short biography of pablo escobar

Pablo Escobar

Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar helped create and run the notorious Medellín cartel and was responsible for killing thousands of people.

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Quick Facts

Establishing the medellín cartel, rapid rise in power, escobar’s short-lived stint in politics, a large body count, escobar’s luxury prison, wife and children, pop culture portrayals, who was pablo escobar.

Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug trafficker who collaborated with other criminals to form the Medellín cartel in the early 1970s. Eventually, he controlled over 80 percent of the cocaine shipped to the United States, earning the nickname “The King of Cocaine.” He amassed an estimated net worth of $30 billion and was named one of the 10 richest people on Earth by Forbes . He earned popularity by sponsoring charity projects and soccer clubs, but later, terror campaigns that resulted in the murder of thousands turned public opinion against him. After surrendering to the Colombian authorities in 1991, Escobar escaped detainment in 1992 and was a fugitive until his dramatic death in December 1993.

FULL NAME: Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria BORN: December 1, 1949 DIED: December 2, 1993 BIRTHPLACE: Rionegro, Antioquia, Colombia SPOUSE: Maria Victoria Henao (1976-1993) CHILDREN: Juan Pablo and Manuela ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Sagittarius

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was born on December 1, 1949, in the Colombian city of Rionegro, Antioquia. His family later moved to the suburb of Envigado. He was the third of seven children born in poverty to a schoolteacher mother and a peasant farmer father. From an early age, Escobar packed a unique ambition to raise himself up from his humble beginnings and dreamed of becoming the president of Colombia one day.

Escobar reportedly began his life of crime early, stealing tombstones and selling phony diplomas. It wasn’t long before he started stealing cars, then moving into the smuggling business. Escobar’s early prominence came during the “Marlboro Wars,” in which he played a high-profile role in the control of Colombia’s smuggled cigarette market. This episode proved to be a valuable training ground for the future narcotics kingpin.

It wasn’t by chance that Colombia came to dominate the cocaine trade. Beginning in the early 1970s, the country became a prime smuggling ground for marijuana. But as the cocaine market flourished, Colombia’s geographical location proved to be its biggest asset. Situated at the northern tip of South America between the thriving coca cultivation epicenters of Peru and Bolivia, the country came to dominate the global cocaine trade with the United States, the biggest market for the drug and just a short trip to the north.

Escobar, who had already been involved in organized crime for a decade at this point, moved quickly to grab control of the cocaine trade. In 1975, the drug trafficker Fabio Restrepo from the city of Medellín, Colombia, was murdered. It was widely believed his death came at the orders of Escobar, who immediately seized power and expanded Restrepo’s operation into something the world had never seen. Under Escobar’s leadership, large amounts of coca paste were purchased in Bolivia and Peru then processed and transported to America. Escobar worked with a small group to form the infamous Medellín cartel.

Also around this time, Escobar started a family with his marriage to Maria Victoria Henao, who was 11 years his junior and still a teenager at the time of their 1976 wedding. They went on to have two children.

Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw

Escobar’s rapid rise brought him to the attention of the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), who arrested him in May 1976 upon his return from a drug trafficking trip in Ecuador. Authorities found 39 kilograms of cocaine hidden in the spare tire of his truck. Escobar escaped the charges by bribing a judge, and the two DAS agents responsible for his arrest were killed the next year, according to Mark Bowden book Killing Pablo . Around this time, Escobar developed his signature pattern of dealing with authorities called plata o plomo , Spanish for “silver or lead,” in which they could accept bribes or be assassinated, according to Bowden.

In 1978, Escobar spent millions to purchase 20 square kilometers of land in Antioquia, Colombia, where he built his luxury estate Hacienda Nápoles . It contained a sculpture garden, lake, private bullring, and other amenities for his family and members of the cartel. It also featured a collection of luxury cars and bikes, as well as a zoo with antelope, elephants, giraffes, hippos, ponies, ostriches, and exotic birds. After Escobar’s death, it was turned into a theme park. (Today, the hippo population—which traces back to Escobar’s original transplants—has swelled in the country , causing environmental destruction and providing tourism opportunities.)

As the demand for cocaine grew in the United States, Escobar established additional smuggling shipments and distribution networks in various locations. That included establishing a shipment base on a private island in the Bahamas with the help of cartel cofounder Carlos Lehder. By the mid-1980s, Escobar had an estimated net worth of $30 billion and was named one of the 10 richest people on Earth by Forbes . Cash was so prevalent that Escobar purchased a Learjet for the sole purpose of flying his money. At the time, Escobar controlled more than 80 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States; more than 15 tons were reportedly smuggled each day, netting the Medellín cartel as much as $420 million a week.

As Escobar’s fortune and fame grew, he dreamed to be seen as a leader. In some ways, he positioned himself as a Robin Hood–like figure, a description was echoed by many locals, by spending money to expand social programs for the poor. He spent millions to develop Medellín’s poor neighborhoods, where its residents felt he helped them far more than the government ever had. He built roads, electric lines, soccer fields, roller-skating rinks, and more, and paid the workers in his cocaine labs enough money that they could afford houses and cars, according to Bowden.

Still harboring his youthful ambition to become the nation’s president, Escobar entered politics and supported the formation of the Liberal Party of Colombia. In 1982, he was elected as an alternate member of Colombia’s Congress, but Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara-Bonilla investigated him and highlighted the illegal means by which he had obtained his wealth, forcing Escobar to resign two years after his election. A few months later, Lara-Bonilla was murdered, according to the book Kings of Cocaine , by Guy Gugliotta and Jeff Leen.

Escobar was responsible for the killing of thousands of people, including politicians, civil servants, journalists, and ordinary citizens. When he realized that he had no shot of becoming Colombia’s president, and with the United States pushing for his capture and extradition, Escobar unleashed his fury on his enemies in the hopes of influencing Colombian politics. His goal was a no-extradition clause and amnesty for drug barons in exchange for giving up the trade.

Escobar’s terror campaign claimed the lives of three Colombian presidential candidates, an attorney general, scores of judges, and more than 1,000 police officers. In addition, Escobar was implicated as the mastermind behind the bombing of a Colombian jetliner. In November 1989, Escobar arranged for a bomb to be planted on Avianca Flight 203, a domestic passenger flight, as part of an assassination attempt against one of his political enemies, presidential candidate César Gaviria Trujillo. He missed the flight and avoided injury, but the bomb detonated and killed all 107 people on board.

Nine days after the airplane bombing, more than 50 people were killed and more than 2,200 were injured when a truck bomb detonated outside a DAS building in Bogotá, Colombia. The Medellín cartel was also believed to be responsible for this attack. Escobar’s terror eventually turned public opinion against him.

By the 1990s, Escobar was facing increasing pressure from the administration of President César Gaviria, particularly after Escobar’s alleged assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán in 1989. In June 1991, Escobar negotiated a surrendered to Gaviria’s government in exchange for a reduced sentence and preferential treatment during his captivity. A law at the time prevented his extradition to the United States.

Escobar built his own luxury prison called La Catedral , which was guarded by men he handpicked from among his employees. Often called “Hotel Escobar,” the prison came with a casino, spa, nightclub, football field, jacuzzi, waterfall, and giant doll house.

In June 1992, however, Escobar escaped when authorities attempted to move him to a more standard holding facility. A manhunt for the drug lord, with help from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, was launched that would last 16 months. During that time, the monopoly of the Medellín cartel, which had begun to crumble during Escobar’s imprisonment as police raided offices and killed its leaders, rapidly deteriorated.

Escobar’s family unsuccessfully sought asylum in Germany and eventually found refuge in a Bogotá hotel. Escobar was not so lucky: Colombian law enforcement finally caught up to the fugitive Escobar on December 2, 1993, in a middle-class neighborhood in Medellín. A firefight ensued, and as Escobar tried to escape across a series of rooftops, he and his bodyguard were shot and killed. Escobar had just turned 44 years old the previous day.

Escobar’s death accelerated the demise of the Medellín cartel and Colombia’s central role in the cocaine trade. His end was celebrated by the country’s government and other parts of the world, and his family was placed under police protection. Still, many Colombians mourned his killing. More than 25,000 people attended Escobar’s burial. “He built houses and cared about the poor,” one funeral-goer said at his funeral, according to The New York Times . “In the future, people will go to his tomb to pray, the way they would to a saint.”

In 1976, when he was 26, Escobar married 15-year-old Maria Victoria Henao. She was so young that before marrying her, Escobar had to get a special dispensation from the bishop, which was obtainable for a fee, according to Bowden. They were married until Escobar’s death. The couple had two children together: a son, Juan Pablo, and a daughter, Manuela.

Pablo Escobar: My Father

Today Escobar’s son is a motivational speaker who goes by the name Sebastian Marroquin. Marroquin studied architecture and published a book in 2015, Pablo Escobar: My Father , which tells the story of growing up with the world’s most notorious drug kingpin. He also asserts that his father was not shot and killed, but rather committed suicide.

“My father’s not a person to be imitated,” Marroquin said in an interview. “He showed us the path we must never take as a society because it’s the path to self-destruction, the loss of values, and a place where life ceases to have importance.”

Escobar has been the subject of several books, films, and television programs. Among them was the popular 2012 Colombian television mini-series Pablo Escobar: El Patron del Mal , which was produced by Camilo Cano and Juana Uribe, both of whom had family members who were murdered by Escobar or his assistants.

Escobar was also portrayed by Academy Award-winning actor Javier Bardem in the film Loving Pablo (2017), which also starred Penelope Cruz as his girlfriend Virginia Vallejo.

The 2015 Netflix television series Narcos was based upon the Escobar’s life, told largely from the perspective of Steve Murphy and Javier Peña , two American drug enforcement agents who worked on the Escobar case for years. In 2016, Escobar’s brother Roberto announced he was prepared to sue Netflix for $1 billion for its portrayal of his family in Narcos . He later abandoned those efforts.

• What is worth most in life are friends, of that I am sure. Unfortunately, along life’s paths one also meets people who are disloyal.
• In Colombia, people enter [drug trafficking] as a form of protest. Others enter it because of ambition.
• I want to be big.
• Better a tomb in Colombia than a prison cell in the United States.
• There have been many accusations, but I’ve never been convicted of a crime in Colombia.
• [Terrorism is] the atomic bomb for poor people. It is the only way for the poor to strike back.

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Biography of Pablo Escobar, Colombian Drug Kingpin

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Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (December 1, 1949–December 2, 1993) was a Colombian drug lord and the leader of one of the most powerful criminal organizations ever assembled. He was also known as "The King of Cocaine." Over the course of his career, Escobar made billions of dollars, ordered the murders of hundreds of people, and ruled over a personal empire of mansions, airplanes, a private zoo, and his own army of soldiers and hardened criminals.

Fast Facts: Pablo Escobar

• Known For: Escobar ran the Medellín drug cartel, one of the largest criminal organizations in the world.
• Also Known As: Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, "The King of Cocaine"
• Born: December 1, 1949 in Rionegro, Colombia
• Parents: Abel de Jesús Dari Escobar Echeverri and Hemilda de los Dolores Gaviria Berrío
• Died: December 2, 1993 in Medellín, Colombia
• Spouse: Maria Victoria Henao (m. 1976)
• Children: Sebastián Marroquín (born Juan Pablo Escobar Henao), Manuela Escobar

Watch Now: 8 Fascinating Facts About Pablo Escobar

Escobar was born on December 1, 1949, into a lower-middle-class family and grew up in Medellín, Colombia. As a young man, he was driven and ambitious, telling friends and family that he wanted to be the president of Colombia someday. He got his start as a street criminal. According to legend, Escobar would steal tombstones, sandblast the names off of them, and resell them to crooked Panamanians. Later, he moved up to stealing cars. It was in the 1970s that he found his path to wealth and power: drugs. He would buy coca paste in Bolivia and Peru , refine it, and transport it for sale in the United States.

Rise to Power

In 1975, a local Medellín drug lord named Fabio Restrepo was murdered, reportedly on the orders of Escobar himself. Stepping into the power vacuum, Escobar took over Restrepo’s organization and expanded his operations. Before long, Escobar controlled all organized crime in Medellín and was responsible for as much as 80 percent of the cocaine  transported into the United States. In 1982, he was elected to Colombia’s Congress. With economic, criminal, and political power, Escobar’s rise was complete.

In 1976, Escobar married 15-year-old Maria Victoria Henao Vellejo, and they would later have two children, Juan Pablo and Manuela. Escobar was famous for his extramarital affairs and tended to prefer underage girls. One of his girlfriends, Virginia Vallejo, went on to become a famous Colombian television personality. In spite of his affairs, he remained married to María Victoria until his death.

Narcoterrorism

As the leader of the Medellín Cartel, Escobar quickly became legendary for his ruthlessness, and an increasing number of politicians, judges, and policemen publicly opposed him. Escobar had a way of dealing with his enemies: he called it plata o plomo (silver or lead). If a politician, judge, or policeman got in his way, he would almost always first attempt to bribe him or her. If that didn’t work, he would order the person killed, occasionally including the victim's family in the hit. The exact number of men and women killed by Escobar is unknown, but it certainly goes well into the hundreds and possibly into the thousands.

Social status did not matter to Escobar; if he wanted you out of the way, he'd get you out of the way. He ordered the assassination of presidential candidates and was even rumored to be behind the 1985 attack on the Supreme Court, carried out by the 19th of April insurrectionist movement, in which several Supreme Court justices were killed. On November 27, 1989, Escobar’s cartel planted a bomb on Avianca flight 203, killing 110 people. The target, a presidential candidate, was not actually on board. In addition to these high-profile assassinations, Escobar and his organization were responsible for the deaths of countless magistrates, journalists, policemen, and even criminals inside his own organization.

Height of His Power

By the mid-1980s, Escobar was one of the most powerful men in the world, and Forbes magazine listed him as the seventh richest. His empire included an army of soldiers and criminals, a private zoo, mansions and apartments all over Colombia, private airstrips and planes for drug transport, and personal wealth reported to be in the neighborhood of $24 billion. Escobar could order the murder of anyone, anywhere, anytime.

He was a brilliant criminal, and he knew that he would be safer if the common people of Medellín loved him. Therefore, he spent millions on parks, schools, stadiums, churches, and even housing for the poorest of Medellín’s inhabitants. His strategy worked—Escobar was beloved by the common people, who saw him as a local boy who had done well and was giving back to his community.

Legal Troubles

Escobar’s first serious run-in with the law came in 1976 when he and some of his associates were caught returning from a drug run to Ecuador . Escobar ordered the killing of the arresting officers, and the case was soon dropped. Later, at the height of his power, Escobar’s wealth and ruthlessness made it almost impossible for Colombian authorities to bring him to justice. Any time an attempt was made to limit his power, those responsible were bribed, killed, or otherwise neutralized. The pressure was mounting, however, from the United States government, which wanted Escobar extradited to face drug charges. He had to use all of his power to prevent extradition.

In 1991, due to increasing pressure from the U.S., the Colombian government and Escobar’s lawyers came up with an interesting arrangement. Escobar would turn himself in and serve a five-year jail term. In return, he would build his own prison and would not be extradited to the United States or anywhere else. The prison, La Catedral, was an elegant fortress which featured a Jacuzzi, a waterfall, a full bar, and a soccer field. In addition, Escobar had negotiated the right to select his own “guards.” He ran his empire from inside La Catedral, giving orders by telephone. There were no other prisoners in La Catedral. Today, La Catedral is in ruins, having been hacked to pieces by treasure hunters looking for hidden Escobar loot.

Everyone knew that Escobar was still running his operation from La Catedral, but in July 1992 it became known that the drug kingpin had ordered some disloyal underlings brought to his “prison,” where they were tortured and killed. This was too much for even the Colombian government, and plans were made to transfer Escobar to a standard prison. Fearing he might be extradited, Escobar escaped and went into hiding. The U.S. government and local police ordered a massive manhunt. By late 1992, there were two organizations searching for him: the Search Bloc, a special, U.S.-trained Colombian task force, and “Los Pepes,” a shadowy organization of Escobar’s enemies made up of family members of his victims and financed by Escobar’s main business rival, the Cali Cartel.

On December 2, 1993, Colombian security forces—using U.S. technology—located Escobar hiding in a home in a middle-class section of Medellín. The Search Bloc moved in, triangulated his position, and attempted to bring him into custody. Escobar fought back, however, and there was a shootout. Escobar was eventually gunned down as he attempted to escape on the rooftop. Although he was also shot in the torso and leg, the fatal wound passed through his ear, leading many to believe that Escobar committed suicide. Others believe one of the Colombian policemen fired the bullet.

With Escobar gone, the Medellín Cartel quickly lost power to its rival, the Cali Cartel, which remained dominant until the Colombian government shut it down in the mid-1990s. Escobar is still remembered by the poor of Medellín as a benefactor. He has been the subject of numerous books, movies, and television series, including "Narcos" and "Escobar: Paradise Lost." Many people remain fascinated by the master criminal, who once ruled one of the largest drug empires in history.

• Gaviria, Roberto Escobar, and David Fisher. "The Accountant's Story: inside the Violent World of the Medellin Cartel." Grand Central Pub., 2010.
• Vallejo, Virginia, and Megan McDowell. "Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar." Vintage Books, 2018.
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Pablo Escobar Biography: Colombian Drug Lord and Narcoterrorist.

Pablo Escobar was the world’s most successful drug trafficker. He was also its most deadly. During his 17- year reign at the top of the Colombian cocaine empire, he ordered the killings of thousands of people, including judges, ministers of parliament and Presidential candidates. At the height of his power he was raking in over a million dollars a day, yet in the end he was forced to live as a fugitive in the Colombian jungle. Shot down on a rooftop in the city that he had ruled over, his was a fall from grace of epic proportion.

In this week’s Biographics, we go deep into the South American drug world to reveal the true-life story of Don Pablo.

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was born on December 1st, 1949 in the small town of Rinegro, 45 minutes from Medellin, Colombia. His father, Abel, was a hard working, humble cattle farmer, while his mother Hermilda was a school teacher.

Pablo, the second of seven children, was raised in a middle-class environment in a community that was fuelled by the cocaine and marijuana trade. Although not everyone directly participated in the drug business, they all had a powerful incentive in the protection of those that did. The violence that was part and parcel of enforcing the narcotics trade was all around.

Before Pablo started school, the family moved to Envigado, a small village just out of Medellin, so that Hermilda could establish an elementary school there. Abel sold the farm and took up a job as a neighbourhood watchman. Through her work at the school, Hermilda soon become a popular and well-respected member of the community.

At school, Pablo proved himself to be an able and quick-witted student. Although tending toward the chubby side, thanks to his love of fast food, he was talented in all ball sports, with a special love for soccer. Many of his teachers were involved in social causes, especially the struggle for class equality and they became powerful influences on the boy. By the time he was in his early teens, Pablo was attending street rallies and participating in such activities as throwing rocks at the police.

Pablo became part of a youth culture movement known as Nadaismo which encouraged young people to thumb their noses at the established order, disobey their parents and write their own rules. Part of this counterculture movement involved experimentation with drugs, leading the thirteen-year-old future drug kingpin to develop an addiction to marijuana which would never leave him.

The Young Thug

By the age of sixteen Pablo had developed into a plump, short youth, standing at just over five foot, six inches. He had a round face and wore a slight mustache. A couple of months before reaching his seventeenth birthday, he dropped out of school, bored with the straight-laced routine and keen to make his own way in the world.

After quitting school, the enterprising Pablo started up a little bicycle repair shop. He would prowl the streets and the local dump in search of discarded bicycle parts and then use them to fix bikes for cheap. With the money that he made from this enterprise, he purchased himself a Lambretta motorcycle. Now with a means of fast escape, he began planning how to make money more easily than repairing bicycles for a pittance.

According to legend, Pablo’s foray into crime began with him stealing headstones from the local cemetery, sandblasting the names from them and then reselling them.

Pablo decided that the route to quick cash lay in commercial business robbery. He started by scoping out potential targets. He would then ride to the target business on his motorbike, slip a balaclava over his head and rush the business with a knife or gun in hand, demand the money and then get out of there. It all happened in about 30 seconds.

After a few successful robberies, Pablo recruited his cousin to join him. One would ride the bike and act as the get away rider while the other stormed the business. Within a few months, Pablo became bored with this and moved on to bigger – and easier – things. He established a contact with a Renault car dealer who would provide him with copies of the keys to the cars that he had just sold, along with the addresses of the buyers. All that Pablo had to do was turn up at the addresses and drive the cars away.

In his late teens, Pablo got caught in the act of stealing one of these cars. He ended up spending several months in La Ladera Jail, which was to him, a positive life experience. Here he learned about how to move into bigger time criminal activity, including kidnapping and drug trafficking.

A Violent Reputation

Once back on the street, Pablo and his cousin Gustavo went right back to stealing cars. They built up a collection of stolen engine parts which they would sell off bit by bit. The pair took to building race cars, with Pablo competing in local events. Pablo and Garcia weren’t the only ones stealing cars in Medellin, which led to an extension of his operation. He decided to also sell protection, so that people would pay him to ensure that their car did not get taken.

Pablo was able to provide such a service because he had developed a reputation as an unpredictable and violent young man. If anyone owed him money, Pablo would hire some local thug to kidnap the person. He would them ransom him for whatever was owed to him. From time to time he would have the person killed even when the ransom was paid, simply to engender fear in those he dealt with.

Before long, Pablo decided to specialise in kidnappings for their own sake. Along with his cousin and future brother-in-law he nabbed a rich businessman by the name of Diego Echavarria. This man was intensely disliked by many of the poor workers in Medellin, who were being laid off in droves by industrialists like him. Despite the family okaying the $50,000 ransom demand, Echavarria was beaten, strangled and the dumped in a ditch. Even though he had just committed a terrible crime, his choice of victim made Pablo hugely popular among the common folk of Medellin. In a strange way they saw the killing as Pablo striking a blow for social equality.

Entering the Drug Trade

In 1971, the 22-year old Pablo began working for Medellin based contraband dealer Alvaro Prieto. Under Prieto, Pablo was doing a modest amount of drug trafficking. Before long, however, he decided that he wanted more of a slice of the pie for himself. He drove his stolen Renault 4 to Ecuador and bought five kilos of Peruvian cocaine paste. Successfully passing through a number of police and military checkpoints, he returned to Medellin, where he processed the cocaine. He next contacted fellow criminals the Ochoa brothers to set up a sale to local cocaine chief Fabio Restrepo. The sale netted Pablo close to a hundred thousand dollars, far surpassing anything he had previously done, and setting him firmly on the path to becoming a high-end drug dealer.

Within two months, Fabio Restrepo had been murdered. Suddenly there was a new man at the head of the Medellin cocaine operation – Pablo Escobar. It has never been conclusively proven that Pablo murdered Restrepo, but that was what everyone involved believed. The majority of those working for Restrepo were upper class dandies. They were frightened by Pablo and the ruthless hoodlums he surrounded himself with.

Shortly after muscling his way to the top of the Medellin cocaine syndicate, Pablo married fifteen-year-old Maria Victoria Helena Vellejo. Now aged twenty-six, he had a wife, wealth and power. It seemed like the sky was the limit.

The cocaine trade from Panama, through Colombia and into the United States boomed in the late 1970’s, with most of it being trafficked though Escobar’s organization. Under Pablo, the cocaine industry became streamlined. He purchased a fleet of airplanes, including a Lear jet to transport the drugs into the United States where there was an inexhaustible supply of willing buyers.

Two months after his wedding, Pablo and four others were arrested after returning from a drug run to Ecuador. Drug enforcement agents found 39 kilos of cocaine hidden in the spare tire of their truck. That amount of coke would see Pablo being put away for a long time.

His first tactic in getting out of the mess was to bribe the trial judge. The offer however was flatly rejected. Pablo then had his team research the judge’s background. They discovered that he had a brother who was a lawyer and that the two men did not get on. The lawyer was contacted and offered a huge amount to represent Pablo in the case. As suspected, the judge was forced to recuse himself due to conflict of interest. The new judge didn’t have as many scruples as the first. He accepted a bribe and Pablo and his cohorts walked free.

Exorbitant amounts of money were now pouring into Colombia, with deposits in the country’s four major banks doubling between 1976 and 1980. Pablo was able to use his millions to take possession of every step of his operation, traveling to Peru, Bolivia and Panama and buying up all the cultivation farms and processing plants. He was also able to buy off enforcement agencies in every country, developing a ruthless policy which came to be known as ‘plato o plomo’ – silver or lead. If officials didn’t accept his bribe they could expect to end up dead.

By 1980, Pablo was at the height of his power. With every law enforcement agency on his payroll, he was the unofficial king of Medellin. He wasn’t the only cocaine impresario in Colombia, but he was the most successful. He owned multiple mansions, racing cars, helicopters and planes and was constantly surrounded by bodyguards and hangers on. Cocaine money transformed Medellin, with discos and high-end restaurants opening up all over the city.

One of Pablo’s passions was soccer and now he was able to indulge it. He paid to have fields levelled and sodded and lights installed so that he and his crew could play at night time. He would also employ professional game callers to announce the matches as if they were an FA cup final.

In 1979, Pablo built a lavish country estate on a seventy-four-hundred-acre ranch, eighty miles of Medellin, dubbing it Hacienda Los Napoles. He brought exotic animals from all over the world to populate the farm, built six swimming pools and a huge mansion that could sleep a hundred guests.

At the same time that he was indulging his every materialistic whim in private, Pablo began tending to his public image. He constantly denied that he was involved in any illicit activity, portraying a formal, likeable persona and appearing humble and polite. He consciously cultivated the image that he was a freedom fighter for the underprivileged, setting himself up as an alternative to the establishment. He also poured millions of dollars into social construction programs.

Between 1980-1982, Pablo did more to help out the poor in Medellin than the Colombian government had ever done. One of his most popular initiatives was a housing project called Barrio Pablo Escobar, where houses were built and given to families who had previously been sheltering in shacks at the city dump. This and a host of other projects easily made him the most popular citizen in Medellin.

In private, Pablo conducted himself in an understated manner. He spoke softly and was generally relaxed and casual with those around him. He was hugely self-indulgent – with food, drink and women – and considered himself a law unto himself. On one occasion when an employee was found to have stolen from him, Pablo had him brought before him bound hand and foot and then kicked him into the swimming pool, making everyone watch as the man drowned.

A Brief Political Career

With his popularity among the masses firmly established and his dominance over his empire assured, the next logical step for Pablo was politics. His path to legitimate office began in 1978 when he was elected as a substitute city councillor in Medellin. In 1980 he gave his personal and financial support to the formation of a new national political movement, the New Liberal Party. Then, in 1982 he ran for, and was elected to Congress, albeit as a substitute who attended when the primary delegate from Medellin was unavailable.

A major perk of being elected to Congress was that Pablo now had judicial immunity, meaning that he could not be convicted for a crime under Colombian law. The position also afforded him a diplomatic visa, which he made use of to regularly take his family on trips to the United States. On one trip he purchased an $8 million mansion in Miami Beach, Florida.

Pablo now had political legitimacy to go with his massive wealth. The next acquisition was a personal army. When a friend of the family was kidnapped by M-19 guerrillas, he created a private militia to hunt down the rebels. Pablo’s army was known as ‘Death to Kidnappers.’

Pablo’s wider exposure as a result of his political office was the beginning of his downfall. In Medellin he was viewed as a Robin Hood figure, but when he tried to gain the favor of polite Colombian society he was not welcomed. They viewed him as what he really was – a ruthless cocaine king with absolutely no scruples.

When he turned up to take his seat in Congress as an alternate for the first time on August 16th 1983 with a bevy of bodyguards in tow he was first denied entry for not wearing a tie. He quickly got hold of one and swept into the packed chamber. He slumped down in his allocated seat and began nervously to bite his fingernails.

Immediately the Chamber president stood and demanded that all bodyguards be removed from the chamber. Pablo nodded and his thugs left the room. Within minutes Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara was on his feet. Defending a claim of corruption that had been brought against him, Lara pointed the finger at Pablo, stating . . .

We have a congressman who was born in a very poor area himself, very, very poor, and afterwards, through astute business deals in bicycles and other things, appears with a gigantic fortune, with nine planes, three hangars at the Medellin airport and creates the Movement ‘Death to Kidnappers’, while on the other hand, mounts charitable organizations with which he tries to bribe a needy and unprotected people. And there are investigations going in the United Sates, of which I cannot inform you here tonight in the House, on the criminal conduct of [Pablo Escobar].

Pablo said nothing in the House. When he left he was besieged by reporters. Breaking free, he stormed off. Through his lawyer he informed Lara that if he did not present evidence of his claims within 24 hours he would face legal action. Lara willingly obliged and in the coming days the newspapers were filled with all sorts of revelations about Pablo’s criminal activity.

Pablo was now persona non-grata in political circles. He was kicked out of the New Liberal Party and the US Embassy revoked his diplomatic visa. The Catholic church also renounced their support of him. The government even seized 85 of the exotic animals on Pablo’s ranch claiming that they had entered the country illegally. Pablo’s political career was now in ruins.

Even worse for Pablo, the Colombia government, at Lara’s urgings, were fast tracking an extradition treaty with the US that would see him tried in America for selling cocaine in that country.

In May 1984, Justice Minister Lara was shoot seven times while riding in his chauffeur driven limousine. But Pablo had more powerful enemies. US President Ronald Reagan had announced a major crackdown on the cocaine trade. With the death of Lara, the Colombian government were willing to cooperate with American authorities to go after Narco kingpins. Pablo was the biggest of them all.

The killing of Lara also turned much of the Colombian population against Pablo. By the act he had declared war on the state. For Pablo the heat was too much to bear and he skipped the country, taking a helicopter to Panama City. Yet, despite being offered asylum in Panama by President Manuel Noriega the year before, Pablo and his cronies were not welcomed by the authorities.

After just a few weeks in exile, Pablo was desperate to get back home. He made overtures to the Colombian government, drafting a proposal whereby he would go straight and use his massive influence to rid Colombia of drug trafficking provided that he could retain his possessions in Medellin and that he would be exempt from arrest or extradition to the US.

The offer was roundly rejected. When the Panamanian army raided one of the labs he had situated on the Colombian border he fled Panama for Nicaragua. Meanwhile, he was hearing that his absence from Colombia was undermining his control of the Medellin cartel. The kidnapping of his 73-year-old father was a step too far. Pablo ordered a killing frenzy throughout Medellin. Dozens of suspected kidnappers were gunned down. Finally, the old man was released with no ransom being paid.

All Out War

In the midst of the carnage over his father’s kidnapping, Pablo returned to Colombia. He was now determined to take on the state with everything that he had. Around Medellin he was untouchable, having bought off every official. This allowed him, although being the most wanted man in the country, to move around the town freely.

Pablo’s vengeful focus during the mid-80’s was squarely centered on the judiciary, especially judges who supported the extradition treaty with the US. During this time more than thirty judges were shot dead. Then, in November, 1985, the guerrilla group M-19, having been paid a million dollars by Pablo, stormed the Palace of Justice and held the entire Supreme Court hostage. They demanded that the government renounce the extradition treaty. In the resulting siege, 11 of the 24 justices, along with 40 of the rebels, were killed.

By the beginning of 1988, killings were being reported almost on a daily basis. Martial law was declared in ordered to prevent the state from toppling. On August 18th, 1989 Pablo’s kill squads gunned down both the front-running presidential candidate Luis Galan and a state police chief. In the following four months, the Colombian government apprehended and sent more than twenty suspected drug traffickers to the United States to stand trial. A national police unit was stationed to Medellin specifically to hunt down Pablo. Within the first month, 30 of the two hundred men stationed there had been killed.

Pablo was evading his government and inflicting enormous casualties, but he was a man constantly on the run. He always stayed a step ahead of his pursuers, but he was growing tired of the constant relocations needed to do so. Eventually he agreed to negotiate.

Pablo agreed to put an end to the violence, stop all criminal activity and hand himself in. In exchange he demanded preferential treatment in a prison of his choosing and a reduced settlement. The government had already revoked the extradition treaty to the US with its 1991 Constitution so he didn’t have to worry about being sent to America.

Pablo was duly arrested and tried. He began his sentence at La Catedral prison in June, 1991. But this was like no other prison on earth. It featured a football pitch, jacuzzi and bar. The prison guards were all employees of Pablo. The prison cells were more like hotel suites and the food that Pablo and his fellow inmates ate was prepared by chefs who were brought in from fine restaurants.

After a few months, accounts began to reach official channels that Pablo was continuing to pursue his criminal activities from La Catedral. This was a violation of the surrender agreement and moves were put in place to seize him and move him to a regular prison. Pablo’s connections enabled him to get wind of the plan and he escaped before the authorities could get to him.

The hunt for Pablo was back on. But now the US and Colombian authorities were joined by a vigilante group known as Los Pepes, which stood for ‘People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar.’ Los Pepes carried out a ruthless campaign, killing as many as three hundred people who were connected to Pablo and his organization.

Following his escape from La Catedral, Pablo was constantly on the run. Most of his closest associates were dead and his organization was falling apart. He was spending nights sleeping in the jungle, afraid to speak on the radio or to answer the phone.

Fate finally caught up with Pablo Escobar on December 2nd, 1993. Members of a Colombian Search Bloc team had tracked him down to house in the barrio of Los Olivos in Medellin via radio intercepts. The Search Bloc team smashed through the heavy steel door with a sledgehammer, whereupon six of them rushed into the house. It was then that the shooting started. In the house with Pablo was his most loyal bodyguard, known as Limon. They both bolted from the front room and made their way up onto the roof. The six Search Bloc members, along with others outside poured a massive barrage of gunfire at their targets. Limon was hit several times in the back and toppled to the ground below. Then Pablo went down. He was struck several times in the leg and torso but the fatal shot penetrated his skull.

On confirming his target, the leader of the operation spoke excitedly into his radio . . . ‘Viva la Colombia – we have just killed Pablo Escobar!’

But had they?

Pablo had always told his family that, if cornered he would commit suicide by placing a bullet in his skull. Many people believe that he did so, once more escaping the clutches of the Colombian authorities.

Pablo Escobar Video Biography

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The History Hit Miscellany of Facts, Figures and Fascinating Finds

• 20th Century

Pablo Escobar: The Rise and Fall of the ‘King of Cocaine’

06 Nov 2023

In the annals of criminal history, the name Pablo Escobar looms large. A charismatic and ruthless Colombian drug lord, Escobar rose from humble beginnings to become the world’s most powerful and feared criminal. Yet, his meteoric rise was matched only by his cataclysmic fall.

Here we delve into the life and death of the infamous Pablo Escobar. 

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was born on 1 December 1949, in Rionegro, Antioquia in Colombia and came from a humble background. Raised in Medellín as the third of seven children, his father was a farmer and his mother worked as a teacher. 

Early on, Escobar demonstrated his entrepreneurial spirit (and criminal tendencies), engaging in various schemes like selling fake diplomas, smuggling stereo equipment and selling stolen tombstones.

He left school in 1966 just before he turned 17, but returned two years later. His hard life on the streets of Medellín had shaped his teachers’ view of him, and a year later, Escobar dropped out of school again. Nevertheless, having forged a high school diploma, Escobar briefly studied in college with dreams of becoming a criminal lawyer, politician and even president, but gave up due to financial constraints.

Before long, he started stealing cars (resulting in his first arrest in 1974), and played a prominent role in controlling the smuggled cigarette market. 

In the 1970’s, Colombia emerged as a key location for marijuana smuggling, and Escobar initially worked as a small-time marijuana dealer for various drug smugglers. (During this time, Escobar notably kidnapped businessman Diego Echavarria, later killing him in 1971, despite having received the $50,000 ransom.)

He gradually transitioned to the cocaine trade, recognising the immense profit potential due to Colombia’s strategic position between coca cultivation centres in the south, and the lucrative North American market. 

Pablo Escobar’s mugshot, taken by the regional Colombia control agency in Medellín in 1976

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Colombian National Police / Public Domain

Cocaine empire

Escobar’s ascent in the world of narcotics was spectacular. In 1976, he founded a criminal organisation that evolved into the infamous Medellín Cartel, a drug trafficking organisation based in Medellín, Colombia, which would go on to become one of the most powerful and influential criminal groups in history. 

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Escobar played a pivotal role in the ‘cocaine cowboy’ era in Miami. H is network of smugglers used ingenious methods to establish the first smuggling routes, transporting vast quantities of cocaine from Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador through Colombia and into America. This operation involved various means, from submarines to small aircraft landing in remote fields.

Escobar’s meteoric rise caught the attention of the Colombian Security Service, leading to his arrest in May 1976 when a significant amount of cocaine was discovered in his car. Managing to influence the legal process, he was released; the following year the agent who had arrested him was assassinated.

Escobar’s infiltration of the drug market created unprecedented demand for cocaine in America. Under his leadership, the Medellín Cartel came to dominate the global cocaine trade, controlling over 80% of the cocaine shipped to America. This immense operation earned him an estimated $420 million a week, and the nickname ‘The King of Cocaine’. By the 1980’s, the sheer volume of cocaine entering the US (approximately 70-80 tonnes per month)  made Escobar one of the ten wealthiest people on the planet, with an estimated net worth of around $30 billion, according to Forbes .

Escobar’s vast wealth afforded him a lavish lifestyle, including private planes, a Caribbean getaway on Isla Grande, and numerous luxurious homes and safe-houses, including a 7,000 acre estate in Antioquia which he bought for $63 million. It was here he built his luxurious ranch, Hacienda Nápoles , which included a zoo featuring around 200 animals (including elephants, giraffes, and hippos), a lake, sculpture garden, air-strip, private bullring, football pitch, tennis court, artificial lakes, and numerous other amenities for his family and the cartel.

Escobar paid his staff generously, and gained a reputation for philanthropic efforts, spending millions developing some of Medellín’s most impoverished neighbourhoods, building housing, parks, football stadiums, hospitals, schools, and churches, leaving a complex legacy of both criminality and social investment.

By the late 1980s, Escobar’s wealth was such that he reportedly offered to pay off Colombia’s $10 billion debt in exchange for exemption from any extradition treaty. During his final years on the run, he famously reportedly burned $2 million to keep his daughter warm.

Entrance to Hacienda Nápoles, the luxurious estate built and owned by Pablo Escobar in Puerto Triunfo, Antioquia Department, Colombia

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons / XalD / CC BY 3.0

‘Plata o plomo’

Escobar’s dominance of the cocaine trade was characterised by corruption, intimidation, and violence. His guiding principle was ‘plata o plomo’ (‘silver or lead’) – effectively meaning ‘bribes or bullets’. Throughout his reign, he systematically  bribed and intimidated Colombian law enforcement agencies, public officials and political candidates.

The financial backing provided by both the Medellín Cartel and its rival, the Cali Cartel, to political candidates had a profound impact on Colombian politics. These cartels were able to exert influence at every level of government, enabling them to manipulate political processes, bribe politicians, and effectively control the political landscape.

The Medellín Cartel was not only engaged in a battle against rival drug cartels, but also resorted to a reign of terror when Escobar introduced the concept of ‘narco-terrorism’, employing tactics such as bombings, assassinations, and extortion to maintain control over Colombia and to intimidate rivals and enemies. The Medellín Cartel’s ruthlessness knew no bounds, operating with total impunity.

Escobar’s criminal empire resulted in the deaths of around 4,000 people who dared to challenge his reign, including police officers, government officials, journalists, and judges. Under his influence, Colombia became the murder capital of the world, marked by unimaginable violence and corruption.

In the 1980s, Escobar’s influence and popularity amongst many Colombians prompted him to enter politics, where he played a significant role in the formation of the Liberal Party of Colombia. He was elected to an alternate sea in the country’s Congress in 1982, and in this capacity, further developed community projects, earning him popularity and support among the local population in the areas he frequented. Now a public figure, his philanthropic efforts led to his nickname as a modern-day ‘ Robin Hood Paisa’ . 

Escobar’s political position granted him parliamentary immunity and a diplomatic passport. However, his political career faced opposition when t he new Minister of Justice, Rodrigo Lara-Bonilla, accused him of criminal activities. Lara-Bonilla launched an investigation into Escobar’s 1976 arrest, and a few months later, Liberal leader Luis Carlos Galán expelled Escobar from the party. 

Although Escobar fought back, after a campaign to expose his criminal activities he announced his retirement from politics in January 1984. Three months later, Lara-Bonilla was assassinated.  Escobar’s political ambitions were further thwarted by the Colombian and America governments, who continually pushed for his arrest and extradition to America.

Left: Pablo Escobar Gaviria, circa (1984). Right: Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara (centre) and presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán (left) were both assassinated by orders of Escobar

Image Credit: Left: Alamy / The Hollywood Archive. Right: Wikimedia Commons / Flickr.com/people/ivanmarulanda/ CC BY 2.0

Fight against extradition and ‘narco-terrorism’

In the mid-1980s, Escobar waged a campaign against the Colombian judiciary, bribing and murdering several judges to further his objectives. In 1985, Escobar requested the Colombian government allow his conditional surrender without extradition to America.

When this was denied, Escobar founded the Los Extraditable Organisation to fight extradition policies. This organisation was subsequently implicated in obstructing the Colombian Supreme Court from studying the constitutionality of Colombia’s extradition treaty with America.

In retaliation, the Colombian Judiciary Building was attacked, resulting in the deaths of half of the Supreme Court’s justices. The violence escalated, leading the Supreme Court to subsequently declare that the previous extradition treaty was illegal in late 1986 because it had been signed by a presidential delegation, not the president.

However, Escobar’s victory over the judiciary was short-lived, as the new Colombian president, Virgilio Barco Vargas, promptly renewed the extradition agreement with America.

Escobar’s grudge against Luis Carlos Galán, who had removed him from politics, led to Galán’s assassination in August 1989. In further retaliation, one of Escobar’s most notorious acts of narco-terrorism included his alleged orchestration of the bombing of Avianca Flight 203 in 1989, which killed all 107 people on board in an attempt to assassinate Galán’s successor, César Gaviria Trujillo. Gaviria missed the plane and survived. Escobar’s involvement in this, as well as the bombings of DAS (Department of Security) buildings, prompted direct US government intervention due to the killing of two Americans in the Avianca bombing.

La Catedral

The US government recognised the grave threat posed by the Medellín Cartel and initiated a massive effort to apprehend Escobar and dismantle his cartel empire. American and Colombian authorities cooperated extensively in an unprecedented manhunt, spanning years and involving multiple countries. 

The newly approved Colombian Constitution of 1991 prohibited the extradition of Colombian citizens to America. However, this was a controversial act, as it was suspected that Escobar and other drug lords had exerted influence over members of the Constituent Assembly to pass the legislation.

Nevertheless, later that year , Escobar negotiated with the government, offering to turn himself in to authorities and cease all criminal activity in exchange for a reduced sentence of five years’ imprisonment, and preferential treatment during this captivity.  Colombian officials agreed to the terms, and Escobar was housed in his own, luxurious, self-built private prison, La Catedral . This ‘prison’ featured a football pitch, giant dollhouse, nightclub, bar, jacuzzi, sauna, and even a waterfall.

The bedroom of the luxurious private prison, La Catedral, where Pablo Escobar was confined

The kingpin’s fall

Despite this highly reasonable deal, reports emerged that Escobar had tortured and killed two cartel members while at La Catedral , prompting the government’s decision to move him to a more conventional jail on 22 July 1992. However, Escobar’s influence had enabled him to discover the plan in advance, and he successfully escaped, abandoning his opulent lifestyle and living in hiding while on the run as a fugitive.

This led to a nationwide manhunt; Escobar faced threats from the Colombian police, the US government, and the rival Cali Cartel – leading to the Medellín Cartel’s downfall. A period of intense surveillance and tracking culminated in a large-scale operation on 2 December 1993 when Colombian special forces, with technological assistance from America, located Escobar’s hideout in a middle-class neighbourhood in Medellín.

An attempt to arrest Escobar quickly escalated, leading to gunfire exchanges. In the end, authorities stormed the building, resulting in the death of Pablo Escobar and his bodyguard as they tried to escape from the rooftop. Escobar sustained multiple gunshot wounds, including one to the head. This prompted speculation that Escobar had killed himself, especially as he had once expressed a preference for a grave in Colombia over a jail cell in America.

Nevertheless, his death, one day after his 44th birthday, marked the end of an era.

Pablo Escobar’s legacy continues to loom large – not only as a notorious criminal but as a cultural phenomenon.

While many decried the heinous nature of his crimes, in Colombia, he was perceived by some as a Robin Hood-like figure, particularly in Medellín, where he was credited with providing amenities to the city’s poor that the government had not. Indeed Escobar’s funeral drew over 25,000 people, and his memory remains influential.

His former private estate, Hacienda Nápoles , was given to low-income families by the government, and also converted into a theme park surrounded by four luxury hotels overlooking Escobar’s zoo. (Most of the zoo’s animals were transferred to other zoos, yet 4 hippos were left behind. By 2014, 40 hippos were reported to exist in the area, and by 2021, Colombian authorities began a chemical sterilisation program to control the hippo population.)

The city of Medellín, Colombia, where Escobar grew up and began his criminal career

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons / seth pipkin 2007 / CC BY-SA 2.0

Escobar’s life story has been the subject of numerous books, films, and television series, most notably Narcos , serving as a cautionary tale about the immense power organised crime can amass, the devastating consequences and effects of the drug trade, the corruption it breeds, and its tragic human cost.

Although Escobar’s death marked the end of his reign, it did not signal the end of the drug trade, or its challenges. The Cali Cartel dominated the cocaine market in the years following Escobar’s demise. In Colombia, memories of Escobar’s reign of terror remain vivid. While Colombia has made significant progress in curbing drug violence and improving security since his death, the drug trade and associated violence have not been entirely eradicated, and challenges persist.

In America, the pursuit and eventual downfall of Pablo Escobar represented a turning point in the fight against drug cartels, underscoring the importance of international cooperation in addressing transnational crime, and laying the groundwork for further efforts to combat the drug trade .

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The History of Advent

Pablo Escobar

An international drug kingpin with a cult following, Pablo Escobar is legendary for his infamy, but he began his life with rather modest roots. Born to a simple farmer, no one ever dreamed Escobar would become the number one drug dealer in the world. He carved out a drug empire in the city of Medellín, Colombia and the surrounding Aburrá Valley and Andes mountain range. 

Inside you will read about...

✓ The Son of a Farmhand ✓ Pablo’s Political Career ✓ The Hit Job ✓ Palace of Justice Siege ✓ Prison Break and Manhunt ✓ Escobar’s Rooftop Death And much more!

As Escobar gained wealth and prestige off of the cocaine trade, he became a kind of populist Robin Hood to the masses. He often used his money for philanthropist purposes such as building parks and soccer stadiums and even helping to pave highways. At first the government was willing to turn a blind eye to his business practices, but once Escobar gained a seat as an official alternate representative in the Colombian Congress everything changed. And by 1993 he was on the run, not just from the Colombian government but also from the CIA, rival drug cartels, paramilitary groups, and the ever-infamous vigilante death squad Los Pepes. Cornered and with nowhere left to run, the man who used to be known to raise the roof would spend his last few moments of life bleeding to death on a rooftop. This is the story of Pablo Escobar.

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The Afterlife of Pablo Escobar

By Jon Lee Anderson

Audio: Listen to this story. To hear more feature stories, download the Audm app for your iPhone.

When Roberto Escobar was the head accountant for the Medellín cartel, in the nineteen-eighties, he handled billions of dollars a year—so much cash that he sometimes resorted to stuffing it in plastic bags and burying it in the countryside. Known as El Osito, or Little Bear, he was the older brother of the narcotrafficker Pablo Escobar, who was then among the richest men in the world, responsible for a drug-smuggling empire that extended from Colombia to a dozen other countries. Although Roberto was never as extravagant as his brother, he was accustomed to flying on private jets, and sent his children to a Swiss boarding school. Once, during an extended hike through the forest to elude capture, he threw a briefcase containing a hundred thousand dollars into a river, because it was heavy.

These days, Roberto Escobar, having served fourteen years in prison, earns money by leading tourists around one of his family’s former safe houses. The house, a bungalow of white painted brick, can be reached by a gated driveway off a steep mountain road, roughly halfway between the Envigado plateau, where Pablo Escobar grew up, and the middle-class neighborhood in Medellín where he was gunned down by Colombian police, in 1993. One recent morning, a group of visitors from the United States and Europe arrived in a chauffeured van—part of a growing influx of narcoturistas, who come to see the places where Pablo Escobar lived and worked. Roberto, seventy-one, still looked like an accountant; he wore khakis, a blue short-sleeved shirt, and thick-rimmed spectacles. While he was in prison, a letter bomb delivered to his cell exploded, leaving him blind in his right eye and deaf in his right ear. His damaged eye was a milky blue, and he periodically squirted drops of medicine into it.

Roberto was a gruff tour guide, hustling guests from room to room, but his visitors seemed too awestruck to complain. An exterior wall was speckled with ragged bullet holes, the result of a kidnapping attempt. Inside, a Jet Ski—supposedly one that Roger Moore used in a James Bond film—sat near a photograph of Escobar driving it across bright-blue water. Beneath a writing desk in the living room, Escobar lifted a plank to reveal a hidden compartment. “We could fit two million dollars there,” he said, then peremptorily dropped the plank. In the dining room, he pointed to an oil painting of a brown stallion, a racehorse named Earthquake. Angrily, he recounted how enemies had stolen the horse from him and returned it castrated. Shaking his head, he said, “No act of violence is justified.”

In 2014, Roberto founded a holding company, Escobar, Inc., to license the family name. But he is a minor player in a growing industry. An increasing number of people who knew Pablo Escobar—employees, relatives, and enemies—are trying to sell versions of his epic life and death, encouraging a cottage industry of books, television shows, and documentaries. Along with the narcotours that operate out of Medellín, there are souvenir venders selling Escobar baseball caps, ashtrays, mugs, and key rings; Escobar T-shirts are displayed next to soccer jerseys and Pope Francis memorabilia.

In the past few years, Hollywood has examined his story in a series of films: “ Escobar: Paradise Lost ” (Benicio Del Toro; innocent surfer drawn into drug web), “ The Infiltrator ” (Bryan Cranston; double agent), “Loving Pablo” (Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem; clandestine romance with kingpin), and “ American Made ” (Tom Cruise; pilot turns Escobar crony turns informant). The depiction most responsible for the tourist boom is the Netflix series “Narcos,” in which the Brazilian actor Wagner Moura plays Escobar as both psychopath and doting family man—a Latin American Tony Soprano. Netflix does not disclose viewership numbers, but the audience for the show, which will launch its fourth season this year, has been estimated at three million. In 2016, Escobar, Inc., sent a letter to Netflix, demanding reparations for appropriating the family story; in a subsequent interview with the Hollywood Reporter , Roberto said that if he wasn’t paid a billion dollars he would “close their little show.” (Escobar and Netflix declined to comment on the possibility of a settlement.)

No one disputes that Pablo Escobar was a murderer, a torturer, and a kidnapper. But he was loved by many in Medellín, and, increasingly, he is an object of fascination abroad. At his zenith, he was the most notorious outlaw on the planet, with control of some eighty per cent of the cocaine entering the U.S. and of a fortune estimated at three billion dollars. In many respects, he remains Colombia’s most famous citizen, a charismatic entrepreneur of boundless ambition who delighted in his Robin Hood image, even as he killed thousands of people to subvert the government. In Colombia, his legacy touches nearly everyone, but few people agree on whether his story should be seen as entertainment or as a cautionary tale.

At the end of the tour, Roberto posed for selfies with visitors and autographed photos of Escobar, along with copies of his memoir, a slim volume titled “My Brother Pablo.” (“My mother still recalls that, from the time he was a little boy, Pablo used to tell her, ‘I want to be a lawyer and have a good car.’ ”) The tourists handed payments to a group of wolfish young men who served as Roberto’s assistants. Before I left, I asked him why his brother continued to inspire people around the world. “It’s because Pablo helped the poorest people of this country,” he replied. It was a kind of catechism; he did not explain further. When I asked if his brother was a good man, he shrugged and said, “To me he was.”

In the old city center of Medellín is a street of funeral parlors. On a bright morning, I went there to meet Jesús Correa, an employee at one of the funeral homes and one of the first people to appreciate the mythic quality of Escobar’s life.

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Correa, an amiable man of sixty-three, was bald and corpulent, and dressed in a gray suit, a pink shirt, and a burgundy tie. He took me for a walk, and, two blocks from the funeral home, we came to an open-air café, painted bright yellow and orange, where men sat drinking beer and watching soccer on television. “Here is where it all began,” Correa said. In the early seventies, the café was called Las Dos Tortugas—the Two Turtles—and it was a favored meeting place for robbers and smugglers. A dropout from Medellín’s Universidad Autónoma, Escobar had gone into business selling stolen tombstones and contraband American cigarettes. He began hanging out with the crowd at Las Dos Tortugas, coming and going on a Lambretta motorbike. Colombia’s drug trade was flourishing, although in those days it was mostly marijuana, which the locals called marimba. Escobar found his niche as the U.S. cocaine market began to take off.

Correa ran his own hustle out of the funeral home, which was owned by a friend: he bought contraband French perfume from a contact in Panama, then sold it in Medellín. One day, one of Escobar’s pistoleros—low-level shooters—summoned him to Las Dos Tortugas and asked if he could get Cartier and Chanel. When Correa assured him he could, the pistolero gave him an order. After that, the gangsters started buying perfume for their girlfriends, and Correa became known as El Perfumero.

Correa took pleasure in associating with men who had monikers like Filth and Spider. The cartel’s sicarios, or hit men, operated out of an oil-change shop not far from the funeral home; a group of more than a hundred gathered there to plot killings, kidnappings, and bombings. Some were policemen, who came to change out of their uniforms and then attack their colleagues. Correa was fascinated, and gradually he became a welcome visitor. “Why did I do it?” he said. “Out of prurient interest, I think, pure and simple. As a boy, I read a book about the Untouchables of Eliot Ness, and I was magnetized by the Chicago gangsters of the time—Al Capone, Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly. With the criminals I was getting to know here, I thought, One day I’ll write a book. My friends warned me that I would be dead within six months.”

One day, he recalled, some Escobar men began discussing a murder they were planning. “I got up, as if to leave the room, but one of them said, ‘Stay. We trust you.’ I stayed.” Correa realized that he had crossed a line. “I’m a big reader of World War Two histories,” he said. “And something I’ve always noticed is that, for those who were in the concentration camps, a moment comes when they became accustomed to everything going on around them.” Correa waved to the streets around us. “I mean, I suffered over what was happening, the violence. But the morbid curiosity—you know, it was like Alka-Seltzer. I felt something here, inside me.” Correa made an itching motion with his fingers around his stomach, and smiled.

When Escobar began to establish himself as a public figure, in the early eighties, he found other people willing to tell his story without judgment. In April, 1983, the weekly magazine Semana published an article titled “Un Robin Hood Paisa.” ( Paisa is the local term for the people of Antioquia province, which contains Medellín.) Semana described Escobar as a politically ambitious and civic-minded thirty-three-year-old businessman who owned an immense private ranch and a fleet of helicopters and airplanes. The magazine evaded questions about the origin of Escobar’s fortune, saying only that it was “the subject of widespread speculation.”

Escobar had recently mounted a campaign for Congress, in which he spent freely in Medellín’s poorer neighborhoods. He had initially tried to join a branch of Colombia’s mainstream Liberal Party, led by a popular young politician named Luis Carlos Galán, but he was thwarted when Galán denounced him as a mafioso. Escobar, undaunted, joined a different branch of the Party, with the help of a powerful, corrupt senator named Alberto Santofimio.

Escobar made it to Congress, and began working to build a political constituency in and around Medellín. “His civic vocation seems to know no limits,” Semana gushed. “His civic works include entire neighborhoods, football fields, lighting systems, reforestation programs, donations of tractors, bulldozers, etc. At the moment he is moving forward with a program to build a thousand homes on a giant lot he owns. He bought it with the idea of building a neighborhood to relocate hundreds of poor families from the slums of Medellín, and he’s already given jobs to some in his construction firm.”

For anyone looking, though, the real reasons for Escobar’s interest in politics were clear. “His main political preoccupation right now is the extradition of Colombians,” Semana said. “For him, this treaty, whereby Colombians who reside in their own country but who have issues in the United States can be handed over to the authorities of that country, constitutes ‘a violation of national sovereignty.’ ”

His electoral ambitions did not go very far. He was soon denounced as a gangster by Colombia’s justice minister, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla. Escobar fought back, falsely accusing the minister of being in the pocket of narcos. But then an influential newspaper editor named Guillermo Cano dug up an old news story showing that Escobar had been arrested, seven years before, for the possession of thirty-nine pounds of cocaine. Escobar was ejected from Congress, and the F.B.I. began investigating him. He went underground, and a long hunt began.

In March, 1984, Colombian and American agents raided the cartel’s headquarters. Known as Tranquilandia, it was a huge complex that contained at least seven laboratories, various airstrips, and more than a billion dollars’ worth of cocaine. A month later, Escobar had his revenge, when two of his men, riding a motorbike, ambushed Lara Bonilla’s car in Bogotá, killing him instantly.

Escobar spent seven years as a fugitive, but his concern was less the Colombian justice system than the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. To force the state to withdraw from its extradition treaty with the U.S., he and his partners offered bounties on judges and prosecutors, in warnings that were signed “The Extraditables.” The cartel’s sicarios killed thousands of people, including more than two hundred and fifty policemen in Medellín. In 1986, his men murdered Cano, and they machine-gunned his old political enemy Luis Carlos Galán at a Presidential-campaign appearance in 1989. Many civilians were also killed, including the hundred and seven passengers and crew of an Avianca plane that Escobar had ordered blown up, in 1989, because he believed—wrongly, it turned out—that another uncoöperative politician was on board. To force the government to negotiate, he abducted prominent Colombians, many of them journalists, including the daughter of a former President. Escobar’s guiding principle was plata o plomo , meaning silver or lead—either you took his money or you got a bullet.

Another Netflix series, the sixty-part “Surviving Escobar,” is based on a memoir by Jhon Jairo (Popeye) Velásquez, one of Escobar’s top sicarios. Since completing a twenty-three-year prison sentence, in 2014, Popeye has taken advantage of Escobar’s resurgent glamour. In addition to the Netflix series, he has a YouTube show, “Repentant Popeye,” in which he films himself telling stories from the old days, commenting on the news, insulting his enemies (“despicable rats!”), and haranguing soccer managers who don’t meet his expectations. Despite the show’s name, Popeye doesn’t seem very repentant. He frequently expresses admiration for Escobar, whom he calls El Patrón, and cheerfully acknowledges his crimes; he admits to having murdered more than two hundred and fifty people, including several leading politicians, and to having helped orchestrate the killings of some three thousand more. For the many Colombians who are ashamed to be associated with Escobar’s memory, Popeye’s brazenness is infuriating. His fans love it. The YouTube show has some six hundred thousand subscribers, mostly young, right-wing men.

I met Popeye at his apartment, on the top floor of a newly built red brick tower, in a gentrifying neighborhood of Medellín. A slim, youthful man in his mid-fifties, with short-cropped silver hair and a camera-ready smile, he wore jeans and a black T-shirt, and his neck and arms were tattooed. Both of his forearms bore the phrase “El General de la Mafia,” surrounded by skeletons and death’s heads.

The apartment had the feeling of a studio set. In the living room, a large window looked out on an adjacent apartment tower, and a camera on a tripod was placed near it. On the walls, an oil painting showed two cocks fighting against a black backdrop; another depicted an army of sperm breaking into eggs. Between them hung a number of masks, of the kind used in sadomasochistic rituals, including a replica of the one that Hannibal Lecter wore in “ The Silence of the Lambs .” Popeye explained that he liked them because they reminded him of death, and “death is part of life.”

The narcoturistas are coming to Colombia in part because the country is experiencing unusual stability, after decades of vicious fighting. In 2016, the government, led by President Juan Manuel Santos, signed a peace treaty with the Marxist guerrilla army known as the FARC , ending a half-century insurgency. Popeye wanted no part of it. “There’ll never be peace here in Colombia,” he said. In his view, Santos was “a professional traitor,” and the treaty threatened Colombia’s integrity by allowing Communists to run for office.

Popeye was not opposed to violence. He was happy to acknowledge that Escobar, trying to cultivate allies to fight against rival criminal groups, had helped form a string of brutal right-wing paramilitaries; he spoke warmly of the former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who has frequently been accused of aiding the paramilitaries’ work. (In a declassified 1991 Defense Intelligence document, Uribe also was named as a collaborator of Escobar’s. Uribe denies the accusations. However, his brother is on trial for leading a terror group, and numerous associates of his have been imprisoned for similar crimes.) “We need an ultra-right-wing government here to stop Colombia from succumbing to Communism,” Popeye declared. He gestured toward the mountains ringing Medellín—a stronghold of paramilitaries—and said, “There are already fifteen thousand armed men in these mountains. The day the FARC takes power, we’ll become two hundred thousand, and, if we include the cities, altogether we’ll be five hundred thousand. It’ll be financed by industrialists, and the combustible ingredient to all of this will be cocaine.” He saw himself as a key player in this future war, calling himself “the most experienced Colombian” in matters of violence.

He had killed innocent people, he said, and cut victims into pieces, but had done so because his enemies had done that to his people, too. Anyway, in those days it had been his job. He had been fighting what he thought was a war against a corrupt state and its extradition treaty with the United States. How did he sleep at night? By getting in bed, pulling up the covers, and closing his eyes. He didn’t have time, he said, to andar con maricadas —to mess around with fairy shit.

Popeye complained that he had done his time and had helped prosecutors with investigations, but still the authorities interfered with his efforts to make a living, through his books and films. On his YouTube show, he claims that the police frequently stop him to ask questions about being involved in the cocaine trade. “Look around,” he said. “I live simply. My apartment is nothing fancy, and my car is ordinary.”

In December, 2016, he appeared in a video wielding a semi-automatic pistol and telling his followers, “Hello, warriors. I’m here in the streets of my beloved Medellín. I found my beautiful 9-millimetre Pietro Beretta. We’re testing it—we’re firing it. It’s a doll, a beauty.” Popeye complained that Medellín’s mayor had made a fuss, despite the fact that it was a stunt gun. Popeye stood and retrieved the gun, and, holding it by the barrel, he handed it to me. It was heavy, and looked real. “See?” he said. Understanding that he meant to demonstrate that the gun was fake, I pointed the pistol at his cockfight painting and pulled the trigger. The apartment exploded with the bang. Popeye looked startled, and went to the door and opened it. The hallway was empty. “Where are the neighbors?” he said. “Not a soul. I could be murdered here and nobody would come.” I told him that I didn’t entirely blame his neighbors. Popeye laughed.

Before I left, Popeye took a moment to endorse his latest production: an Internet-only film called “X Sicario Professional,” about a man who is released from prison and has to return to his city and take out the mafia don. He autographed a DVD copy for me. Knowing that I planned to see the mayor, he dedicated another to him, and asked me to give it to him on his behalf.

Since becoming mayor, in 2016, Federico Gutiérrez has waged a campaign to reject what he calls “the past”—the legacy of narcotrafficking and violence. At the peak of Escobar’s rampage, Medellín was the murder capital of the world, with more than six thousand homicides in 1991. In the past two decades, it has transformed itself, with significant investments in public transport, including a cable car that links the hillside slums to the city center, and a revamped downtown, with a botanical garden, a concert area, and an interactive science museum for children. Many of the city’s slums, called comunas, are still controlled by gangs, but security has improved; last year, there were five hundred and seventy-seven murders. For the Mayor, understandably, Popeye represents a public-relations problem.

Gutiérrez met me at his office downtown. A slender man of forty-three, he wears his hair long, in the manner of a soccer player, and favors jeans and dress shirts with the top button loose. Politically, he is right of center. Gutiérrez grimaced when I told him I had met Popeye, and said, “Everything we are doing today to fight against narcotrafficking is because of what they did in the eighties.” He had grown up during the violence, and still marvelled at the turnaround. “This is no longer the city of Pablo Escobar,” Gutiérrez declared. “This is the city Pablo Escobar tried, but failed, to destroy.” When I gave Gutiérrez his dedicated copy of “X Sicario,” he looked disgusted and handed it back to me, holding it with two fingers as if it were contagious. “I can’t accept this,” he said. “Seeing Popeye back on the street is an offense to society and to his victims. But these are the laws.”

Last March, the American rapper Wiz Khalifa, in Medellín for a concert, visited Escobar’s grave; later, he posted on Instagram images of himself smoking a joint at the tomb, along with the message “Smokin wit Pablo.” Gutiérrez had gone on television to call the rapper a sinverguenza —a shameless ruffian—and to say that he should have brought flowers to Escobar’s victims instead. Later, Wiz Khalifa posted an apology on Instagram, saying, “Didn’t mean to offend anyone with my personal activities. . . . Peace and love.” Still, Gutiérrez could barely contain himself at the memory. “We have to stop the narcoculture,” he said. “Wiz Khalifa thought he could come here and make an apologia for crime but found out that he couldn’t.”

Gutiérrez told me that he and his team were fighting to reclaim Medellín’s story. “If you don’t tell your history yourself, others will tell it for you,” he said. Soon he would be inaugurating a new exhibit at the city’s Museum of Memory, “to show the victims’ side of the story,” Gutiérrez said. “We’re not going to conceal the true history, but we don’t want those who did so much harm to be able to show themselves off as heroes. The real heroes are their victims. We want to be a symbol of what happened—a city that collapsed but got to its feet again.” When I mentioned that I had been on Roberto Escobar’s tour, Gutiérrez blanched, and said, “We’ll also do a tour—an official tour.”

The unofficial tours frequently stop at the Monaco Building, an eight-story brutalist apartment tower of reinforced concrete, in the affluent Poblado district, that Escobar built for his family. In 1988, his rivals in the Cali drug cartel placed a powerful car bomb outside the Monaco; Escobar’s mother, wife, and children were inside the tower, and though they sustained no serious injuries, they fled and did not return. Gutiérrez said that he planned to demolish the building and create a park in its place. He’d needed to win over the Medellín police, who had wanted to refurbish it as an intelligence headquarters. Gutiérrez told me that he was waiting for one last signature. When he got it, he said, he would invite me to watch the demolition.

In a gruesome scene from the first season of “Narcos,” Escobar murders two trafficking partners, whom he suspects of withholding money. He kills the first one by beating him to death with a pool cue; when he is finished, his face and clothing spattered with blood, his men beat the other one to death. The story on which the scene is based is hardly less gruesome. According to Popeye’s testimony, the two victims, Fernando Galeano and Gerardo Moncada, were shot, cut into pieces, and incinerated in a fire pit.

Both the imagined scene and the real killings took place in La Catedral, the prison where Escobar was held after striking a deal to turn himself in, in 1991. An unused drug-rehabilitation center that was renovated to house Escobar, La Catedral occupied a secluded spot on the forested edges of the Envigado plateau, with spectacular views of Medellín. In the deal, Escobar agreed to spend a few years there, in exchange for the government’s commitment not to extradite him to the United States. The prison did little to restrain him; his sicarios served as guards, and he remained involved in the cocaine trade. The key intermediary for his surrender was Rafael García Herreros, an octogenarian priest who had previously accepted Escobar’s gift of a “very beautiful hacienda” on behalf of his church, and had gone on television to insist that he had done nothing wrong. “When one fulfills the will of God, there is no corruption,” he said.

The road to La Catedral is winding and steep, full of switchbacks and narrow bridges that hang over mountain streams. On the morning of my visit, clouds obscured the valley, and everything was damp. La Catedral, at the top, is now a charitable home for elderly people, run by a Benedictine abbot, Elkin Ramiro Vélez García. On the exterior wall, a billboard-size photograph shows the place as it was in Escobar’s day; a picture of him, wearing a Russian fur hat, bears the caption “He who does not know his history is condemned to repeat it.”

In the main plaza—a parklike area with naïve mosaic murals—several dozen residents warmed themselves in the morning sun. Others drank coffee in a cheerful mess hall, adorned with mounted bull’s heads and old Coca-Cola advertisements. The visible remnants of the prison were set back, at the edges of the forest. There was what remained of Escobar’s bedroom—a concrete pad, overgrown with jungle—and two guard towers. A large brick structure, once a video arcade for Escobar’s men, had been repurposed as an administration building. The plaza had once been a soccer field, where Escobar played with his men.

Father Elkin, a clean-shaven man in his early fifties, wearing a black soutane and a large crucifix, waved me into his office next to the mess hall. He said that Escobar—Pablo, as he called him—had chosen the site for his prison because he knew it well: it was an area where he used to have people killed and their bodies disposed of. “He did many, many, many bad things here,” Father Elkin said. “But he also did wonderful things.” This was a tendentious view but not an uncommon one, especially in Escobar’s early years. The Semana story had spoken of his “desire to be the country’s number one benefactor.” Old comrades told me that they were attracted by his professed commitment to building a “Medellín without slums.” Popeye insisted that Escobar “was really a socialist—he just had a different kind of socialism in mind, where everyone would have his own little car, his own little house.” He had paid for the construction of a neighborhood that became known as Barrio Pablo Escobar: five hundred houses and several soccer fields.

After he was pushed out of Congress, though, his largesse became a more direct exchange of money for influence. His bribes went to police officers and judges, but also to residents of the comunas. Father Elkin recalled that once, on a soccer field in a nearby community called El Dorado, he’d watched Escobar hand out money to the poor. “He did many things for those who were helped by no one else, and he did so always in the company of the Church. The priest would go to see Pablo and always leave with his briefcase full. Was this evil? We would have to define evil to decide that.” He raised his voice, as if speaking from the pulpit: “The Church has also done bad, bad things in the name of God! It will be God who judges us.”

Father Elkin said that Popeye—“a very good friend of mine”—came frequently to La Catedral, bringing tourists and a crew of bodyguards. Most of the narcotours were “pure silliness,” he said. “The guides tell the tourists anything that comes into their heads. For instance, I made an outdoor oven to incinerate the diapers of the old folks. Then I found out the guides were telling their tourists that it was where Pablo burned people!” He shook his head. “Popeye, on the other hand, tells his tourists the truth. For example, he talks about the asado de los Moncada”—the Moncada barbecue. When Escobar’s men burned the bodies of Moncada and Galeano, they arranged to have a barbecue the same evening, to disguise the smoke and the smell.

The killings, it turned out, helped dislodge Escobar from his comfortable imprisonment. When the visitors did not return from La Catedral, rumors spread that Escobar had killed them. A few weeks later, in July, 1992, the government attempted to move Escobar to a more secure facility, and he escaped in the process. For more than a year, he was pursued by a coalition of his enemies: the D.E.A. and the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command; a Colombian police team called the Search Bloc; and a death squad of criminal rivals that called itself Los Pepes—short for People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar.

On December 2, 1993, police traced a phone call between Escobar and his son, Juan Pablo, to a safe house in the Los Pinos neighborhood of Medellín. Colombian special forces swooped in. Escobar was killed at the house, felled by three bullets as he stood on its red tiled roof. He was bearded and barefoot, in jeans; a photograph circulated of him lying face down, his belly spilling out of a blue polo shirt. The Colombian artist Fernando Botero, noted for his fleshy, whimsical portrayals of people and animals, reimagined the scene in a heroic oil painting. “The Death of Pablo Escobar” shows him standing on the rooftop with gun in hand, while bullets whiz around him, like insects pestering a giant. It hangs in the Museo de Antioquia, in downtown Medellín.

It is an item of faith among Escobar’s family members that he killed himself before the authorities could get to him. Father Elkin wasn’t even convinced that Escobar had really died. “If you ask me whether Pablo is dead, I would say I don’t believe he is,” he said. “He was a sagacious, astute man.” He waved his arms around, as if to suggest that Escobar could be anywhere, still in hiding. He said that Popeye had told him that there were still bodies buried around La Catedral, in graves dug on his orders. (Popeye denies this.) Some of the elderly residents believed that La Catedral was haunted, Father Elkin said. They had seen and heard things. “Ghosts?” I asked. “Not ghosts—spirits,” he clarified. They had appeared to him, too. Sometimes they tapped him on the shoulder.

In Medellín’s Montesacro cemetery, I found a fresh bouquet of pastel-colored flowers in a vase next to Escobar’s tomb. The family plot is situated in a prominent spot next to the chapel, and flanked by graceful cypresses. On a slab of black marble, gold script spelled out “Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, December 1, 1949–December 2, 1993.” El Patrón had turned forty-four the day before his death. His parents were buried alongside him, as was his bodyguard Limón, who was with him when he died.

Two young men stood quietly in front of Escobar’s tomb, occasionally murmuring in French. At last, one of them walked to a marble bench opposite the tomb and sat in a pose of reverent contemplation. I was reminded of a YouTube video of Popeye paying homage to Escobar after he got out of prison. He knelt in front of the tomb, his eyes closed, like a choirboy about to receive the Sacrament.

Colombians have spent decades trying to reconcile the ecstatic remembrances of Escobar with the mayhem he produced. In 1993, the novelist Gabriel García Márquez began grappling with his legacy in “News of a Kidnapping.” The book told the stories of the Colombians Escobar had abducted, as he tried to force the government to disallow his extradition. García Márquez described Escobar as a monstrous Pied Piper: “At the height of his splendor, people put up altars with his picture and lit candles to him in the slums of Medellín. It was believed he could perform miracles. No Colombian in history ever possessed or exercised a talent like his for shaping public opinion. And none had a greater power to corrupt. The most unsettling and dangerous aspect of his personality was his total inability to distinguish between good and evil.”

After Escobar’s death, the journalist Alonso Salazar set out to write a biography that would deflate the legend. In 2001, after several years of interviews with Escobar’s relatives, friends, and enemies, he published “The Pablo Parable.” Where García Márquez had suggested that Escobar had subjected Colombia to a kind of national hypnosis, Salazar suggested that he had merely been a conduit for the country’s bigotry and violent impulses. “The Escobar story calls into question Colombia’s entire society—its political and economic elites, and the armed forces—as to the coherence of our state and our capacity to build a nation where it is possible for everyone to live dignified lives,” he wrote. “It’s also a questioning of the international community, especially the United States, for its deceit in maintaining a war, the so-called war against drugs, which has . . . created criminality and destruction of life and nature that is beyond any precedent.”

Salazar later entered politics, serving as mayor of Medellín from 2008 to 2011, and was involved in many of the city’s recent reforms. One evening, I met him at his home to discuss Escobar’s legacy. “There is a resurrection of Escobar,” he lamented, and he wondered if he had been partly to blame. His book about Escobar had been adapted for a television series, “El Patrón del Mal,” which began airing in 2012 and attracted obsessive fans across Latin America. “The series is balanced,” he said. “It shows the victims, too, and the generals who fought Escobar. But I don’t think that’s what the public watched it for. They watched it to see Escobar.”

When Salazar signed over the rights, he felt confident that the producers would not glamorize Escobar. One of them, Camilo Cano, was the son of the murdered newspaper editor; the other, Juana Uribe, was the daughter of a former Escobar hostage and a niece of a murdered politician. Still, the portrait of Escobar was ambivalent, and some viewers were offended. At a panel discussion in 2013, Uribe recalled, “A woman once asked me, ‘Why did you portray Pablo Escobar as loving with his children?’ And I told her, ‘Because that’s how psychopaths are: loving with their kids—and murderers.’ And we need to understand that, if we’re going to stop falling in love with psychopaths.” She insisted that she had not wanted to make Escobar a hero. “Escobar kidnapped my mother, killed my uncle.” But, she said, “a person that was able to do what Escobar did has also a normal face. And people have to learn that that’s the way people are, they have two sides.”

Uribe bemoaned the appeal of antiheroes: “People love bandits, no matter what we do.” (As if to confirm her point, Popeye told me about his youthful fascination with “Scarface,” in which Al Pacino plays a Cuban immigrant who becomes a cocaine kingpin. “That was the life we wanted to live!” he exclaimed.) But “El Patrón del Mal” made it clear that, in a profoundly unequal country, Escobar represented a form of economic mobility. “When there are no regular paths to get out of where you are, the bandit is the one who makes it—the one who can jump ahead,” Uribe said. He also appealed to a perverse sense of patriotism. The oath of Los Extraditables—“Better a tomb in Colombia than a cell in the United States”—resonated with Latin Americans sensitive about Yankee intervention.

“El Patrón del Mal” joined a wave of narconovelas—soap operas featuring drug traffickers—that are notably less concerned with ethical implications. One of the first, “Without Tits, You Don’t Get to Heaven,” revolves around a young woman, Catalina, who tries to make her way out of poverty by becoming a prostitute for narcos, getting breast implants to make herself more desirable. Despite the hand-wringing of politicians and journalists, the shows have resonated with people who have little faith in the state. As the Fordham anthropologist O. Hugo Benavides has written, “Narconovelas set up an alternative moral political structure in which the state, government, politicians, law enforcement, bureaucrats, and soldiers are seldom portrayed as the good guys. The heroes are always either Lone Ranger types or misunderstood (and sometimes conflicted) drug dealers.”

“Narcos” avoids questions of culpability by narrating everything from the American perspective: the protagonist is not Escobar but the D.E.A. agents pursuing him. During the first season, Omar Rincón, a professor of media studies at Bogotá’s University of the Andes, wrote a scornful review. The show, he said, presented a discomfitingly American vision of Colombians, “something like what Trump thinks we are: the good ones are the gringos in the D.E.A. And the narcos are comic misfits and tasteless throwbacks.” Even the accents weren’t right, he complained. For Colombians, he said, it was impossible to identify with the narrative. “The story makes heroes of those that Latin Americans consider villains: the D.E.A. agents. Which, in addition to being silly, goes against reality. Gentlemen of Netflix: know that the villains are the ones in the D.E.A.”

Escobar’s death ended the second season of “Narcos,” but the show has continued; the third season followed the Cali cartel, and the fourth has moved to Mexico, which is now even more afflicted by drug violence than Colombia is. In September, a location scout named Carlos Muñoz Portal was found shot dead in his car outside Mexico City. It was unclear whether Muñoz’s murder was a coincidence or a drug cartel’s warning not to film in its territory; in any case, Netflix announced its intention to proceed with the production. Roberto Escobar suggested a solution to the producers: hire hit men to provide security.

On the twentieth anniversary of Escobar’s death, a group of mourners wearing white shirts gathered at his tomb. They were there to attend a “forgiveness Mass” arranged by his sister Luz María. After Escobar’s death, his wife and children immigrated to Argentina, but Luz María stayed, and, in the coming years, she organized several Masses to reconcile the Escobars with victims and their families. This one was a success. She handed each of the mourners a symbolic seed—to help them “let forgiveness enter and grow in their hearts,” she said. A teen-age girl left a note at Escobar’s graveside: “I was told you did good things and bad things, but it doesn’t matter now. Rest in peace.”

One evening, I spoke to Luz María, in the food court of a luxury mall (near, as it happens, a restaurant where Popeye once arranged to have his own girlfriend murdered, on Pablo’s orders). She told me, “I have a slogan I always try and tell the media: ‘No to drugs, no to narcotrafficking, no to violence, and yes to forgiveness.” In Colombia, which is nearly eighty per cent Catholic, the rhetoric of contrition can be potent. Father Elkin described Escobar as a profoundly devout man who was led astray by his ambitions. But when I asked Roberto Escobar whether he felt repentant for his crimes he said no. “It’s not important to be repentant,” he said. “I’m a believer.” (After the letter bomb, he said, he’d experienced a particularly convincing vision of Christ.) Luz María told me that she still hoped Popeye would find his way. She had bumped into him after his release, offered him a blessing, and told him that God had given him a second chance. Father Elkin was more resigned about Popeye’s prospects: “He comes to confess, and I take his confession. If he doesn’t comply with his confession, that’s his business.”

In 2009, Escobar’s son, Juan Pablo, appeared in a documentary called “ Sins of My Father ,” in which he contacted victims of his father and apologized on behalf of his family. He has also reckoned with his father’s memory in two memoirs, “ Pablo Escobar: My Father ,” from 2014, and the untranslated “Pablo Escobar in Flagrante: The Things My Father Never Told Me,” which was released in 2016. Just before Christmas, I had lunch with him in Guadalajara, Mexico, where he was promoting his latest book. Juan Pablo, who was sixteen years old when Escobar was killed, is now forty-one, a brooding, heavyset man with an unmistakable resemblance to his father; the image on the jacket of “In Flagrante” seamlessly melds their faces. He told me that he learned the truth about his family when he was seven, and Pablo Escobar told him bluntly, “I’m an outlaw.” From then on, they had a morning ritual in which his father read the newspaper and pointed out murders that had been attributed to him. Juan Pablo recalled, “He’d say, ‘I didn’t do that one,’ and then, ‘I did that one.’ ”

In Argentina, Juan Pablo worked as an architect, but in recent years he has made a second career of rehabilitating the family’s reputation. His new book offers a twenty-eight-point list of what he calls falsehoods propagated by “Narcos.” (“My father did not personally kill the person who is called Colonel ‘Carrillo’ in the series.”) Over lunch, Juan Pablo told me about his work as a speaker, in which Mexican officials hire him to warn youngsters about the dangers of a criminal life style. He also owns a clothing line, Escobar Henao, whose mission statement declares, “Our garments are banners of peace.” (One T-shirt includes the family name and the phrase “Enough will never be enough.”) Alonso Salazar, the journalist and politician, told me, “He’s very clever, and clearly he’s been pondering the opportunities offered by this resurrection. He’s living off the image of the father but realizes that he needs to be critical.” At the restaurant, Juan Pablo excused himself to speak briefly with a producer about a movie project.

Before the family fled Colombia, Juan Pablo opened a phone book and selected a new name, Sebastián Marroquín, which he maintained until 1999, when an Argentine police investigation into allegations of money-laundering revealed his identity. (He was held for six weeks, then released for lack of evidence.) When I asked which name he preferred, he shrugged and said it didn’t matter. He would always be Pablo Escobar’s son. “I live with permanent suspicion—I was born guilty,” he complained. He noted bitterly that the United States government had refused him a visa for twenty-four years. “I want to be recognized as an individual,” he said. “I know about everything my father did, and I will go to each and every one of the families of his victims to ask forgiveness. But I’m not legally culpable. My personal slogan is ‘I inherited a mountain of shit. So what am I supposed to do with it?’ ”

Alonso Salazar told me that Pablo Escobar’s legacy had profoundly altered political and social life. “Narcotrafficking came along and just overwhelmed everything,” he said. “Escobar débuted the instruments of terror, and afterward everyone used them.”

The Medellín cartel’s ascent coincided with the collapse of Communism in Europe, which in turn helped end most of the socialist revolution in the hemisphere. After Escobar, the idea of rebellion based on ideology was largely supplanted by the remorseless pursuit of profit and power. In places along his supply chain—including Mexico and in Central America—the remnants of his operation have grown into insurgent gangs, and states have succumbed to corruption and internal conflict.

Escobar’s cartel died with him, but, despite a U.S.-assisted war on narcotrafficking that has cost thousands of lives and more than nine billion dollars, international consumption has spread enormously, and the drug economy remains strong; last year, the United Nations reported that Colombia was the world’s largest producer of cocaine. Five of the world’s most dangerous cities are in Latin America, with much of the violence linked to the drug trade.

Father Elkin suggested that Escobar’s greatest legacy was his story. “The country likes to say that it has forgotten Pablo Escobar, but it’s not true,” he told me. “Today’s youth still see narcotrafficking as a way to make quick money. Society doesn’t change, really. And those with the greatest responsibility for this—excuse me—are those in the media, with their television series and their books.”

Omar Rincón, the media-studies professor, once wrote, “We live the culture of drug trafficking, in aesthetics, values, and references. We are a nation that took on the narco idea that anything goes if it will get you out of poverty: some tits, a weapon, corruption, trafficking coca, being a guerrilla or a paramilitary fighter, or being in government.” He was careful to note that the narco aesthetic was not merely bad taste. It was a way of life “among the dispossessed communities that look to modernity and have found in money the only way to exist in the world.”

For a generation of traffickers, Escobar left behind a model of success: build support among the disenfranchised by providing them with money and power they would not otherwise have; in return, they will be your loyalists, your spies, and your gunmen. For the middle class, use your wealth to corrupt policemen, generals, judges, and politicians.

The criminals who emulate him are no less ruthless, but they have learned not to seek political power, or much recognition. The Oficina de Envigado—the closest successor to the Medellín cartel—was run, until recently, by Juan Carlos Mesa, alias Tom, a shadowy figure who almost never appeared in public. Colombian special forces pursued him for years, without success. Then, in early December, police raided Tom’s fiftieth-birthday celebration. (They were tipped off to the party by informants, who noticed unusually generous purchases of twenty-one-year-old Chivas.) There were some fifteen guests at the party, and, to the authorities’ surprise, Popeye was among them. Despite an unconvincing alibi—he just happened to be in the area, handing out copies of his memoir, and had stumbled upon the party—Popeye was released, for lack of evidence. Even so, the incident triggered calls for him to be returned to prison, including one from Colombia’s President, Juan Manuel Santos.

Popeye’s response was characteristically defiant. He fired off a flurry of tweets, saying, “It isn’t a crime to go to a party,” and calling his opponents “miserable rats.” In a subsequent tweet, he sent a warning: “If I have to go to prison, I’ll go. Very soon I will again be attacking this damned government.”

At the height of Escobar’s power, he built himself a paradise: La Hacienda Nápoles, a seven-thousand-acre estate three hours from Medellín. Escobar spent years converting the property from an isolated wilderness to a refuge, with paved roads, artificial lakes, and a private zoo stocked with zebras, hippopotamuses, and giraffes, as well as a series of life-size dinosaur sculptures. Guests had the use of swimming pools, a party house, stables, a bullring, a vintage-car collection, and a fleet of speedboats. In a characteristic flourish, Escobar adorned the arch over the entrance with a single-engine Piper Cub, a replica of the airplane that had carried his first load of coke to the United States.

After Escobar’s death, the compound was abandoned, its structures ransacked by memento seekers and by treasure hunters pursuing rumors that Escobar had hidden millions of dollars in cash on the property. After being repossessed by the state, Hacienda Nápoles was reopened in 2007, as a theme park with a zoo, a water park, and several family-friendly hotels. Escobar’s hippopotamuses are a main attraction. The herd, which began with three females and a male bought from a California zoo, is now believed to contain as many as fifty, making it the largest herd living freely outside Africa. As the estate fell into disrepair, several of them wandered off and found new habitat. One of the hippos was discovered in the nearby town of Doradal. As it lumbered down the street, children dodged around it, shrieking; the locals joked about making the hippo a mascot. Several family groups have migrated into the nearby Magdalena River system. Colombian authorities suggested a hunt to cull the hippos before they upset the local ecosystem or become a danger to humans, but after a public outcry the matter was dropped.

I visited the Hacienda Nápoles one day with Edgar Jiménez, who had been Escobar’s personal photographer and a friend of his since grade school. “Pablo said I was the only photographer who could take his photo,” Jiménez told me. “I did all their family events, like birthdays, weddings, and first Communions.” Like everyone else, he cherished the stories. Once, he said, he was summoned to the hacienda to find Escobar hosting one of his cartel partners, the German-Colombian Carlos Lehder Rivas. An avid neo-Nazi and frequent cocaine user, Lehder had become unstable. After a soccer match that evening, he fatally shot one of Escobar’s men; Lehder was jealous because his girlfriend was “making eyes” at the man. Escobar calmly asked Lehder to leave the next morning and, according to Jiménez, made sure that authorities knew his whereabouts. Soon after, Lehder became the first Colombian narcotrafficker to be extradited to the United States.

I asked Jiménez if he felt any qualms about his relationship with Escobar. “I wasn’t in agreement with the violence,” he said. “But I was just the photographer, remember? And it has to be understood that this violent relationship Pablo had with the state was the product of the rejection he felt by Colombian society. Everyone had profited from him, and later they had betrayed him.”

At the entrance to Hacienda Nápoles, Jiménez was thrilled to see Escobar’s plane still hanging over the gate, with a new paint job of black-and-white zebra stripes. Inside the compound, though, we found that Escobar’s main house had been torn down, and his vintage-car collection had been torched, leaving a carport full of rusting hulks. But the outlines of the old swimming pool were still there, on the lawn. (In a video game that spun out of “Narcos,” the pool provides a backdrop for a gun battle between Escobar and the D.E.A.) Where the clinic for Escobar’s employees had been was a food court, overlooking a huge swimming pool with slides and fountains and bridges; in one section of the pool, a gigantic sculpture of an octopus spread its tentacles, and kids swam back and forth underneath. Jiménez was delighted, and said that he’d like to return with his grandson. Before we left, he asked for a brochure that listed package deals for family weekends. ♦

Juan Pablo Escobar appeared in the documentary “Sins of My Father.” He did not create it.

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By Laura Miller

Encyclopedia of Humanities

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Pablo Escobar

We discuss the life of Pablo Escobar and his initiation into crime. In addition, we explain why he is considered one of the greatest criminals in history.

Who was Pablo Escobar?

Pablo Escobar was a Colombian criminal and drug trafficker, founder and leader of the criminal organization known as the Medellín Cartel. Dubbed the "King of Cocaine", in his short lifespan of just 44 years, he was the world's leading drug trafficker during the 1980s, managing to amass a fortune estimated at 30 billion dollars .

At the height of his criminal empire, Escobar led an extravagant lifestyle, owning a 2,800-hectare estate called " Hacienda Nápoles " ("Naples Estate" in Spanish), on which he had artificial lakes, a landing strip, a zoo, a bullring, and life-sized dinosaur statues.

He also established various philanthropic and social assistance organizations that earned him a Robin Hood-like image , so much so that he managed to secure a seat in the nation's congress in 1982.

However, Escobar's infamous ruthlessness was widely widespread among his acquaintances and collaborators: he was known for solving problems with " plata o plomo " (literally "silver or lead", meaning money or death). In 1989, he was the mastermind behind the bombing of an airplane, which killed around 100 people.

Killed by the police in 1993, his figure has become part of contemporary urban mythology and has been a source of inspiration for literature works and film.

• See also: Fidel Castro

Early life of Pablo Escobar

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was born on December 1, 1949, in the town of Rionegro, in the Colombian state of Antioquia. He was the second of seven children of a humble household born to farmer Abel de Jesús Escobar Echeverri and schoolteacher Hermilda de los Dolores Gaviria Berrío.

Shortly after Pablo's birth, the family moved to Envigado, in the suburbs of Medellín, Colombia's second largest city. There, Pablo grew up and soon his leadership skills and his knack for business became evident: together with his cousin Gustavo Gaviria, they organized raffles, traded magazines, and made low-interest money loans.

Eventually, Pablo was elected as president of the Student Welfare Council, managing to gain access to school information, such as exams. Teachers recall him as a quiet boy, obsessed with his appearance and with a complex about his height . During this period, Pablo came into contact with the revolutionary left. Many of his former peers took up armed struggle. According to them, Pablo sympathized with the leftist imaginary, while at the same time he dreamed of amassing a true fortune .

In 1969, he completed his high school education at the Lucrecio Jaramillo Vélez high school and was admitted to the Economics program at the Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana of Medellín. However, he soon lost interest in university studies and preferred to engage in illicit businesses. He would allegedly have sworn to commit suicide if he did not have a million pesos at his disposal by the age of 25 .

Beginnings in the drug trafficking

Since he moved to Medellín, Pablo had been in contact with other young people from the poorest neighborhoods. Among them were the sons of the wealthy Henao family: Mario, Carlos and Fernando, and his own cousin Gustavo. As teenagers, Pablo, Mario and Gustavo became friends and partners in crime , including the forgery of diplomas, the smuggling of sound equipment, and the theft of aluminum tombstones.

This trio of young criminals attracted the attention of local organized gangs, among them that of Diego Echavarría Misas, a famous smuggler, and later Alfredo Gámez López, dubbed the "Padrino" (the "Godfather"), the country's leading smuggler. By then, Pablo and his accomplices had already become skilled car thieves .

Initially acting as bodyguards and hit men, soon the "Godfather" Gámez López sent them on a trip to buy coca paste in Peru and Ecuador, for later processing in Colombia. This was how they entered drug trafficking. Those were the years of the "Marimba Bonanza" , and thousands of dollars were flowing into Colombia from the export of marijuana to the US.

Around that time, they also became acquainted with smugglers Elkin Correa and Jorge Gonzalez. From them, Pablo learned the smuggling routes and established important connections in the drug world , which would later prove very useful in founding the Medellín Cartel. Pablo's steely resolve, his ruthless personality, and the fact that he did not consume cocaine made him very popular within the organization.

On June 9, 1976, Pablo and Gustavo were arrested for the first time near Medellín, transporting a shipment of 20 kilograms of cocaine hidden in the wheels of their car. They were released after a few months in prison.

The " bonanza marimbera " ("marimba bonanza") was the name given to the influx of millions of dollars from drug trafficking into Colombia between 1974 and 1985 from the illegal export of marijuana to the United States. This "bonanza" proved of great importance for the growth of local drug cartels, ending in the mid-1980s, when marijuana cultivation in Colombia was largely replaced by cocaine.

Marriage to "La Tata"

At the age of 24, Pablo met Victoria Henao Vallejo, a sister of his associate Mario, and declared his love for her . At that time, the young woman was 13 years old. Despite her family's opposition, Pablo and Victoria got married two years later . In 1977, Juan Pablo was born, and in 1984, Manuela. The couple remained together until Pablo's death.

Following Pablo's death, Victoria and her children had to flee Colombia. Since almost no country accepted them, they emigrated to Mozambique, where they lived in very harsh conditions.

Eventually, they legally changed their names and emigrated to Buenos Aires, where they were victims of extortion by an accountant who knew their real identities. They were imprisoned, being released eighteen months later, thanks to the mediation of Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.

Shortly after Pablo's marriage, "Padrino" Gámez López was denounced and investigated by the Colombian state, and ended up in jail on two occasions. His contacts in politics, however, helped him serve just one year in prison before retiring to the Caribbean city of Cartagena.

From then on, many minor players were in charge of the drug business. In 1977, they all came together in a single organization, which in 1982 was given the name of the cartel de Medellín (Medellín Cartel). Pablo Escobar was among its founders and became the head of the organization , which was responsible for the production, distribution, and sale of 80% of the cocaine consumed in the United States.

Medellín Cartel

Since its origin, the Medellín Cartel had a hierarchical and well-organized structure, which allowed its associates to share resources , carry out operations, and yet maintain their production centers and business separate.

"Medellín Cartel" was named by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), since it was based in the city of Medellín. The cartel's boom took place in the 1980s, as cocaine consumption took hold in the United States, with Colombia becoming its major supplier .

To establish its dominance, the cartel resorted to murder, corruption, and bribery. Escobar, at the head of this criminal organization, imposed the so-called "silver or lead law" , according to which the cartel offered government officials money in exchange for their favors, or else their lives and their families were under threat if they refused the bribe.

Eventually, the cartel resorted to terrorism and armed confrontation, both with state forces and with the rival cartel, based in Cali. This sparked a bloody "cartel war" that lasted from 1986 to 1993 .

The "Cali Cartel," so named by the DEA, was led by brothers Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, as well as José Santacruz Londoño and Hélmer Herrera Buitrago. It was also known as "The Cocaine Inc.", "The lords of Cali", or "The Cali KGB".

Pablo Escobar and politics

By the age of 29, Pablo Escobar had already amassed a considerable fortune . He was dubbed " El Patrón " (The Boss) by members of the cartel. It was then that he decided it was time to have a front, or as he called it, "a screen," which would allow him to appear openly in public. And so it was that Pablo Escobar entered the world of politics .

Presenting himself as a philanthropist, he began to show himself publicly with lawyers, financiers, politicians, and to cultivate an image of a successful man . He soon began the construction of facilities intended for the lower classes of Medellín, such as sports stadiums and even an entire neighborhood called " Medellín sin tugurios " (Medellín without slums), which later became known as " Barrio Escobar ". These types of actions earned him the affection of the popular classes, while also the accusation of populism.

At the same time, Escobar embarked on a life of excess and eccentricities. He invested 62 million dollars to buy and develop a plot of land in Puerto Triunfo, 112 miles (180 km) from Medellín . There, he established his luxurious " Hacienda Nápoles ", which featured a private landing strip and a hangar for airplanes, motorcycles, vans and other vehicles, a gas station, a bullring, a stable, a medical center, dinosaur statues, and a zoo with exotic animals like camels, elephants, rhinoceroses, moose, and hippos.

"Nápoles" was open to visitors during the weekend, as Escobar considered that it also belonged to the Colombian people. The estate also hosted large celebrations.

Through corruption, extortion and hired killings, Escobar managed to gain a significant amount of political, economic, military, and even religious influence, as despite his criminal record, he never ceased to be a devout Catholic .

In this way, Escobar managed to register in the Nuevo Liberalismo (New Liberalism) party, from which he was later expelled. Later, he managed to get himself elected, through various ruses, as an alternate senator  to the Senate for Alternativa Liberal (Liberal Alternative movement) in the 1982 parliamentary elections.

However, Escobar's "screen" began to fracture around 1983 when investigations into his fortune began under Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla (1946-1984), who was part of the Belisario Betancur administration. The investigation of dirty money in Colombian soccer and politics, as well as the reopening of old legal cases against Escobar, allowed Lara to seize planes and properties used in drug trafficking, and to expose jungle labs dedicated to cocaine production. Thus, not only was Escobar's election to parliament questioned, but the origin of the money that financed him was exposed , and the truth was spread by the El Espectador newspaper.

Escobar and his allies attempted to tarnish the minister's reputation by fabricating evidence incriminating him in corruption, but to little avail. In the end, on April 30, 1984, Lara Bonilla was gunned down by Escobar's hit men as he was driving through the streets of Bogotá . This assassination prompted the president to pass an Extradition Law to the United States and declare martial law, which marked the beginning of the war against narcoterrorism in Colombia.

War against narcoterrorism

By 1984, Escobar's political career was over. The revelations in El Espectador had cost him his seat in parliament and his US visa, prompting him to retire from public life. Shortly after, arrest warrants were issued for the leaders of the Medellín Cartel, and Escobar was forced into hiding .

That same year, police forces, in conjunction with the US DEA, discovered and raided a complex of cocaine processing laboratories near the Yari River, known as Tranquilandia . It was a major blow to Escobar's operations , and the cartel responded by unleashing a wave of terror: car bombs, assassinated journalists, and shot judges became daily news.

Many politicians and officials, bought or threatened by Escobar, allowed the organization to act with impunity, even though its leaders, then dubbed " los extraditables " (the extraditable ones), were already publicly known. At the same time, the Medellín Cartel secured international allies. They already had the support of similar organizations in Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Cuba .

Until then, Escobar and his allies controlled 90% of Colombia's drug trade but had good relations with rival cartels. However, after the assassination of Minister Lara, a crime the Cali Cartel considered counterproductive, starting in 1986 tensions between the two cartels led to a new escalation of violence: the cartel war .

War between cartels

The break between the two major Colombian drug cartels occurred under circumstances that remain unknown . According to Jhon Jairo Velásquez "Popeye," one of the most notorious hit men for the Medellín Cartel, tensions flared when one of Escobar's most loyal men asked him to carry out a personal vendetta against a member of the Cali Cartel, known as "Piña."

"Piña" was protected by Helmer "Pacho" Herrera, the fourth in command of the Cali Cartel, who did not take kindly to Escobar's request to hand over his subordinate. When Escobar's request was ignored, the boss ordered the kidnapping and execution of "Piña," triggering the break between the two organizations .

In addition to fighting each other, the cartels contributed to the capture of rival leaders at the hands of the police. In this context, in 1987, Escobar lost two of his closest associates . In February Carlos Lehder was arrested, and in November, Jorge Luis Ochoa. Ochoa, however, was released after a riot in La Modelo prison.

Early the following year, a car carrying 154 pounds (70 kg) of dynamite exploded in front of the Monaco building, where the Escobar family lived . There were no fatalities, but the building was severely damaged, and although the Cali Cartel denied involvement, Escobar considered this event a formal declaration of war.

From then on, Escobar launched an offensive against the operations of his Cali rivals . In 1988, he set fire to and dynamited dozens of properties owned by the Rodríguez Orejuela family and began an espionage operation against them.

Terror years

The year 1989 was one of the bloodiest in the conflict between the cartels and the state.

At the end of 1988, the secretary general of the Colombian presidency, Germán Montoya, had attempted to approach the group of " los Extraditables ", opening the possibility of dialogue. The Medellín Cartel then proposed to the state to grant them legal pardon and a demobilization plan to put an end to the conflict . The initiative was unsuccessful, largely due to the United States' refusal to negotiate with the criminals.

The Medellín Cartel was quick to respond, assassinating judges, government officials, and Colombian public figures. The bloodshed included the bombing of the Mundo Visión television station and the murder of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán , an enemy of drug trafficking and the person who had the best chance of being elected.

Galán's assassination spurred the Colombian state to declare war on narcoterrorism. Through new decrees, President Virgilio Barco Vargas approved special measures (some even contrary to the National Constitution) for the persecution and treatment of drug traffickers.

These measures included expedited extradition to the United States, the confiscation of drug traffickers' personal assets, and the creation of the Elite Group, composed of 500 specially trained agents to deal with " Los Extraditables " . In the days that followed, the government carried out about 450 raids and arrested nearly 13,000 people linked to drug trafficking.

The Medellín Cartel responded with a declaration of total war. Between September and December of 1989, more than 100 explosive devices detonated in the cities of Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Bucaramanga, Cartagena, Barranquilla, and Pereira. In addition to the acts of hired assassination, there were an estimated 300 terrorist attacks during those three months , resulting in a toll of nearly 300 civilian deaths and over 1,500 wounded.

However, the Colombian state did not give in. In November 1989, Escobar was close to being captured in an operation at the El Oro estate in Antioquia , where his brother-in-law Fabio Henao was killed and 55 of his men were captured. Later, on December 15, 1989, the second in command of the Medellín Cartel, the "Mexican" Rodríguez Hacha, was shot by the police on the country's north coast , along with his son and bodyguards.

As the noose tightened around them, "Los Extraditables" announced another call for dialogue with the government, first kidnapping the son of the secretary of the presidency, Álvaro Diego Montoya, and two relatives of President Barco. A brief truce ensued, and in the early 1990, a committee of Colombian notables was formed to negotiate with the narcoterrorists .

Escobar and his associates responded by releasing the hostages to show a genuine willingness for dialogue . In addition, they handed over a bus full of explosives and revealed the location of one of their clandestine laboratories in the town of Chocó. But the dialogue was in fact a ploy to buy time while initiating a large-scale operation in Envigado, Antioquia.

On March 30, the cartel ended the truce. Escobar put a price on the life of every police officer the criminals killed , unleashing an urban war that by the end of July had left hundreds dead and injured, including Senator Federico Estrada Vélez.

Government forces also committed excesses: in retaliation for the murder of nearly 215 police officers between April and July of 1990, their death squads carried out clandestine executions in the slums every night .

That same year in June, Escobar's military leader, John Jairo Arias Tascón, alias "Pinilla", was assassinated. Following an operation in Magdalena from which Escobar miraculously managed to escape again, the cartel announced a new truce in combat, just in time for the election of the new government of César Gaviria .

Imprisonment of Pablo Escobar

The new Colombian administration seemed willing to end the conflict as soon as possible. On August 11, the Elite Group killed Gustavo Gaviria Rivero, " El León ," cousin and right-hand man of Pablo Escobar, in a shootout . The "patrón" began to lose his most reliable associates.

At the same time, Justice Minister Jaime Giraldo Ángel announced a legislative plan to facilitate the surrender of narcoterrorists, offering a reduction in their sentences and imprisonment in Colombia (the narcos feared extradition to the United States, above all) in exchange for voluntary surrender and confession of at least one crime committed.

The Ochoa brothers were the first of Escobar's high-level henchmen to accept the offer, between December 1990 and February 1991 . The patrón, distrusting the government's word, began a series of selective kidnappings.

Several of these captives died in rescue attempts or were executed in retaliation for the government's actions. Escobar's idea was to pressure the government to design a plan tailored to his needs. But in the absence of a response, he resumed his methods of terrorism: between December 1990 and the early months of 1991, at least 44 people were killed in bombings and shootings , including former Justice Minister Enrique Low Murtra.

Eventually, the government had no choice but to give in to Escobar's demands. In June 1991, the boss of the Medellín Cartel surrendered to justice, to be confined in La Catedral prison in Envigado . From there, he continued to control his illegal operations remotely, thanks to his two associates in hiding: Fernando " El Negro " Galeano and Gerardo "Kiko" Moncada.

During his imprisonment, Escobar was attended to by his wife, " La Tata ," and was in constant contact with his henchmen. He received many messages and documents in his room. At La Catedral he received visits from celebrities, beauty queens, and soccer players .

The room where Escobar was held at La Catedral was akin to a five-star hotel suite : a large bed, cozy decoration, TV sets, video and music players, imported furniture, a personal library, and carpeted floors. The prison also had pool rooms, a bar, and a soccer field. Parties, orgies, and business meetings were held nearby, as Escobar continued to lead his criminal operation from jail. The prison itself, as was later discovered, had been commissioned by Escobar himself on land that belonged to him.

In 1992, Escobar's actions became public knowledge, and the Gaviria government decided to transfer him to a "real prison" . Aware of the decision, Escobar planned his escape with the assistance of his henchmen, and on July 22, he escaped by breaking through a plaster wall at the back of the prison.

Escobar's escape was a serious blow to the Gaviria government and the Colombian justice system . The creation of a "Search Bloc" composed of the police, the army, and the US DEA was immediately announced, and a reward of 2.7 billion pesos was offered for information leading to the "patrón's" capture .

Death of Pablo Escobar

Pablo Escobar's return to freedom was marked by a reality that was very different from the one he had left before his surrender. A fracture was growing in the Medellín Cartel and sectors opposed to his leadership eventually allied with his enemies in Cali . This broad alliance against him ended in October 1992 with one of his last military leaders, Brances Alexander Muñoz, alias "Tyson".

The resources of the Medellín Cartel began to dwindle, and their actions became more desperate. Car bombs exploded in Bogotá, Barrancabermeja, and other cities, killing civilians and officers indiscriminately. Escobar sought to renegotiate his surrender and authorized the delivery of some of his most trusted associates , but in response, actions against him intensified.

On January 30, 1993, a new actor joined the conflict: the paramilitary gang of "Los pepes" (acronym for "Perseguidos Por Pablo Escobar"), dedicated to pursuing and killing Escobar's front men, collaborators and cover-ups.

By March 1993, around 100 hit men and 10 of the cartel's military leaders had been killed, and nearly 1,900 collaborators arrested. Meanwhile, 300 other " gatilleros " (hired gun thugs) had been gunned down by rival gangs.

Escobar's wife and children had unsuccessfully sought asylum in the United States and Germany and lived under police surveillance, so they were used as bait by the authorities. On December 2, 1993, after 17 months of intense search, Escobar was cornered by the police in the middle-class neighborhood of Los Olivos, in Medellín .

There, the last of his hit men, Jesús Agudelo, alias "Limón", was killed, and Escobar tried to escape through the roofs of the neighboring houses, but he was shot three times and died on the spot . His death marked the end of the Medellín Cartel and was photographically recorded by the Search Bloc. He was 44 years old.

The next day, his death was announced as a major victory in the fight against drug trafficking. His family mourned his death along with thousands of supporters from the lower classes, who still paradoxically expressed their gratitude. His coffin was accompanied to the Montesacro Gardens cemetery in Itagüí by a massive procession .

This duality of his image made him both an infamous criminal and a popular hero. His life of violence and eccentricities has served as inspiration for numerous newspaper reports and fiction series.

Explore next:

• Che Guevara
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• Palacios, R. (2022). “Celda cinco estrellas, reinas de belleza y orgías: la vida de Pablo Escobar en la cárcel que mandó a construir”. Infobae . 
• Salazar, A. (2012). La parábola de Pablo . Penguin Random House.
• Rockefeller, J. D. (2015). Pablo Escobar: El auge y la caída del rey de la cocaína . Createspace.
• Tikkaken, A. (s. f.). Pablo Escobar (Colombian criminal). The Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/  
• Villatoro, M. (2014). “La verdadera historia de Pablo Escobar, el narcotraficante que asesinó a 10.000 personas”. ABC cultural . https://www.abc.es/

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Pablo Escobar: Unseen portraits of a drug lord

El país talks to edgar jiménez about what it was like being the personal photographer of the notorious cartel boss during his war against the colombian state in the 1980s.

The man seems absorbed, lost in his own thoughts. Steam rises from a blue cocktail on the table in front of him. To his right sits his mother, doña Hermilda, wearing a blue polka-dot dress. In this photograph, Pablo Escobar Gaviria is secretly attending his son Juan Pablo’s 12th birthday. There are few guests, only his most trusted inner circle. Escobar had been in hiding for five years, challenging the authority of the state by assassinating a minister of justice. While living under the radar, he ate badly and didn’t exercise, exacerbating his portly frame. His famous mustache has been shaved off. In that year, 1989, he still managed to assassinate a presidential candidate, Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento, and an army colonel, as well as blowing up the headquarters of the intelligence service in Bogotá and bringing down a passenger airplane, Avianca Flight 203, with the loss of 110 lives. The Colombian government wanted him dead at any cost, as did the numerous enemies he had made over the years. But Escobar wasn’t going to make it easy: he was full of rage and wanted to watch the world burn.

“He had been at the table like that for 15 minutes, his mind completely elsewhere. It’s the portrait of a downbeat man, with a lot of problems. It’s one of the few photos, if not the only one, in which he looks worried. I went over to him and took it. Pablo didn’t even notice,” says Edgar Jiménez, who was the personal photographer for the most notorious drug-trafficker in history. On his computer, he has never-before-seen images of Escobar. “El Chino,” as he was nicknamed in his youth, was at Escobar’s side from the time they met in 1980 at his Hacienda Nápoles ranch , where the drug lord would host politicians, military officers, journalists and beauty queens.

It wasn’t the first time they had met. They had been classmates at the Liceo Antioqueño school, in Medellín. Escobar was nicknamed “the Little Bear,” a name also bestowed on his older brother, Roberto, who was a popular professional cyclist at the time. El Chino got his name because he suffered from the speech disorder rhotacism. People thought he was speaking another language. They were at school together for three years but were separated when Escobar was held back a year. They didn’t see each other for 15 years until a friend of the photographer said he wanted him to meet the owner of this amazing ranch with all the exotic animals. When he recognized him, Escobar greeted him like an old friend. “Chino! It’s been a while.”

From that day on, Chino worked for Escobar, with no fixed salary. His first job was to photograph the hippos , zebras, giraffes and birds Escobar had brought in from Africa. He has a photo of his assistant offering a cigarette to an ostrich. His arrival led to the departure of all the photographers who had previously been employed by Escobar. He was installed as the trafficker’s sole trusted cameraman.

Shortly after Chino arrived, Escobar held a party at the ranch. It was the day before his birthday. Exhausted, the host went to bed at 3am. Guests were still arriving. “We were in the spirit and more friends and family arrived with guitars. It was past midnight and we said: ‘Hey, it’s Pablo’s birthday! Let’s go wake him up’,” Chino recalls. That was when he captured perhaps the most famous photo of Escobar, asleep in bed, shirtless, with a bottle on the floor.

His sister-in-law is sitting on the edge of the bed. At the door, friends gather to catch a glimpse. Escobar had just turned 31. He was the king.

His death, 13 years later, brought the most exciting period of Chino’s life to an end. He remained in the photography business, but never again felt those adrenalin rushes of being at the side of an icon of evil. It is estimated that Escobar is responsible for the deaths of over 4,000 people . Chino still has mixed feelings about his relationship with him. In the Medellín neighborhood where he lives, Aranjuez, the cradle of many of the assassins of the armed wing of the cartel, Chino was and remains untouchable. Everybody knows he was the boss’s close friend. However, for many years he didn’t say a word about those days, and he has hardly said anything to people he has met since.

Chino is now 72 and enjoys a drink at his local bar, Maracaibo. “If I get drunk, the young kids take me home, everyone knows where I live.” Not many know about his past, though this is about to change. A few years ago, reporter Jon Lee Anderson sought him out for a story in The New Yorker . He located Chino through a local reporter, Alfonso Buitrago. Chino is mentioned briefly in Anderson’s story. Buitrago, an instinctive type, knew he had a great story on his hands and since then he has spent countless hours fishing in Chino’s archives for a book that will be published soon. They work when Buitrago, a local newspaper editor, has some free time and when Chino isn’t hungover. It will be called El Chino and on the front cover is the photographer, sitting on the trunk of an elephant at Hacienda Nápoles.

“Pablo was a car and tombstone thief, an assassin, a smuggler, a drug trafficker and, at the peak of his career, a parliamentarian,” says Chino with a chuckle, as though he has repeated that phrase many times. He is looking over photos from Escobar’s Congressional campaign. They visited the poorest neighborhoods in Medellín, such as Morabia, which was an open-air landfill. Escobar built homes for 500 families who were living in poverty. At rallies, he handed out money, food and promises of a better life. He was so confident with a microphone in his hands that he even dreamed of the presidency. Those close to him, his brother Roberto and his cousin Gustavo Gaviria, his right-hand man, warned him that this public exposure would be the end of him. Escobar didn’t listen to any of them.

Chino has photos of Escobar on stage during a rally, of Escobar inaugurating a soccer pitch for kids, of his press conferences. Those that attended these events were people from poor neighborhoods who saw Escobar as a Robin Hood figure. His election as an alternate member of the Chamber of Representatives, however, was the beginning of the end of his empire. The Bogotá political elite were jealous of his popularity and the press began to investigate his business dealings. The editor of El Espectador , Guillermo Cano, and his reporters found the evidence that thwarted Escobar’s political aspirations: an old police mug shot, with a prisoner number, taken after he had been arrested for drug trafficking in 1976.

Later, Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla decided to go after Escobar and publicly expose him as a criminal. Escobar’s dreams of leaving his illicit past behind him and being embraced by the hermetic Colombian high society were dashed in a single stroke. The possibility of extradition to the US weighed heavily on him. During that time, he ordered the assassination of judges, police officers who could not be bribed, military personnel and politicians. He was obsessed with silencing Lara Bonilla. His allies advised him against it, saying the force of the state would come down on his head. His wife, Victoria Eugenia, was eight months pregnant. “And he still killed Lara Bonilla. That’s how big Pablo was,” says Chino.

During meetings at Escobar’s ranch, these topics were never touched upon. Colombia was in flames while they played soccer, on a floodlit pitch, with a small stand on one side. They drank imported whisky and smoked Marlboros in bars where they were never handed a check. “We only talked about unimportant, stupid stuff. Pablo said I was a really dirty soccer player. I used to kick people a lot. I’ve always been bony, but my bones are pretty tough,” remembers El Chino.

Escobar became a fugitive. He preferred death over a prison sentence in the US. The Colombian government set up a special commando unit to hunt him down, a paramilitary group called Los Pepes, while his rivals in the Cali Cartel also sought to bring him down. Chino then worked for the rest of the Escobar family. In his archives are dozens of photos of weddings, baptisms and communions, all in the absence of Escobar. Some of them, published now by EL PAÍS, have never been seen before. In one, his daughter Manuela sits atop a horse that was gifted to her by Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, better known as “El Mexicano,” one of the bosses of the Medellín Cartel and a horse lover. Escobar asked Chino to immortalize the moment.

It is a sinister family album, full of ghosts, people executed on Escobar’s orders or by Escobar himself. Some of his most feared assassins feature in it: Pinina, El Negro Pavón, El Arete, Otto. In the background of many photos Yuca, one of his first hired killers, appears. Yuca gradually gained power of his own and had a dedicated bodyguard. It reached Escobar’s attention that Yuca had been complaining about El Patrón’s cut, that he was a slacker who didn’t do anything. Yuca was called to Escobar’s office, where three hitmen lay in wait. They emptied 70 bullets into him. In other photos, Héctor Barrientos can be seen smiling with his family. Barrientos was a guard at the Hacienda Nápoles. When he started to export cocaine himself using Escobar’s hidden runways, “Pablo caught him and, of course, ordered him to be killed. They ran over him several times with a truck,” says Chino.

The photographer bore witness to a brutal era. Medellín in the 1980s was awash in a culture of consumerism, partying and death. Chino believes Escobar was the link between the old world and the new. The peaceful, patriarchal city of daily Mass had given way to one of youths on motorbikes who knew no law other than that of the revolver. Children from rundown neighborhoods developed a sense of belonging, and of adoration for El Patrón, the man who offered them something when life offered them nothing. On the way they drank, won respect and lovers and killed without scruples. At some stage, someone would put a bullet in their back.

Chino did not only make a living from Escobar’s private parties . He was also the photographer for Colombia’s first pornographic magazine, edited by a friend of Escobar and financed by El Patrón, naturally. He worked at local newspaper Medellín Cívico , which was edited by one of Escobar’s uncles. He also received work from other notorious cartel bosses. One day he received a call at home: “Chino? It’s Carlos Lehder.” “Hi,” Chino replied. “In an hour bring your gear to the site.”

Chino was worried. Lehder had a reputation as one of the least-hinged of all the drug lords. An ally of Escobar, he had formed his own armed group in his home region of Quindío. His movement’s rhetoric was based on a fascist-Communist fantasy that aspired to take control of the country, in a Fidel Castro-type revolution. That day he took Chino to the Olaya Herrera airport in Medellín, where celebrated singer and actor Carlos Gardel had died in a crash half a century earlier. He greeted the photographer in military fatigues, with a sub-machine gun and a pistol holstered on his belt. That was how he moved around Medellín, without a care in the world. While he smoked a cigar, he explained to Chino that he wanted photos of a garbage dump and other areas of the city.

“The fucking helicopter didn’t have a door, they had taken it off so I could take photos,” Chino recalls of the aircraft that awaited him. They flew over the city with Lehder at the controls and Chino holding his camera with one hand while preventing himself from falling out with the other.

A little while later, he and the messianic Lehder coincided at the Hacienda Nápoles. Lehder arrived in the company of a beautiful young woman whose attention landed on Rollo, a handsome employee of Escobar. In a fit of jealousy, Lehder killed Rollo on the soccer pitch, in front of everybody. A week later, he was arrested and extradited to the US by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The most common version of events, which Chino shares, is that Escobar turned him in for killing someone he considered a friend.

Chino still lives at home with his 96-year-old mother. He has a girlfriend he has been with for more than 50 years and with whom he has a daughter, but he has never taken the next step. “Living together kills love,” he says. He is an austere man, who never made a fortune despite being in the inner circle of a man estimated at the time to be the richest in the world by Forbes magazine.

When Escobar sent him money, which was always a decent amount but not excessive, the intermediaries would take their cut. One of them later asked Chino to loan him a book that Escobar had put together, which followed his life story through press cuttings and cartoons. It was a limited edition, gold-plated, signed by Escobar and with his fingerprint added as a mark of authenticity. El Patrón had made a gift of them to his closest friends. “I was an idiot and I lent it to him. I never got it back,” Chino says.

Thousands of Chino’s negatives have been lost over time. The paramilitaries torched the cellar of one of Escobar’s houses, where he kept many boxes of material. More have been lost due to Chino’s own neglect. Documentary moviemakers from all over the world have visited his house to scour the archive. Buitrago, author of the book that carries Chino’s name, has made him understand this an extraordinary hoard. Buitrago is always amazed by the size of the archive. “That one is new to me, Chino,” he often says. “We’ll stick that in the second volume then,” the photographer chuckles in reply.

What remains, more than anything, are memories. He has a date imprinted on his memory: December 2, 1993. On that day he was in a dark room developing a roll of film. Suddenly, the radio interrupted the broadcast with breaking news: Pablo Escobar had been killed by the authorities while he was trying to escape across a rooftop in Medellín. Chino didn’t know exactly what to think: “I felt a sense of relief because society had been freed from an outlaw and a terrorist. But I also felt sad; Pablo was my friend,” he says with tears in his eyes.

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The Spanish narco who wanted to be Pablo Escobar

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Escobar : the inside story of Pablo Escobar, the world's most powerful criminal

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Medellín Dispatch

25 Years After Escobar’s Death, Medellín Struggles to Demolish a Legend

By Nicholas Casey

• Sept. 22, 2018

MEDELLÍN, Colombia — When the mayor of Medellín showed up, he was bearing a sledgehammer.

He stood with it in front of the former home of Pablo Escobar, the notorious drug lord whose cocaine empire once placed him on lists of the world’s richest and most wanted.

Mr. Escobar lived for years in the Monaco Building, a white, six-story edifice with a penthouse apartment on top and his family name still inscribed in fading letters on the exterior.

The building was bombed in 1988 by Mr. Escobar’s rivals, and not long afterward, he abandoned it. Weeds grew in cracks in the driveway. A satellite dish collected old leaves. And for a while, Medellín could ignore the now-empty Monaco.

Recently, however, attention to the building has returned, piqued by scores of international books, telenovelas and movies about Mr. Escobar.

Tourists now sidle up to the gate, snapping photos and posting them on Instagram. Tour guides stop by. A former cartel hit man-turned-YouTube-star appeared, offering DVDs recounting his exploits with Mr. Escobar and anecdotes from the day the building was attacked.

In April, fed up, the mayor intervened.

“This symbol, which is a symbol of illegality, of evil, will be brought to the ground,” said Federico Gutiérrez. The mayor vowed to topple the building by next year and to put a park remembering victims in its place.

How the Monaco Building went from relative obscurity, to global tourist draw, to one of the most publicized demolition projects in Colombia speaks to the uneasy relationship Medellín has with Mr. Escobar, the city’s most notorious son. Twenty-five years after he was killed in a police shootout on a Medellín rooftop, the city cannot forget him, no matter how much it might want his legend buried away.

The conflicting response to the building — municipal embarrassment or photo opportunity — is also a prime example of how Medellín still struggles over the Escobar narrative. Who gets to tell this history of the drug wars? Where is it told — in the streets or in museums? And who are the protagonists — the villains or the victims?

I came to live in this city eight months ago. But I first became familiar with Medellín as a child in the early 1990s. It was the height of Mr. Escobar’s terror campaigns to protect his multibillion-dollar drug business, and the grisly consequences were shown on the evening news in the United States. Decades later, I was drawn to cover how Medellín had managed to turn the page on its violent past.

The city has become a boomtown where international architects compete to build prestige projects and well-funded technology start-ups proliferate next to trendy restaurants. Colombia’s metro runs the length of the city; escalators thread the barrios that climb up the sides of the lush valley where the city sits.

Medellín’s residents, a famously proud clan known as paisas, are the first to tell you where their city has advanced to.

But they are the last to mention where it has advanced from — the depths of the cocaine era that brought not only the horror of Mr. Escobar, but also the money that built its skyline, including the Monaco.

“Paisas say, ‘dirty clothes should be washed at home,’” Juan Mosquera, a writer in Medellín, told me over lunch when we discussed why local residents avoid even mentioning the Monaco. “It was a mansion of horror. His family didn’t just live there; they killed and tortured people, and they planned the biggest blows toward the city.”

If the city wanted to keep its soiled laundry private, the popular Netflix series “Narcos,” whose first two seasons chronicled the rise and ruin of Mr. Escobar, exposed it to millions of global viewers.

Medellín resisted the show from the start. Film crews had trouble getting permission to work in the city, and just hearing the name of the series makes my neighbors bristle.

But the city itself was a key character in “Narcos,” and fans of the show come to Medellín in droves, seeking more stories of Mr. Escobar’s life. Must-see stops include Hacienda Nápoles, his ranch outside town; his grave; and La Catedral, the prison built to his specifications.

Daniel Vásquez, who heads public outreach at the Memory House Museum in Medellín, seemed exasperated when I asked why visitors are more interested in the life of the city’s top villain than in visiting this institution dedicated to the victims of the city’s armed conflicts over the last 50 years.

“Pablo Escobar has become the pop icon of this story,” Mr. Vásquez said. “The city saw no urgency to tell this part of history. It wasn’t a priority for the government until there was a problem, until suddenly you had narco-tours led by Popeye.”

“Popeye,” the alias of Jhon Jairo Velásquez, a hit man for Mr. Escobar, began hawking DVDs and hosting tours of the city after his release from prison in 2016. He also created a side business as a YouTube personality with a channel called “Repentant Popeye.”

In a city still smarting from Mr. Escobar’s wounds, the hit man seemed to be anything but sorry. In one video series, “Famous Tombs,” Mr. Velásquez goes to the graves of his victims, narrating how he murdered them.

“Here we have Carlos Mauro Hoyos, we kidnapped him in 1988 ,” says Mr. Velásquez, standing at the headstone of Colombia’s former attorney general, explaining how Mr. Hoyos was wounded in the leg when he was ambushed and later killed.

“It’s like if members of Al Qaeda gave tours in New York about how they had planned 9/11,” said Luis Hernando Mejía, who represents the neighbors association that includes the Monaco, where Popeye would begin his tours. (Popeye was rearrested this May on charges that included extortion.)

Héctor Abad, one of the country’s most popular novelists, told me on a visit to his apartment about his father’s killing by a paramilitary group the year before the Monaco was attacked. He said a girlfriend once showed him the scars across her back that came from an Escobar bombing.

And he offered his own home as evidence that no building in Medellín seemed untouched by past crimes. Shortly after he bought the apartment, he found a cache of gold ingots and counterfeit money hidden in a wall.

“You move a brick and you find a skeleton,” Mr. Abad said.

He looked down the hill from his balcony toward where the Monaco — a “cursed building,” he said — sat awaiting the mayor’s wrecking ball. “If someone gave it to me, I would refuse.”

When I caught up with Mr. Gutiérrez, I asked the mayor, 43, about the day the Monaco was bombed.

“What did I feel? Fear,” he said. “Not just fear about what had happened, but fear for what we are going to become.”

He paused for a moment.

“Why did I decide as the mayor to destroy the Monaco?” he asked himself.

To show that the city had been reborn, he said, and that the law had triumphed over chaos.

But more than anything, he said he wanted to demolish the Monaco because Medellín was sick of telling the same story of the same villain, over and over.

One of the last people I sought out to talk to about the Monaco was Mr. Escobar’s son, born Juan Pablo Escobar. He left Colombia after his father was killed, changed his name to Sebastián Marroquín and now works as an architect in Buenos Aires. Mr. Marroquín was the only person I could find who was there the day the building was bombed.

At first he said he wanted to talk. But then he stopped answering my emails.

I began to think of what it must have been like for a child to be the son of the country’s richest man, having all six floors of the Monaco for his family, yet with so many threats beyond its walls.

Eventually, I did hear back from Mr. Marroquín. I opened the email, thinking perhaps he’d agree to an interview. But he, too, seemed to have had enough of the subject.

“Thanks for your patience,” he wrote. “I’ve been on the road for more than a month. I think we should leave this one for some other time.”

Follow Nicholas Casey on Twitter: @caseysjournal

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Pablo Escobar: The Biography Paperback – March 12, 2020

• Print length 62 pages
• Language English
• Publication date March 12, 2020
• Dimensions 5 x 0.16 x 8 inches
• ISBN-13 979-8623975386
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• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B085RTHXK6
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independently published (March 12, 2020)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 62 pages
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8623975386
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.2 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.16 x 8 inches

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Home > STUDENT-SCHOLARSHIP > Theses > HONORS_THESES > 344

Honors Theses

Pablo escobar: drug lord as heroic archetype.

Adem Ahmed , Bucknell University Follow

Date of Thesis

Description.

On December 1, 1949, an influential figure in Colombian history, Pablo Escobar, was born. In his relatively short life he would accrue so much money that he would begin to burn it, struggling to find secure areas to bury it. He would also come to wield an incredible amount of power over the Colombian government and legislature, creating his own prison, practically destroying any credibility in the Medellín police force, and striking several deals for reduced sentences. How is it that the most wanted man in the world, head of the Colombian drug cartel¿who utilized kidnapping, fear, bribery, torture, death, and the targeting of innocent people¿could, upon his violent death, be mourned by thousands? In order to provide a comparative analysis of Pablo Escobar's life, I will explore different variations of heroes. I will focus on theories of heroic archetypes, utilizing well-known figures from myth, scripture, history and legend, such as Robin Hood, the ancient Greek heroes Odysseus and Achilles, the biblical David, and more recent Latin American heroes such as Pancho Villa and El Chapo. By considering heroes across various cultures and temporal locations, I will be able to develop a richer analysis of Escobar as a "hero" of and for the Colombian people. A key aspect of my argument will be that heroes are rarely if ever "perfect," but normally embody flaws indicative of their humanity, and that rather than preventing him from being perceived as a nearly divine figure, Escobar's flaws to a large degree, and somewhat paradoxically, actually undergird that status.

Pablo Escobar, Colombia, drug lords, heroic archetypes

Access Type

Honors Thesis

Degree Type

Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering

Comparative Humanities

First Advisor

James Mark Shields

Second Advisor

David Rojas

Recommended Citation

Ahmed, Adem, "Pablo Escobar: Drug Lord as Heroic Archetype" (2016). Honors Theses . 344. https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/honors_theses/344

Since July 31, 2017

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The Best Documentaries About Pablo Escobar

Sep 12, 2023 | Best Of , Celebrities , Crime

Learn about the life and legacy of one of the world’s most notorious drug lords. Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, known as the King of Cocaine, was a Colombian drug lord who founded and led the Medellín Cartel in the 1980s and 90s. His wealth, criminal activities and political ambitions had an influence on the history of Colombia that is still felt today. To learn more about this enigmatic figure, check out these 10 best documentaries about Pablo Escobar to get an in-depth look into his life and the impact he made on the world. From longform interviews with family members and trusted associates to stories from those who experienced firsthand the violence of the drug wars, these documentaries provide an honest and unflinching look into Escobar’s life.

The Private Archives Of Pablo Escobar (2017)

Killing Pablo  (2001)

Finding Escobar’s Millions (2017)

The Hunt for Escobar’s Hippos (2020)

The Rise and Fall of Pablo Escobar (2018)

Pablo Escobar: The Terror Of Colombia (2002)

1. Pablo Escobar – The Colombian Cartel King

Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord and one of the most notorious figures in history. He gained huge influence in the illegal cocaine industry during the 1980s and 90s, becoming one of the world’s wealthiest criminals. This documentary dives into his life to explore how he rose to power, as well as his eventual downfall. Through interviews with family members, associates, law enforcement, and journalists who reported on Escobar’s story, the film gives a unique insight into “The King of Cocaine”.

2. THE LIFE OF PABLO

Backed by his fearsome army of loyal followers, Pablo Escobar made his way into the darkness of Colombia’s underworld and left an indelible mark on its people. His reign of terror saw Colombian citizens subject to unimaginable violence and corruption. But one DEA agent was determined to bring down the notorious drug kingpin and put an end to his ruthless enterprise.

3. Craziest Things Pablo Escobar Has Done

Welcome to Top Discovery! Here, you’ll find some of the world’s most fascinating stories and discoveries. Our content is packed with engaging videos designed to awe and entertain our viewers. From strange phenomena to ground-breaking scientific advancements, we cover it all. So why not join us on this exciting journey and experience the wonders of the world?

4. ABLO ESCOBAR  BECAME THE RICHEST CRIMINAL

Pablo Escobar was one of the most iconic figures that ever lived. He rose from humble beginnings in the slums of Medellin to becoming one of the top ten richest people in the world according to Forbes magazine. His power and influence had spread far and wide, so much so that he was hunted by both Colombia’s elite forces and American special services.

5. The Real Story Of The Infiltrator

Explore the fascinating and sometimes dangerous life of Pablo Escobar with Our History. We take you on a journey through his rise to power as one of the world’s most notorious drug lords and subsequent fall from grace, culminating in his death at the hands of Colombian police in 1993. From interviews with those who knew him best to detailed accounts of key events leading up to his demise.

6. A Personal Insight Into The Drug Lord Pablo Escobar

This gripping documentary explores the life and legacy of the world’s most infamous drug lord, Pablo Escobar. For the first time in 25 years, his family members, including his widow ‘Tata’ and son Sebastian Marroquin, are able to tell their stories safely without fear of reprisal. This two-hour special is overflowing with never-before-seen footage from their personal archives, as well as first-hand accounts of what it was like to be a part of the epic Escobar empire. The documentary also visits Pablo’s former haunts and hometowns in Colombia to examine his influence on Colombian culture, politics and social structure.

7. The Legendary Drug Lord Pablo Escobar

Sebastian and Tata, along with a variety of insiders from the criminal underworld, present an exclusive look into the world of Pablo Escobar. Through never-before-seen archive footage and personal recollections, this special dives deep into Escobar’s life and legacy. From his humble beginnings in rural Colombia to becoming one of the most powerful drug lords in the world, this documentary offers an inspiring look into every aspect of Escobar’s life. Interviews with family members and associates detail his rise to power and provide insight into how he changed Colombia forever. Sebastian and Tata illustrate Pablo’s journey with vivid details, painting a larger-than-life portrait of ambition and success.

8. Pablo Escobar’s Final 24 Hours

Pablo Escobar’s life was a chaotic and tumultuous one, rife with evasions from capture and a reign of terror on Colombia’s notorious Medellin Cartel. However, all good things must come to an end—and for Pablo, that fateful day came on December 2nd, 1993. He had been living in a decrepit safehouse located on the outskirts of Medellin, and on that day he had made a desperate last-ditch effort to escape capture by fleeing into a nearby slum. Unfortunately for Pablo, he was tracked down by police and military forces who engaged him in a shootout.

9. The king of Coke National Geographic

Pablo Escobar’s life was something out of a movie. A small-time criminal who rose to the heights of power and wealth, he became one of the most notorious drug lords in history. His cocaine empire made him one of the richest men on the planet, and his ruthlessness enabled him to maintain control over Colombia’s lucrative narcotics trade. But how did it all begin?

10. Pablo Escobar- The Drug Lord

Shot in HD definition with a cinematographic lens, the series is the most ambitious production ever produced in Colombia. It tells Pablo Escobar’s incredible life story, from his beginnings as a son of a school teacher in a small town near Medellín to becoming one of the wealthiest and feared men in the world. Relying on complete journalistic facts and real life testimonies, the series dives into Escobar’s world, from how he started by stealing tombstones and engaging in contraband to how he monopolized the drug trade. His ambition didn’t stop there, as he even offered to pay Colombia’s foreign debt. The power became too overwhelming for him and so he infiltrated authorities and declared war on the State.

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20 best books on pablo escobar – 2023 reading list & recommendations

Are you fascinated by the life and crimes of Pablo Escobar? If so, you’re in luck. We’ve curated a list of the 20 best books about Pablo Escobar that will take you deep into the world of the notorious drug lord. From gripping memoirs to investigative journalism, each book on Pablo Escobar offers a unique perspective on his rise to power and ultimate downfall. Whether you’re a true crime enthusiast or simply curious about one of history’s most infamous figures, these pablo escobar books are a must-read.

• 1 Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw
• 2 Pablo Escobar: My Father
• 3 The Accountant’s Story: Inside the Violent World of the Medellín Cartel
• 4 Pablo Escobar: Beyond Narcos
• 5 Pablo Escobar: The History of the Biggest Narco
• 6 Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord
• 7 Pablo Escobar: The Life and Crimes of the World’s Most Notorious Narcoterrorist
• 8 Pablo Escobar: The Fall of the Drug Lord
• 9 Pablo Escobar: The King of Cocaine
• 10 Pablo Escobar: The Man Behind the Myth
• 11 Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord
• 12 Pablo Escobar: The History of the Colombian Drug Lord
• 13 Pablo Escobar: The Rise and Fall of the King of Cocaine
• 14 Pablo Escobar: The Hidden Truth
• 15 Pablo Escobar: The Making of a Narcoterrorist
• 16 Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord Who Rocked the World
• 17 Pablo Escobar: The Life of the World’s Most Notorious Drug Lord
• 18 Pablo Escobar: The History of the Biggest Narco
• 19 Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord
• 20 Pablo Escobar: The Life and Crimes of the World’s Most Notorious Narcoterrorist
• 21 Conclusion

Buy the book

Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw

By mark bowden.

Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw by Mark Bowden is an electrifying true story that takes readers deep into the heart of the hunt for the notorious Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar. This gripping book is a thrilling combination of investigative journalism and real-life action, as Bowden details the relentless pursuit of one of the world’s most dangerous criminals.

Escobar, also known as the “world’s greatest outlaw,” was the leader of the infamous Medellín drug cartel, responsible for flooding the United States with tons of cocaine and wreaking havoc in Colombia. His empire was built on violence, corruption, and unimaginable wealth, making him one of the wealthiest and most feared men in the world.

Bowden’s writing style is vivid and immersive, taking readers on a rollercoaster ride through the highs and lows of the intense manhunt. He provides a comprehensive and in-depth look at the intricate web of power, politics, and violence that surrounded Escobar, as well as the dedicated team of Colombian and American law enforcement officials who were determined to bring him to justice.

What sets Killing Pablo apart from other books on Pablo Escobar is Bowden’s ability to humanize the man behind the myth. While Escobar was undoubtedly a ruthless criminal, Bowden delves into his motivations and the factors that contributed to his rise to power. Readers will gain a deeper understanding of the complex dynamics that drove Escobar and the impact he had on Colombian society.

With its fast-paced narrative and meticulous research, Killing Pablo is a must-read for anyone interested in true crime, international politics, or the dark underbelly of the drug trade. Bowden’s masterful storytelling keeps readers on the edge of their seats, making this book about Pablo Escobar an unforgettable journey into the heart of darkness.

Pablo Escobar: My Father

By juan pablo escobar.

Pablo Escobar: My Father is an enthralling memoir written by Juan Pablo Escobar, the son of the notorious Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar. This gripping book delves into the life and legacy of one of the most infamous figures in modern history, offering a unique perspective from someone who intimately knew the man behind the legend.

Through vivid storytelling and personal anecdotes, Juan Pablo paints a complex portrait of his father, showcasing both his incredible charisma and his ruthless nature. He unveils the human side of Pablo Escobar, revealing the deep love he had for his family and the lengths he would go to protect them. But at the same time, Juan Pablo does not shy away from exposing the dark and destructive influence his father had on Colombia and the world.

This captivating memoir also provides a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the Medellín Cartel, detailing the immense wealth, power, and violence that characterized the empire built by Pablo Escobar. Juan Pablo shares his own experiences growing up amidst this dangerous world, offering a unique perspective on the rise and fall of one of the most powerful criminal organizations in history.

While the name “Pablo Escobar” has become synonymous with crime and violence, this book goes beyond the sensationalism, shedding light on the complex dynamics of power, corruption, and the consequences of one man’s pursuit of wealth and dominance. It is a thought-provoking and haunting account that forces us to confront the darker aspects of humanity and reflect on the impact of one individual on an entire nation.

For anyone fascinated by true crime, history, or the enigmatic figure of Pablo Escobar, Juan Pablo Escobar’s memoir is an absolute must-read. It offers a unique insider’s perspective on the life and legacy of one of the most notorious figures of the 20th century, providing a deeper understanding of the man behind the myth.

The Accountant’s Story: Inside the Violent World of the Medellín Cartel

By roberto escobar.

The Accountant’s Story: Inside the Violent World of the Medellín Cartel is a captivating and eye-opening book that delves into the life and operations of the infamous Medellín Cartel, led by the enigmatic drug lord, Pablo Escobar.

Written by Roberto Escobar, Pablo Escobar’s brother and former accountant, this book provides a unique insider’s perspective on the rise and fall of one of the most powerful and ruthless criminal organizations in history.

Through vivid storytelling and firsthand accounts, Roberto takes readers on a thrilling journey, revealing the inner workings of the Medellín Cartel and the lengths they went to establish their empire. From the smuggling routes and money laundering operations to the corruption and violence that plagued Colombia, this book uncovers the shocking truth behind the cartel’s operations.

Roberto also provides a personal account of his relationship with his brother, offering a glimpse into the complex dynamics of their family and the moral dilemmas he faced while working for the cartel. His unique perspective humanizes the notorious Pablo Escobar, shedding light on the man behind the headlines.

With its gripping narrative and intimate insights, The Accountant’s Story is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the true nature of the Medellín Cartel and the larger-than-life figure that was Pablo Escobar. This book is a captivating journey into the violent and dangerous world of one of history’s most notorious drug lords.

Pablo Escobar: Beyond Narcos

By shaun attwood.

Step into the dark and intriguing world of one of history’s most notorious criminals with ‘Pablo Escobar: Beyond Narcos’ by Shaun Attwood. This gripping book on Pablo Escobar takes you on an exhilarating journey through the life and crimes of the infamous drug lord.

Attwood, a former stock-market millionaire turned true-crime author, delves deep into the heart of Escobar’s empire, uncovering shocking details and untold stories that go beyond what you thought you knew about this powerful figure.

Through meticulous research and interviews with those closest to the man himself, Attwood paints a vivid picture of the rise and fall of Escobar, exploring his early days as a small-time criminal to his meteoric rise as the leader of the Medellín Cartel. This book about Pablo Escobar peels back the layers of his operation, revealing the intricate web of corruption, violence, and power that he wielded with ruthless determination.

But ‘Pablo Escobar: Beyond Narcos’ doesn’t stop there. Attwood takes us beyond the headlines and into the personal life of Escobar, exploring his relationships, his family, and the profound impact he had on the people around him. This Pablo Escobar book humanizes the man behind the legend, showcasing his charisma, cunning, and ultimately, his tragic downfall.

Prepare to be captivated by the thrilling narrative, as Attwood masterfully weaves together the intricate details of Escobar’s life into a compelling story that will keep you turning the pages. Whether you’re a true-crime enthusiast or simply fascinated by the darker side of humanity, ‘Pablo Escobar: Beyond Narcos’ is a must-read that offers a fresh perspective on one of history’s most infamous figures.

Pablo Escobar: The History of the Biggest Narco

By luis carlos molina acevedo.

Looking for a captivating read that delves into the life of one of history’s most notorious and intriguing figures? Look no further than Pablo Escobar: The History of the Biggest Narco by Luis Carlos Molina Acevedo – a gripping account that explores the life and legacy of the infamous Colombian drug lord.

This enthralling book on Pablo Escobar takes you on a journey through the rise and fall of the man who became known as the “King of Cocaine.” From his humble beginnings to his meteoric ascent in the world of drug trafficking, Acevedo’s meticulously researched work sheds light on the complex web of power, violence, and wealth that surrounded Escobar.

Through vivid storytelling and remarkable attention to detail, Pablo Escobar: The History of the Biggest Narco provides a comprehensive and balanced account of the man behind the legend. Gain insights into Escobar’s strategic alliances, his ruthless tactics, and the immense influence he wielded over Colombian society during his reign.

This book about Pablo Escobar goes beyond the popularized image of the criminal mastermind, allowing readers to understand the societal and political context that facilitated his rise to power. Acevedo delves into the corruption and complicity that allowed Escobar to flourish, painting a nuanced portrait of a man who was both revered and reviled.

Prepare to be captivated by the thrilling narrative and insightful analysis that Pablo Escobar: The History of the Biggest Narco offers. Whether you are a true crime enthusiast or simply seeking a compelling non-fiction read, this Pablo Escobar book is sure to leave you engrossed from start to finish.

Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord

By douglas thompson.

Welcome to the thrilling world of Pablo Escobar, the notorious drug lord who ruled the underworld with an iron fist. Douglas Thompson’s gripping book on Pablo Escobar takes you on a heart-stopping journey through the life and crimes of this legendary figure.

Thompson’s book about Pablo Escobar delves deep into the dark and twisted mind of a man who built a billion-dollar empire on cocaine and violence. With meticulous research and riveting storytelling, Thompson uncovers the untold stories and secrets behind Escobar’s rise to power and his eventual downfall.

Prepare to be captivated by the pages of this Pablo Escobar book, as Thompson paints a vivid portrait of the man behind the myth. From his humble beginnings as a small-time criminal to becoming the most feared drug lord in history, Escobar’s journey is filled with danger, intrigue, and unimaginable wealth.

Thompson’s narrative weaves together interviews, insider accounts, and previously unpublished documents to provide an inside look into the inner workings of Escobar’s empire. Through his eyes, we witness the ruthless tactics, the corrupt alliances, and the sheer audacity that allowed Escobar to become a larger-than-life figure.

But this is not just a story of power and criminality; it’s also a tale of the devastating consequences that Escobar’s reign brought upon Colombia. Thompson explores the human toll, the political turmoil, and the societal impact of a man who left a trail of destruction in his wake.

So, if you’re ready to immerse yourself in a world of danger, intrigue, and larger-than-life characters, Douglas Thompson’s Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord is the perfect companion. Get ready to embark on a thrilling journey that will leave you breathless and questioning everything you thought you knew about the infamous drug lord.

Pablo Escobar: The Life and Crimes of the World’s Most Notorious Narcoterrorist

By paul williams.

Are you ready to dive into the thrilling and dangerous world of the infamous drug lord, Pablo Escobar? Look no further than “Pablo Escobar: The Life and Crimes of the World’s Most Notorious Narcoterrorist” by Paul Williams. This captivating book about the legendary kingpin will take you on a wild ride through his rise to power, his reign of terror, and his ultimate downfall.

Williams, an expert in the field of organized crime, provides an in-depth and detailed account of Escobar’s life, painting a vivid picture of the man behind the myth. With meticulous research and firsthand interviews, the author unravels the complex web of Escobar’s criminal empire, exposing the violence, corruption, and ruthless tactics used to maintain his control over the global drug trade.

From his humble beginnings as a small-time thief to becoming one of the wealthiest and most feared men in the world, Escobar’s story is nothing short of extraordinary. Williams delves into the psychological makeup of this enigmatic figure, exploring the motivations that drove him to build an empire built on drugs, violence, and terror.

But this book is not just a biography. It is a gripping tale of cat-and-mouse, as Escobar constantly evades capture by law enforcement agencies desperate to bring him to justice. Williams takes you behind the scenes of the manhunt, revealing the high-stakes operations and the dangerous alliances formed in the pursuit of Escobar.

With its fast-paced narrative and riveting storytelling, “Pablo Escobar: The Life and Crimes of the World’s Most Notorious Narcoterrorist” is a must-read for true crime enthusiasts and anyone fascinated by the dark underbelly of power and corruption. Prepare to be enthralled by the shocking exploits of one of history’s most infamous criminals.

Pablo Escobar: The Fall of the Drug Lord

By josé guarnizo.

Step into the dangerous world of one of the most notorious drug lords in history with the captivating Pablo Escobar: The Fall of the Drug Lord by José Guarnizo. This gripping book explores the rise and ultimate downfall of the legendary Colombian kingpin, offering a fascinating insight into the life of a man who controlled an empire built on drugs, violence, and unyielding ambition.

Guarnizo’s meticulously researched account takes readers on a thrilling journey through the intricate web of corruption, power, and betrayal that surrounded Escobar. From his humble beginnings as a small-time smuggler to becoming the leader of the infamous Medellín Cartel, this book provides an in-depth understanding of the complex factors that contributed to Escobar’s meteoric rise.

Through vivid storytelling, Guarnizo delves into the personal life of Escobar, shedding light on his relationships, family dynamics, and the profound influence he had on the people of Colombia. The author presents a balanced portrayal of the drug lord, allowing readers to form their own opinions about his character and the impact he had on society.

With its fast-paced narrative and shocking revelations, Pablo Escobar: The Fall of the Drug Lord keeps readers on the edge of their seats, unable to resist turning the page. Guarnizo’s writing style effortlessly captures the danger and suspense that surrounded Escobar’s reign, making this book an absolute page-turner.

Whether you are a true crime enthusiast, a history buff, or simply curious about one of the most iconic figures of the 20th century, this book is a must-read. It offers an intimate and thought-provoking glimpse into the life of Pablo Escobar, a man whose name will forever be synonymous with power, wealth, and infamy.

Pablo Escobar: The King of Cocaine

By simon strong.

Are you ready to dive into the world of one of the most notorious drug lords in history? Look no further than Pablo Escobar: The King of Cocaine by Simon Strong. This gripping book on Pablo Escobar takes you on a thrilling journey through the life and crimes of this infamous figure.

Pablo Escobar: The Man Behind the Myth

By anne marie o’connor.

Are you ready to dive into the captivating world of one of history’s most notorious figures? Look no further than Anne Marie O’Connor’s thrilling book on Pablo Escobar, the man who became a legend and a myth. In this gripping account, O’Connor peels back the layers of the infamous drug lord, revealing the complex and enigmatic person behind the facade.

This book about Pablo Escobar takes readers on a rollercoaster ride through his rise to power, his unimaginable wealth, and the devastating consequences of his actions. With meticulous research and firsthand interviews, O’Connor paints a vivid picture of the man who went from humble beginnings to ruling an empire built on crime and corruption.

But this isn’t just a retelling of Escobar’s crimes; it’s an exploration of his psyche and the forces that shaped him. Through O’Connor’s expert storytelling, we witness the transformation of a young boy from a poverty-stricken neighborhood into a man who would stop at nothing to achieve his ambitions.

Prepare to be enthralled as you delve into the dark heart of Escobar’s world, where loyalty and betrayal were constant companions, and violence lurked around every corner. O’Connor’s compelling narrative will keep you on the edge of your seat, turning page after page to uncover the truth behind the myth.

If you’re fascinated by true crime, the intricacies of human nature, and the allure of larger-than-life characters, this Pablo Escobar book is a must-read. Get ready to immerse yourself in an extraordinary tale that will leave you both captivated and haunted long after you’ve turned the final page.

by Philip Jett

Are you ready to dive into the thrilling and dangerous world of one of the most notorious criminals in history? Look no further than “Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord” by Philip Jett. This enthralling book takes you on a captivating journey through the life of the infamous Colombian drug lord.

Explore the rise and fall of this larger-than-life figure, known for his ruthless tactics and immense wealth. Jett’s expert storytelling weaves together the intricate web of Escobar’s criminal empire, delving into the inner workings of the Medellín Cartel and the deep corruption that plagued Colombia during his reign.

With meticulous research and firsthand accounts, Jett presents a gripping narrative that will keep you on the edge of your seat. From Escobar’s humble beginnings to his transformation into a powerful drug lord, this book offers a comprehensive understanding of his complex character and the immense impact he had on the global drug trade.

Prepare yourself for a rollercoaster of emotions as you witness the violence, power, and wealth that defined Escobar’s reign. Jett’s vivid descriptions and attention to detail paint a vivid picture of the dangerous world in which Escobar operated, leaving you captivated and hungry for more.

Whether you’re a true crime enthusiast or simply fascinated by the darker side of human nature, “Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord” is a must-read. Step into the shoes of this notorious figure and get ready for a thrilling journey that will leave you questioning the boundaries of power and morality.

Pablo Escobar: The History of the Colombian Drug Lord

By daniel benavides.

Are you ready to dive into the thrilling and captivating world of one of history’s most notorious drug lords? Look no further than Pablo Escobar: The History of the Colombian Drug Lord by Daniel Benavides. This gripping book takes you on a rollercoaster ride through the life and crimes of the infamous Pablo Escobar, a man whose name has become synonymous with power, wealth, and ruthless ambition.

With meticulous research and gripping storytelling, Benavides paints a vivid portrait of Escobar’s rise to power in the drug trade, his vast empire, and the shocking violence that accompanied it. From his humble beginnings to becoming one of the wealthiest men in the world, Escobar’s story is one of audacity, cunning, and unbridled ambition.

But this book is not just a mere retelling of Escobar’s criminal exploits. Benavides delves deep into the psyche of this enigmatic figure, exploring the motivations behind his actions and the complex web of relationships that surrounded him. Through interviews with family members, friends, and former associates, the author provides a unique insight into the mind of a man who was both revered and feared.

Prepare to be captivated by the high-stakes world of drug trafficking, political corruption, and the relentless pursuit of power. Benavides skillfully weaves together historical facts, personal anecdotes, and riveting storytelling to create a narrative that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Whether you’re a true crime enthusiast, a history buff, or simply curious about the life of Pablo Escobar, this book is a must-read. With its engaging prose and fascinating subject matter, Pablo Escobar: The History of the Colombian Drug Lord will transport you into the heart of a criminal empire and leave you wanting more.

Pablo Escobar: The Rise and Fall of the King of Cocaine

By josé luis díaz-granados.

Pablo Escobar: The Rise and Fall of the King of Cocaine is an incredibly gripping and eye-opening book that delves into the life and legacy of one of the most notorious drug lords in history. Written by José Luis Díaz-Granados, this captivating book on Pablo Escobar takes readers on an unforgettable journey through the fascinating world of the infamous Colombian drug lord.

Díaz-Granados meticulously pieces together the puzzle of Escobar’s life, from his humble beginnings as a son of a farmer to his meteoric rise as the head of the Medellín Cartel, making this a truly compelling book about Pablo Escobar. The author explores the intricacies of Escobar’s empire, offering readers an inside look at the immense wealth, power, and violence that surrounded the drug trade in Colombia during the late 20th century.

What sets this Pablo Escobar book apart is its ability to humanize the man behind the myth. Díaz-Granados goes beyond the headlines and exposes the complexities of Escobar’s character, revealing both his ruthless nature and his charisma. Through interviews with Escobar’s family, friends, and former associates, the author paints a multi-dimensional portrait of a man who was both revered and feared by many.

The book also delves into the political and social implications of Escobar’s reign, shedding light on the corruption that permeated Colombian society during this dark period. Díaz-Granados explores the devastating impact of the drug trade on local communities, as well as the international ramifications of Escobar’s operations.

Packed with thrilling anecdotes and shocking revelations, Pablo Escobar: The Rise and Fall of the King of Cocaine is a riveting read that will leave readers both fascinated and appalled. Díaz-Granados’s meticulous research and engaging storytelling make this Pablo Escobar book a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the man, the myth, and the legacy of one of the most notorious figures in criminal history.

Pablo Escobar: The Hidden Truth

By james hunt.

Are you ready to uncover the hidden truth about the infamous drug lord? Look no further than Pablo Escobar: The Hidden Truth by James Hunt. This gripping book on Pablo Escobar takes you on a thrilling journey through the life and crimes of one of the most notorious figures in history.

Get ready to dive deep into the heart of the drug empire as Hunt uncovers secrets, exposes lies, and reveals shocking revelations about the man behind the legend. This isn’t just another book about Pablo Escobar; it’s a riveting account that will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.

With meticulous research and firsthand accounts, Hunt paints a vivid picture of Escobar’s rise to power, his unimaginable wealth, and the devastating impact he had on countless lives. From the violent streets of Medellín to the corridors of power, this Pablo Escobar book leaves no stone unturned.

Prepare to be captivated by the dark and twisted world of Pablo Escobar as you uncover the hidden truth that has remained shrouded in mystery for far too long. This is a must-read for true crime enthusiasts, history buffs, and anyone who wants to understand the man behind the myth.

Pablo Escobar: The Making of a Narcoterrorist

By william c. rempel.

Pablo Escobar: The Making of a Narcoterrorist is a gripping and eye-opening book that delves into the life and rise of the notorious drug lord, Pablo Escobar. Written by William C. Rempel, this book provides a comprehensive account of Escobar’s transformation from a humble beginnings to becoming one of the most powerful and feared criminals in history.

Through extensive research and interviews with those who knew Escobar personally, Rempel paints a vivid and detailed picture of the man behind the myth. From his early days as a small-time smuggler to his establishment of the Medellín Cartel, Rempel explores the factors that enabled Escobar to amass unimaginable wealth and power.

What sets this book apart is its focus on the intricate web of corruption and violence that Escobar orchestrated in his pursuit of dominance. Rempel uncovers shocking revelations about Escobar’s involvement in terrorism, political manipulation, and the countless lives lost as a result of his actions.

Rempel’s writing style is both informative and engaging, making it difficult to put the book down. He seamlessly weaves together historical facts, personal anecdotes, and expert analysis, creating a narrative that is as thrilling as it is educational.

Pablo Escobar: The Making of a Narcoterrorist is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of the drug trade and the impact it has had on society. Rempel’s meticulous research and compelling storytelling make this book a standout in the genre, offering readers a fascinating glimpse into the life of one of the world’s most infamous criminals.

Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord Who Rocked the World

By sean patrick.

Looking for an exhilarating rollercoaster ride through the ruthless world of drugs and power? Look no further than Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord Who Rocked the World by Sean Patrick. This captivating book delves deep into the life of one of history’s most notorious figures, exploring the rise and fall of the man who became synonymous with the drug trade.

Unveiling the untold truth behind the infamous Pablo Escobar, this meticulously researched book takes you on a wild journey through the dark underbelly of Colombia’s criminal underworld. From his humble beginnings as a small-time smuggler to his meteoric rise as the head of the infamous Medellín Cartel, Escobar’s life story is as captivating as it is shocking.

With its gripping narrative and vivid storytelling, Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord Who Rocked the World shines a light on the immense power and influence that Escobar wielded over governments, law enforcement, and even ordinary citizens. The author leaves no stone unturned as he explores the intricate web of corruption, violence, and wealth that surrounded the drug lord.

Patrick’s writing style keeps you on the edge of your seat, as he skillfully weaves together historical facts, personal anecdotes, and insider information. He paints a vivid picture of Escobar’s larger-than-life personality, his ruthlessness, and his ability to manipulate anyone who stood in his way.

This book is a must-read for true crime enthusiasts, history buffs, and anyone looking for an adrenaline-filled adventure. So, buckle up and prepare to be immersed in the captivating world of Pablo Escobar. Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord Who Rocked the World is not just a book about a criminal mastermind; it’s a journey into the heart of darkness.

Pablo Escobar: The Life of the World’s Most Notorious Drug Lord

By charles river editors.

If you’re looking for a gripping and eye-opening book on Pablo Escobar, look no further than Charles River Editors’ insightful and riveting account of the life of the world’s most notorious drug lord. This book about the infamous Colombian drug lord delves deep into the dark and twisted world of Escobar, exploring his rise to power, his ruthless empire, and his ultimate downfall. It is a must-read for anyone fascinated by the complexities of the drug trade and the enigmatic figure that was Pablo Escobar. Prepare to be captivated by the shocking true story that unfolds within the pages of this Pablo Escobar book.

Are you ready to dive into the thrilling world of one of the most notorious criminals in history? Look no further than Pablo Escobar: The History of the Biggest Narco by Luis Carlos Molina Acevedo. This captivating book on Pablo Escobar takes you on an unforgettable journey through the rise and fall of the infamous Colombian drug lord.

In this gripping book about Pablo Escobar, Molina Acevedo meticulously uncovers the intricate web of corruption, power, and violence that surrounded Escobar’s empire. From his humble beginnings to becoming the head of the Medellín Cartel, Escobar’s story is nothing short of mesmerizing.

Using his impeccable investigative skills, Molina Acevedo delves deep into the life of the man known as the “King of Cocaine”. He explores Escobar’s cunning strategies, his immense wealth, and the devastating consequences of his actions. The author presents a comprehensive account of the impact Escobar had on Colombia and the international drug trade.

Molina Acevedo’s writing style is both engaging and informative, making this Pablo Escobar book a page-turner from beginning to end. Through meticulous research and interviews with key individuals, he unveils the hidden truths about Escobar’s criminal empire and the world that allowed it to flourish.

Whether you’re a true crime enthusiast or simply curious about one of the most intriguing figures in recent history, Pablo Escobar: The History of the Biggest Narco is a must-read. Prepare to be enthralled as you uncover the dark and captivating world of Pablo Escobar.

If you’re ready for an intense rollercoaster ride through the life of one of the most notorious figures in history, then hold on tight and dive into the captivating world of “Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord.” This enthralling book by Douglas Thompson is an absolute page-turner that delves deep into the life and crimes of the infamous Colombian drug lord. Thompson’s meticulous research and gripping storytelling will engulf you in a world filled with unimaginable wealth, power, and violence. Get ready to be mesmerized by the story of a man who rose from humble beginnings to become the kingpin of the Medellín Cartel, leaving a trail of chaos and destruction in his wake. With every turn of the page, you’ll find yourself drawn into the dark underbelly of the drug trade, witnessing Escobar’s ruthless tactics, his incredible wealth, and the unrelenting pursuit of justice by the law enforcement agencies determined to bring him down. This is not just a book about Pablo Escobar; it is an immersive experience that will take you on a wild journey through the rise and fall of one of the most infamous figures in modern history. So, buckle up and prepare to be captivated by this gripping tale that lays bare the life of the man who came to embody the very essence of power and corruption.

Get ready to delve into the thrilling and dangerous world of the infamous Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar, with the gripping book on Pablo Escobar by Paul Williams. In this meticulously researched and captivating biography, Williams takes readers on a heart-pounding journey through the life and crimes of the world’s most notorious narcoterrorist.

From humble beginnings to becoming the head of the infamous Medellín Cartel, Escobar’s rise to power and wealth is nothing short of extraordinary. Williams provides a detailed account of how Escobar built his empire, smuggling tons of cocaine into the United States and amassing a fortune that made him one of the richest men in the world. But with wealth and power came violence and corruption, and Escobar’s reign of terror left a trail of destruction and death in its wake.

Not only does this book about Pablo Escobar explore his criminal activities, but it also delves into his personal life and the impact his actions had on his family, friends, and the Colombian society at large. Williams paints a vivid and complex portrait of a man who was both a ruthless criminal and a charismatic leader.

Through interviews with key figures and extensive research, Williams offers a comprehensive and balanced look at Escobar’s life, shedding light on the motivations behind his actions and the consequences they had for countless individuals. Readers will find themselves immersed in a world of danger, betrayal, and unimaginable wealth as they follow Escobar’s rise and eventual downfall.

Whether you are a true crime enthusiast or simply curious about one of the most notorious figures in recent history, this Pablo Escobar book is a must-read. Williams’ engaging writing style and meticulous attention to detail make for a riveting and informative journey that will leave you breathless.

Prepare to be captivated by the incredible story of Pablo Escobar in this book on Pablo Escobar – a tale of power, violence, and the dark side of human nature.

In conclusion, these 20 books about Pablo Escobar offer a captivating and immersive glimpse into the life of one of the most notorious drug lords in history. Each book delves deep into the complexities of Escobar’s rise to power, his violent reign, and the lasting impact he had on Colombia and the world. Whether you’re seeking thrilling true crime narratives, insightful biographies, or revealing firsthand accounts, these books provide an unfiltered and gripping look into the dark world of Pablo Escobar. Dive into these pages and embark on a journey you won’t soon forget.

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