal organizations. After the abduction of the Ochoas’ sister in 1981, a paramilitary squad backed by the Medellín Cartel called Death to Kidnappers (Muerte a Secuestradores – MAS) was formed.
In the mid-1980s, Escobar established the “Oficina de Envigado,” a criminal debt collection business, which strengthened his influence in Medellín. This was an office at the town hall of Envigado, a tiny municipality near Medellín where Escobar grew up. Escobar utilized the municipal office to collect debts due to him by drug traffickers and to recruit “sicarios” or hired murderers to kill those who refused.
Unlike many drug dealers today, Escobar was not embarrassed to flaunt his wealth. His cartel is reported to have produced over $420 million per week in income during the mid-1980s, and Escobar himself appeared on Forbes’ Billionaires list for seven years in a row, from 1987 to 1993. His lavish ‘Hacienda Nápoles,’ worth millions, featured a zoo, and he reportedly used solid gold tableware.
Despite his affluent lifestyle, Escobar positioned himself as a populist figure, persecuted by the upper classes for his own social status and attempts to assist the poor. He tried to instill anti-establishment feelings and win over impoverished populations by erecting a public zoo, installing 70 community soccer fields, and developing low-income housing.
He was unable to get access to Medellín’s higher social strata, preventing him from joining the city’s exclusive club. His ambitions to enter the political elite were likewise thwarted in the early 1980s, when he was kicked out of Colombia’s Liberal Party and removed from his post as deputy representative.
In the mid-1980s, the Medellín Cartel declared war on the Colombian state, causing tensions to grow. In April 1984, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, the country’s then-Justice Minister, was assassinated by sicarios working for Escobar. The Colombian government replied by quickly approving legislation authorizing Escobar’s extradition to the United States. In reaction, Escobar’s hitmen assassinated scores of judges, police, and journalists in the late 1980s. During the 1989 presidential elections, Escobar’s assassins killed Liberal Party candidate Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento. They then tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Galán’s successor, Liberal Party presidential candidate César Augusto Gaviria Trujillo.
Through these efforts, Escobar ultimately influenced the Colombian government to amend the constitution in 1991, prohibiting the extradition of Colombian citizens. He was able to arrange his surrender to authorities and moved inside the “Cathedral,” a prison that he had constructed. It was merely a prison by name. Escobar oversaw the guards and had a playhouse erected on the grounds for his daughter when she came to visit. During his first year in prison, he reorganized the Medellín Cartel.
However, his influence in the group was decreasing. Resentment against Escobar rose when he imposed a “tax” on cartel members, requiring them to pay payments ranging from $200,000 to $1 million.
In July 1992, Escobar’s men discovered a $20 million stockpile in a home belonging to cartel member Fernando Galeano. Escobar asked Galeano and another colleague, Gerardo Moncada, to meet at the Cathedral. Both were then murdered by two of Escobar’s sicarios.
When President César Gaviria learned of the deaths, he ordered Escobar to be transferred from the Cathedral to a military camp in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá. Escobar fled before he could be moved.
Finally, Escobar’s erstwhile criminal accomplices collaborated with the authorities to progressively destroy his enterprise. Colombian police killed Escobar on the rooftop of a home in Medellín on December 2, 1993, due to a lack of funds, luck, and just one bodyguard remaining.
Rumors about his death have swirled for years. Former paramilitary commander and mafia lord Diego Fernando Murillo Bejarano, often known as “Don Berna,” alleged that his brother fired Escobar’s shot.
Criminal activity of Escobar
Escobar helped establish the Medellín Cartel, which met high demand in the US throughout the 1980s.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Escobar was the unchallenged head of the Medellín Cartel, overseeing the entire cocaine supply chain. The group obtained coca leaf from major production sites in Peru and Bolivia, processed it in Colombian jungle laboratories, and delivered cocaine to the United States, where agents sold it on the streets.
He concentrated on foreign cocaine markets and never supplied the narcotic to Colombians for personal use. Instead, Escobar first utilized a Caribbean air route to supply the US market.
Escobar also ordered contract murders against police, judges, politicians, and journalists. The Medellín Cartel has powerful connections in security and legal agencies, allowing them to avoid punishment.
He also resorted to extortion. While in the “Cathedral,” he generated money by extorting other drug dealers into paying him a set monthly fee.
Finally, Escobar was infamous for investing cocaine money in luxury products, real estate, and art. He is also said to have kept his money in “hidden coves,” burying it on his fields and beneath the flooring in several of his homes.
Geography
Escobar led the Medellin Cartel, and called for the Colombian city where it was located. However, his influence stretched to the United States, where he managed distribution networks.
Medellín has paid a tremendous price in blood for its involvement in the worldwide cocaine trade. The city had the highest murder rate in the world during Escobar’s reign.
Escobar had contacts with Andean-producing countries (particularly Bolivia and Peru), as well as the United States and Canada, to ensure the seamless movement of cocaine from coca leaf to customer.
When Colombian police tried to apprehend him, he sought sanctuary in Panama, where the Medellín Cartel allegedly transported cocaine to the United States.
Allies and enemies of Pablo Escobar
Escobar’s success in the underground was based on several connections. His deeds, fortune, and public profile meant he had many adversaries, and their eventual union would lead to his demise.
For years, the Ochoa Vásquez brothers (Jorge Luis, Juan David, and Fabio) were Escobar’s closest pals. They formed the Medellín Cartel and collaborated with the drug lord to administer the organization. Others, including as José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, alias “El Mexicano,” provided Escobar with muscle and logistical assistance.
Escobar also maintained relationships with accomplices in Andean-producing countries. Jorge Roca Suárez, alias “Techo de Paja,” was recognized as providing cocaine shipments to Escobar and his uncle Roberto Suárez Gómez, also known as the “King of Cocaine” in Bolivia.
The Medellín Cartel partnered with Mexican organizations to sell cocaine into the US. Escobar collaborated with Juárez Cartel chief Amado Carrillo Fuentes, often known as “El Señor de los Cielos,” or “Lord of the Skies.” Carrillo Fuentes utilized his fleet of planes to carry cocaine for Escobar as part of the Guadalajara Cartel.
The Cali Cartel was one of Escobar’s most persistent opponents. During the early 1980s, the Cali Cartel collaborated with the Medellín Cartel to stabilize the drug market and split territory in the United States. However, by 1988, the cartels were engaged in a brutal turf war in Colombia.
Following the 1992 killings of Galeano and Moncada in the Cathedral, the Medellín Cartel turned against Escobar, with funding from the Cali Cartel. They targeted Escobar’s supporters by naming themselves the People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar (PEPES). One Cali Cartel boss, Francisco Hélmer Herrera Buitrago, sometimes known as “Pacho,” claimed to have personally committed $30 million in the struggle against Escobar. The PEPES’ primary goal was to track down Escobar. The PEPES cooperated with and were protected by the state.
PEPES membership included the founders of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia – AUC): brothers Fidel Antonio Castaño Gil, alias “Rambo,” Carlos Castaño Gil, and José Vicente Castaño Gil, alias “El Profe,” as well as “Don Berna,” who later joined the AUC.
Escobar’s former pals, the Castaños, distanced themselves from him for various reasons. These included his professed support for left-wing insurgents, as well as claimed ties to the M-19 rebel organization and the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN).
Meanwhile, Don Berna turned against Escobar when El Patrón murdered his employer, Fernando Galeano. Don Berna and his PEPES allies pursued Escobar’s family and connections, murdering several of them. Don Berna provided information to the authorities, which resulted in the arrest of numerous Escobar accomplices, the seizure of property, and the freezing of his bank accounts. Don Berna said that he and other PEPES members were among those who helped police find Escobar on the day of his killing.
To bring down Escobar, the PEPES collaborated with the Search Bloc, an elite police squad founded in 1989 and stationed at the Carlos Holguín Police School in Medellín. When Escobar surrendered in 1991, his followers were scattered. It reorganized when he escaped jail in 1992 and pursued him until his death in 1993.
Legacy and Influence
Escobar’s killing marked the end of one era in drug trafficking and the beginning of another. Since 1993, the mystery surrounding the drug lord has intensified, and several rumors have spread.
Escobar helped establish the Medellín Cartel, which controlled the whole drug supply chain from manufacturing to sale, but it no longer exists.
While the Colombian department of Antioquia, with Medellín as its capital, remains important to the nation’s cocaine trade, today’s drug lords have few resemblances to Escobar.
After Escobar’s demise, the Colombian underworld, particularly in Medellín, saw significant changes. It transitioned from hierarchical and controlled by a few significant players to more federal, fragmented, and horizontal. The “Oficina,” which originated in Envigado, has evolved into a mafia organization that oversees most criminal activities in Medellín.
Escobar’s contemporary parallel is difficult to find. Even in Medellín today, no one person has influence over a significant share of the worldwide cocaine trade. Instead, a specific individual climbs the ladder, is instantly recognized by police, and apprehended. Today, Escobar’s closest parallels would be Mexican capos.
After Escobar, a new generation of “Invisible” traffickers arose. They’ve realized that displaying a luxurious lifestyle and engaging in severe public violence is ineffective. Instead, they seek to defend themselves by remaining anonymous. This new breed of drug traffickers resembles youthful entrepreneurs or extremely skilled businesspeople. They are indistinguishable from those who ruled in Escobar’s time.
With this, the “man of the people” concept that traffickers like Escobar have historically attempted to spread is fading away. Mexican trafficker Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias “El Chapo,” used this strategy, which Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho,” has partially copied. However, criminal governance and loyalty are now nurtured primarily at the group level, rather than by individual leaders.
Escobar established a degree of state infiltration that allowed members of his cartel to elude arrest for years. The fact that he was elected to Congress as an alternative demonstrates how thoroughly he could do this.
Drug dealers still have connections to governmental institutions. Political elites have always been tied to drug trafficking and corruption. Other institutions are being infiltrated on a more local basis. The Urabeños, a powerful criminal gang in Colombia, operate via corrupt networks with local administrations.
The US Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act may also be considered a legacy of Escobar’s influence. The statute, which was passed in 1999, allows “the identification of and worldwide sanctions against foreign narcotics traffickers whose activities threaten US security, foreign policy, or the economy.” Its goal is to prohibit international drug traffickers from dealing with US businesses or persons.
Escobar continues to be a current narcoculture emblem, the “kingpin” of public imagination. His moniker is often used to allude to drug lords who control the drug market in several Latin American nations. Few, if any, have ever constructed a cocaine empire to surpass Escobar, who continues to inspire several novels and television productions, and his image is even emblazoned on drug packs.