Pablo EscobarPablo escobar (Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria), born on December 1st, 1949, is known as one of the most notorious criminals and drug lords in history. It's a fairly tragic story and frankly, I get the impression that people from Medellin just want to move on with their lives and forget about the guy. The scars of Medellin run deep.
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Escobar came from poverty, dropped out of university because of it and began his career as a criminal at an early age and in 1975, began his cocaine enterprise at the time when cocaine consumption was hitting the U.S. by storm. I suppose you could say that his timing was good. At his richest, Escobar was considered by Forbes Magazine to be the 7th richest person alive, at a net worth of roughly US$ 25 billion from controlling 80% of the global cocaine market. Ironically, he was considered a hero by the poor because well, he bought them. He gave them schools and housing, churches even, and in return, he had protection and loyalty. What's more, if you didn't cooperate he would kill or have you killed, so he wasn't exactly the kind of guy you would want to mess with. It's not funny at all of course and the sad thing is that so many people were killed during his reign through assassinations, car bombs and so on. Young boys called sicarios were hired to work for his system, often doing delivery jobs initially but eventually being hired to perform shootings. For example, my old paragliding instructor from Medellin, told me about how his brother was shot in the head while driving his car in Medellin during that period. Completely out of the blue. Eventually pressure built up following the escobar orchestrated assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan, leading to a negotiation between himself and the government for his surrender and imprisonment. The terms were that he would receive preferential treatment. Essentially, Escobar was imprisoned in a private prison, living in luxury. He continued with his killings while in prison and escaped during an attempt at moving him to another prison in 1992. US Delta Force and Navy Seal operatives trained a special Colombian task force, the Search Bloc, in the hunt for Escobar. Additionally, a vigilante group financed by his enemies and other drug cartels known as Los Pepes all joined in the hunt. Facts are a bit blurry about what exactly happened at this point onwards but finally on December 2, 1993, Escobar was gunned down on a rooftop while attempting to flee. It is unknown exactly who shot him or how it occurred, but he suffered wounds to the leg, torso and ear that killed him. This could have been a close up assassination but it remains unknown. Pablo Escobar's death lead to the breaking up of the Medellin Cartel and soon thereafter, the Cali Cartel took its place for another few years.
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