Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha (Pacho, Cundinamarca, May 14, 1947 - Tolú, Sucre, December 15, 1989), nicknamed "El Mexicano", was a Colombian drug trafficker, terrorist, paramilitary and criminal, co-founder and leader of the Medellín Cartel.

Of humble origins, Rodríguez Gacha amassed his fortune during the 1970s and early 1980s through cocaine trafficking to Central and North America. After the creation of the Cartel in 1976, the Colombian media considered him the "leader of the military wing" of said organization and its important "Minister of War." More than 1,000 deaths were attributed to his name. He had his own paramilitary force, including bodyguards and hitmen, with nearly 2,000 members and was considered by Forbes magazine as one of "the richest men." of the world" in 1988.

He would decisively support the creation of self-defense groups in Colombia and orchestrated the extermination of the Patriotic Union in the late 1980s. Rodríguez Gacha died on December 15, 1989, after a military operation that included a ground and air chase near of the beaches of Coveñas, an operation that also ended the life of his son Fredy. It was known, years after his death, that his significance was not limited to the spheres of drug trafficking, but also to the commercial, political, sports and social spheres..

Biography

Origins

José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha was born in Pacho, Cundinamarca, Colombia, on May 14, 1947, into a humble peasant family that sold cheese. In the third year of high school he decided to abandon his studies to start working in Bogotá, where he worked as a restaurant waiter, bus assistant, and even as a merchant in the San Victorino sector.

His criminal career would take off in the early 1970s, when he moved to Muzo (Boyacá) and entered the service of Gilberto Molina Moreno, the "tsar" of the emeralds in Boyacá, a legendary character who for many years imposed his law in the mining business, exercising his influence in a vast region that covers the municipalities of Quípama, Otanche and Borbur. Molina was the undisputed boss and his partners (who recognized his status as "godfather") included people like Víctor Carranza, Julio Rincón, Benito Méndez, "el mono Bernal", Julio Silva and Juan Vitar. These legally exploited concessions granted by the Colombian government to societies of which they and other emerald workers were members. However, they did not dominate the entire business. Among their rivals, the main one was the group controlled by the Vargas family, which imposed its law in the Coscuez region. The green war between Molina and the Vargas became increasingly bloody and, while that was happening, Rodríguez Gacha, who had risen rapidly in the structures of the "green tsar", became independent to dedicate himself to a considerably more active activity. profitable: drug trafficking. His first contact with this business came through Verónica Rivera de Vargas, a friend of Pablo Escobar and the Mexican drug trafficker Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo around the mid-seventies. He made his first fortune in the middle of the Marimbera Bonanza and then began cocaine trafficking.

In a few years Rodríguez Gacha became, along with Escobar and the Ochoa family, one of the pillars of the Medellín cartel in the early eighties. In a short time he amassed one of the greatest fortunes in Colombia. Associated with the mafias based in Antioquia, he controlled an autonomous wing of the drug trafficking organization in the center of the country, managing his own men and resources. In 1981, together with his partners, he would finance the creation of the first self-defense group, Death to Kidnappers (MAS). New drug trafficking routes would soon open through Mexico, Haiti, Los Angeles, California, Houston, Texas and Nicaragua, where he played a fundamental role in the crime of American pilot Barry Seal, later murdered when he agreed to testify against the cartel.

Murder of Rodrigo Lara Bonilla

Increasingly, his attacks were directed against the Colombian state, supporting his partner and friend Pablo Escobar in his fight against the government. On April 30, 1984, Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, who had undertaken a crusade against the Medellín Cartel, was murdered by hitmen from "Los Priscos" who moved on a motorcycle. In response, President Belisario Betancur declared drug traffickers outlawed and spoke out in favor of the implementation of the extradition treaty. The Ochoas, Pablo Escobar, Carlos Lehder and Rodríguez Gacha had to flee to Panama. In a last attempt to control the situation and negotiate with the government, the bosses met with former Colombian president Alfonso López Michelsen at the Marriott Hotel in Panama. However, the negotiations were leaked to the press and the plan would fall apart. Months later they would clandestinely return to the country, but the breaking point with the government had already arrived.

War against the State

We prefer a grave in Colombia to a prison in the United States.

Lema de Los Extraditables

Due to the reactivation of the extradition treaty in May 1984 and the first arrests for this purpose in January 1985, the members of the Medellín Cartel were outlawed and called themselves "Los Extraditables". The start of a frontal war against the governments of Colombia and the United States was inevitable. This black period would become known in Colombian history as the War of Narcoterrorism.

The terror campaign reactivated from the second half of 1986 claimed the lives of Supreme Court magistrate Hernando Baquero Borda, Judge Gustavo Zuluaga Serna, Colonel Jaime Ramírez Gómez and the director of El Spectator: Guillermo Cano Isaza. After a one-year truce, the decisions taken by the Barco Government on January 8, 1988, when issuing arrest warrants for extradition purposes against Escobar, Rodríguez Gacha and the brothers Juan David, Jorge Luis and Fabio Ochoa Vásquez, would generate a new terrorist escalation. On January 16, 1988, the candidate for mayor of Bogotá, Andrés Pastrana Arango, was kidnapped and on the 25th of the same month, during a new kidnapping attempt, the Attorney General of the Nation, Carlos Mauro Hoyos, was murdered. The war against the State is practically declared.

The violence would no longer stop. Rodríguez Gacha deepened his extermination campaign against the left, multiplying the murders of the leaders of the Patriotic Union: Teófilo Forero and José Antequera were killed at the beginning of 1989. He even dared to massacre an entire judicial commission in La Rochela (Santander)., on January 18, 1989, also on November 1, he murdered the congressman for Pacho, Cundinamarca; Luis Francisco Madero Forero. On several occasions Madero confronted the drug trafficker. He started the movement that called for the expulsion of El Mexican from that region of Cundinamarca to save the people of Pacho from narcoterrorism, starting the war, which led to that well-known end. He also once organized a civic strike to protest against the drug business. The murdered congressman belonged to the Second Commission of the House of Representatives, which is in charge of studying military and international affairs. In 1980 he was the speaker of the Extradition Project. Luis Madero belonged to the Conservative Party, he was a fighting partner of Álvaro Gómez Hurtado.

At the same time, it entered into a more intense and violent conflict for control of the emerald mines in western Boyacá. Determined to unite his emporiums in the northwest of Cundinamarca with Magdalena Medio – his self-defense training camp, he ended up seeing his former associates and friends as a hindrance. On February 27, 1989, he infiltrated an armed commando in Sasaima (Cundinamarca) and liquidated the master of the emerald business in Colombia, Gilberto Molina Moreno, along with 17 other people.

He soon went on to attack Víctor Carranza, another former partner of his, who had become the new "czar" of the emeralds. The war with this escalated after the massacre in the Altos del Portal building in Bogotá, on July 5, 1989. There a group of soldiers in the service of "El Mexicano", in the course of an alleged operation, interrupted a meeting of people from the DEA and F2 with Ángel Gaitán Mahecha, an informant, and they massacred 4 people. The attacks continued throughout the month of July. On the 7th a bomb semi-destroyed the Tecminas facilities in Bogotá, a company owned by Carranza; The so-called “coca queen”, Verónica Rivera, was murdered; On the 10th, Julio Carranza, nephew of the “Tsar,” was shot. On the 15th, 60 men shot 6 guaqueros in the Itoco ravine, on land run by Tecminas. Later, Pedro Julio Yaya, a vein guard, was thrown alive from a small plane. On July 26, a dynamite attack with a car bomb devastated the offices of "Ganadería Nare", owned by Carranza, killing one person and leaving two injured. Finally, on the following August 15, Blanca Lilia de Molina, widow of Gilberto Molina, emerged unharmed from an attack.

At the same time, following the failure of negotiations with the National Government, together with Pablo Escobar, he undertook a wave of murders in May 1989. On May 4, 1989, the former governor of Boyacá Álvaro González Santana, father of the judge Martha Lucía González. A first dynamite attack shook Bogotá on the 30th of the same month, targeting the Head of the Administrative Department of Security (DAS) Miguel Maza Márquez. He was unharmed, but seven people were killed and thirty injured. Other attacks would follow against the governor of Antioquia Antonio Roldán Betancur who died on July 4, the third judge of Public Order María Helena Díaz murdered on July 28, the magistrate Carlos Ernesto Valencia killed on August 16 and finally the Commander of the police in Antioquia Valdemar Franklin Quintero and the presidential candidate (1990-1994) Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento shot to death on the same day, August 18, 1989. In the last event, 70 men from Gacha took an active part, led by Jaime Rueda, the The same one that unloaded the mini-Atlanta submachine gun on the liberal candidate that took his life. President Virgilio Barco would then declare war on the Medellín Cartel and proceeded on August 19 to issue decrees that allowed extradition through administrative means, the seizure of drug trafficking assets and the preventive detention without judicial charges of suspected members of the organization. narcoterrorist Furthermore, with 80% of the cocaine consumed in the United States arriving from Colombia, the newly elected President George H. W. Bush concentrated his government's anti-drug strategy in the Andean country and on August 21, 1989, Attorney General Dick Thornburgh made public a list of 12 drug lords wanted by the North American government. The list included Pablo Escobar, "El Mexicano", "Mono Abello" and the Ochoa Brothers; Jorge Luis, Fabio and Juan David.

War against the FARC-EP and narcoparamilitarism

Soon the power of Rodríguez Gacha overflowed the original core of Cundinamarca and Boyacá and entered the eastern plains and Magdalena Medio, contacting the FARC-EP, which initially provided surveillance services to the boss's crops and laboratories. in exchange for certain "taxes" called "grammar". However, the destruction of several of his drug processing laboratories in 1983, plus the theft of coca paste and cash from some of his emissaries, led him into a personal war with said organization. Under the philosophy of "he who is not with me, he is against me." and supported by his new paramilitary partners from Magdalena Medio, the self-defense groups of Pablo Emilio Guarín, Henry Pérez, the brothers Fidel and Carlos Castaño and Ramón Isaza, he undertook an extermination campaign against the Patriotic Union, a party that he considered the political arm of the communist guerrilla. Gacha tried to negotiate with the FARC-EP to return what they had taken from him and met with 'Mono Jojoy', but the war with the FARC-EP continued until the death of Gacha.

By 1989, Rodríguez Gacha had a thousand men at his disposal in a personal army trained by foreign mercenaries. Thus, between December 1987 and May 1988 he hired Israeli and British mercenaries to train teams of assassins and hitmen. Among these stood out Yair Klein, a retired lieutenant colonel from the Israeli army, leading a team of instructors in Puerto Boyacá during 1988. Rodríguez Gacha thus became the main commander of the "Narcoparamilitarismo" In colombia. Furthermore, his contacts with corrupt elements within the government forces gave him sufficient impunity to act against his enemies with complete freedom. At least eight hundred members of the UP fell victim to their revenge against the FARC-EP, including the president of the party, Jaime Pardo Leal, assassinated on October 11, 1987, the secretary of the communist party, Teófilo Forero, and the young leader of left José Antequera. To Putumayo, with "Los Masetos" the drug trafficker's tentacles reached him at the moment of his death.

Terrorist offensive of 1989

As many expected, the drug traffickers were not deterred and on August 23, 1989, they took on the challenge of a total war with the Colombian state, through a published letter to the public. The extradition left them no choice but to try to subdue the Barco Government through terrorism and large-scale contract killings: 289 war actions and more than 250 deaths in three months clearly illustrate this. The main cities – Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Bucaramanga and Cartagena – were bombed daily (100 terrorist acts from September to December).

On August 24, the bombs that exploded in the capital of Antioquia began their violent attack. On September 2, terrorists blew up a truck loaded with one hundred kilos of dynamite at the El Espectador newspaper. On the 11th, liberal leader Pablo Peláez González was assassinated. On September 21, several firecrackers exploded simultaneously in nine political headquarters in the Teusaquillo sector (Bogotá). On September 26, there was an attack on the Hilton Hotel in Cartagena, resulting in two fatalities. On October 16, a car bomb parked outside the facilities of the newspaper Vanguardia Liberal, in Bucaramanga, left four dead. On the 20th the Royal Hotel in Barranquilla was bombed. On November 1, María Elena Espinosa Arango, member of the Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Medellín, and Luis Francisco Madero Forero, representative in the Chamber for Cundinamarca, fell. On November 9, two weeks after an attack by hitmen, journalist Jorge Enrique Pulido died.

The government reacted by multiplying operations and arrests throughout the country: on October 11, "Mono" Abello, and on November 23, government forces fell on the El Oro ranch, owned by Pablo Escobar, killing two members of the cartel (including his brother-in-law Mario Henao) and arresting fifty-five more. However, the boss managed to escape. Wounded by the cartel, Escobar and Rodríguez Gacha responded with two violent actions in the capital of Colombia. The worst was yet to come.

On November 27, trying to kill Galán's replacement in the presidential elections, César Gaviria, Pablo Escobar blew up an Avianca plane in mid-flight with its 107 passengers on board; on December 6, in what would be his biggest attack, & # 34; Los Extraditables & # 34; They rolled a bus from the Bogotá Aqueduct loaded with five hundred kilos of explosives down the street and blew it up in front of the facilities of the Administrative Department of Security (DAS). General Maza, the target of the attack, emerged unharmed; However, sixty-three people were killed and five hundred injured. Rodríguez Gacha, responsible for the last terrorist catastrophe, thus became the most wanted man in Colombia, with a reward of $250,000 dollars being offered for his head. At that time, & # 34; El Mexicano & # 34; He had changed his physical appearance, having surgery on his face and growing a thin beard, with which he intended to evade persecution by the authorities.

Death

The government, faced with a total war and after the attack on the DAS building, focused on capturing the leaders of the cartel, offering 500 million pesos for the head of Rodríguez Gacha (the same amount offered by Escobar). In August 1989, President Barco's government had had a stroke of luck when Freddy Gonzalo Rodríguez Celades, the son of "El Mexicano" He was arrested for illegal possession of weapons north of Bogotá. He was held for longer than the law stipulated, trying to put pressure on his father, but since the strategy did not work, he was released on November 22. With this, it seemed that any clue leading to Rodríguez Gacha had been lost.

However, an informant hired on behalf of the Cali Cartel infiltrated in the structures that Gacha had on the Atlantic Coast, Jorge Velásquez alias "El Navegante", revealed the location of the drug trafficker in Cartagena de Indias, where he was protected by a body of twenty-five bodyguards. Upon realizing the presence of the authorities, the fugitives took a motorboat and embarked towards Tolú. There the boss was accompanied by his son Freddy Gonzalo, Gilberto Rendón Hurtado alias 'Mano de yuca'. (number 8 within the Cartel and who controlled cocaine transportation networks from the Caribbean Coast) and 4 more bodyguards. The Navigator also accompanied them. After leaving them on the night of December 14 on the coast of Coveñas, he reported Rodríguez Gacha's new location to the authorities. After the Police intercepted the boat and embarked Velásquez in one of the two helicopter gunships mobilized for the offensive, the final operation was arranged.

At noon on December 15, 1989, around 1:10 p.m., twenty-two police officers, 17 of them elite commandos, aboard the two helicopter gunships, flew over 'El Tesoro', a complex of wooden cabins on the edge of the sea between Coveñas and Tolú, where the objective is supposed to be. With loudspeakers and sirens they asked Rodríguez Gacha to surrender, without receiving any response. He would dress like a local, as would his escorts who pretended to be workers on a livestock farm, while they waited in silence to see what would happen with the operation. The helicopters continued searching the area, perhaps thinking that the narcoterrorists had already fled. They were waiting for any oversight and in fact they took advantage of the moment to make their way to a red Chevrolet Carpado Truck that was parked outside the town, and flee, armed with half a dozen grenades, 1 Galil rifle., 1 Heckler & Koch MP5, 1 9 mm pistol and a 38 Cal. long revolver.

The police forces quickly realized the truck was fleeing and began pursuing it. Less than two kilometers from Tolú, the car was intercepted when, trying to lose its pursuers, it turned off onto the route that leads to Sincelejo. Unable to avoid the authorities, a little further on, near Tolugas (a propane gas complex), Freddy Gonzalo (armed with a 9 mm pistol), Gilberto Rendón and three more bodyguards jumped out of the machine, opening the door. fired at one of the aircraft to attract its attention, while at the same time they tried to advance towards a fence of oak trees, in the middle of grasslands infested with weeds. One of the aircraft responded with its machine guns, killing two of the gunmen, then descended and left 5 commandos of the elite force on the ground, who confronted the two surviving escorts and the son of 'El Mexicano'. 34;, eliminating them. In the interval, the truck carrying the capo and one of his men continued its race, followed by the other aircraft. But precisely on that same road there was a counterguerrilla patrol of the marine infantry, guarding one of the farms of the extradited Eduardo Martínez Romero. Upon seeing them, the truck stopped and Rodríguez Gacha and a bodyguard got out, both entering the banana plantations adjacent to the road, on the La Lucha farm. The gunners opened fire, trying to detect the fugitives, who seemed like they would manage to escape. However, Gacha, who was armed with a German MP5 submachine gun, lost momentum in his career when he tore his scalp on a wire fence. Cornered, he returned fire, revealing his location, the machine gun responded and he fell after being wounded in the leg. At that moment, another impact from a 7.62 mm caliber bullet hit him squarely in the face, killing him. Fingerprint procedures were necessary to establish without a doubt his identity. Minutes later, at 1:45 p.m., the last of the boss's men fell.

Another version provided by El Navegante maintains that Rodríguez Gacha, upon finding himself cornered by the police, blew himself up with a grenade to avoid being captured and extradited to the United States.

After the operation, next to the weapons and communication equipment seized, the book that Rodríguez Gacha was reading was found: The method of a millionaire peasant, which tells the life of the Colombian businessman "Pepe Sierra".

Two days later, on the night of December 17, his body and that of his son were buried in his native Pacho, in the middle of a massive funeral attended by nearly 3,000 people. Many in his town saw him as a benefactor of the poor, hence his massive presence at his funeral.

Wealth and assets

Rodríguez Gacha was listed as one of the richest men in the world by Forbes magazine on June 20, 1988. Owner of more than 116 properties, farms, houses, apartments, lots and vehicles, valued at 40 million dollars. His fortune became legend following the stories of coves or guacas buried on his properties: carts full of gold ingots, bags of dollars and emeralds 200 horses in pace; Among these, Túpac Amaru, a million-dollar horse, invested in the Millonarios soccer team by financing the hiring and salaries of the players.

His nickname "El Mexicano" It came from his taste for Mexican culture; For example, his farms were named after Mexican cities such as Cuernavaca, Mazatlán, Sonora and Chihuahua. Another of his properties was the La Chihuahua nightclub, which today bears the name La Chihuahua VIP.

Hundreds of fortune hunters invaded the premises of Rodríguez Gacha in search of the bins full of money and the coveted black briefcase that "El Mexicano" he never left, but on December 15, 1989 he mysteriously disappeared. In March 2006, said black briefcase and the guacas came to light again, when it was revealed that the United States had received 60 million dollars to erase any evidence that would allow the heirs of "El Mexicano" to be involved.; in the multiple trials that follow the drug trafficker.

Indeed, the investigators, as revealed by the magazine Cambio, discovered abundant documents seized during the raids carried out on properties of "El Mexicano". One of these caught the attention of the investigators: it was a copy of a judicial agreement made 10 years ago in the United States by a lawyer who represented the heirs of the bloodthirsty boss.

The agents discovered a secret operation through which the United States justice system obtained the money in question at the Los Millonarios Sports Club, deposited in twenty-four accounts in the name of front men of Rodríguez Gacha in banks in Hong Kong, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria. In exchange for the above, Rodríguez Gacha's heirs were free of charges of conspiracy to introduce cocaine into that country, in addition to the fruits of their illegal activities being hidden.

In response, Senator Javier Cáceres Leal announced a debate in Congress, "well, if judicial immunity is bought in the United States with money, why should Colombia continue with the hardest and bloodiest effort, and receive just the crumbs of the millionaire resources seized?".

Marriage and children

His first-born son Freddy Gonzalo Rodríguez Celades was the product of a passing relationship with "El Mexicano" with Luz Mary Celades, a bar girl in Pereira. After two failed marriages, "El Mexicano" He married Gladys Edilma Álvarez Pimentel, who was just 14 years old and 15 younger than "El Mexicano". She was arrested for fronting 11 years after the death of her husband. Today she is married to a lawyer and lives outside of Colombia.

In popular culture

• The film was released in 1992 Narcos goes to the show!, directed by the Italian Giuseppe Ferrara, in which the character of The Boss played by the Spanish actor Aldo Sambrell, is inspired by Rodríguez Gacha.
• In 2012, the Colombian private channel Caracol premiered the series Escobar, the pattern of evilinspired by the life of the most famous and sought after drug trafficking in the 80s and 90s, Pablo Escobar. In this series, the character of Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha was played by the actor Juan Carlos Arango under the name "Gustavo Ramírez Rocha", alias"El Mariachi", great friend and partner of Escobar.
• In 2013, the Colombian private channel RCN released the series Three Cains (produced by R.T.I.), inspired by the lives of the paramilitary brothers Castaño Gil. In this series, Rodríguez Gacha was played by the actor Rodolfo Silva under the name "Gonzalo Mahecha", alias "El Mexican", as a partner and friend of Escobar, as well as being manager of the first paramilitary groups in Colombia.
• In 2013, RCN released its new series, Alias el Mexicanoinspired by the life of this drug dealer. The story was starred by actor Juan Sebastián Calero as Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha. Produced by Fox Telecolombia for RCN Televisión.
• In 2015, Netflix made a series called Narcos where the cap appears to be one of the most sought after together with his partner Pablo Escobar. It is interpreted by the actor Luis Guzmán.
• In 2016, RCN Televisión released the Bloque de búsqueda series, which briefly recounts its participation in narcoterrorism. It was played by Elkin Díaz, under the name of Gonzalo Largacha alias "The Cute."
• In 2017, the film Loving Pablo, directed and starring Javier Bardem, showed Gacha personified by Colombian musician Julio Nava.
• In 2019, the series El general Naranjo, a series of Colombian biographical television created by Anita de Hoyos and produced by Fox Telecolombia based on the book The general of the thousand battles written by Julio Sánchez Cristo. It was played by Walter Luengas.
• The corrido of Fernando Valente Alias el Mexicano.
• Your image is on a rag or flag of the Millonarios Blue Rain bar.