Pablo Escobar

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (Rionegro, Antioquia, December 1, 1949-Medellín, Antioquia, December 2, 1993) was a Colombian drug trafficker, criminal, terrorist and politician, founder and top leader of the Medellín Cartel.

Born from a peasant family, Escobar would show business skills from a young age; He began his criminal life in the late 1960s as a smuggler, and in the late 1970s he became involved in the production and sale of marijuana and cocaine abroad.

After forming alliances with Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, Carlos Lehder and Jorge Luis Ochoa and his clan, Escobar would found the Medellín Cartel, an organization that at its height monopolized the cocaine business from its production to its consumption, controlling more than 80% of the world production of said drug and 60% of the illicit market of the same in the United States. Thus managing to consolidate his criminal empire, making him the most powerful man in the Colombian mafia, accumulating an immense fortune, which was around 8 billion dollars in assets and cash, establishing him as one of the richest men in the world according to Forbes magazine for seven consecutive years.

To excuse his immeasurable capital, in the early 1980s Escobar would try to polish his image through charity work for the underprivileged and with a brief foray into politics, occupying a seat as House Representative in the National Congress in 1982. However, in 1983, after various publications in the newspaper El Espectador and with the direct accusation of the Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, he lost his seat and was publicly accused of his illegal business.. Some time later, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla in 1984 and Guillermo Cano, director of El Espectador, are murdered on Escobar's orders.

By 1985, drug trafficking was already in full swing and the cartels were also dominating Colombia, which unleashed a war against the government, headed at that time by Belisario Betancur. The latter was the one who had put Rodrigo Lara Bonilla as Minister of Justice, who had pointed out drug traffickers who were involved in politics, economy, even in the world of soccer.

The drug traffickers had private armies, businesses throughout Colombia, large tracts of land, and control of markets such as emeralds. Lara later dismantled the Medellín Cartel's largest cocaine laboratory, Tranquilandia, and would seize 30 planes from the same group. The drug war against the government turned violent and sadistic.

After two attempts at negotiation and multiple kidnappings and selective assassinations of judges and public officials, in 1989, the Medellín Cartel led by Escobar declared total war against the State. He organized and financed an extensive network of hit men, faithful to his command, who assassinated key personalities for national institutions, such as the liberal leader Luis Carlos Galán, and perpetrated indiscriminate terrorist acts with the use of car bombs in the main cities of the country that destabilized the country, put the authorities " on your knees", and which made him the most wanted criminal in the early 1990s. He was responsible for the murder of 657 police officers between 1989 and 1993, and fierce confrontations against the Cali Cartel, the paramilitaries of Magdalena Medio and finally Los Pepes.

After the consummation of the National Constituent Assembly in 1991, which gave Colombia a new constitution and the prohibition of the extradition of nationals to the United States, Escobar decided to submit to justice with the only condition of being imprisoned in The Cathedral, an ostentatious jail located on its grounds. After proving that he was still committing crimes behind bars, the Government wanted to capture him, for which Escobar escaped, easily leaving through the back of the prison, which was one of the most shameful episodes for the country's prison authority. After his escape, the government formed the so-called Search Block to recapture him and after 17 months of intense tracking, he was shot on a roof of a middle-class sector of Medellín at the age of 44 on December 2, 1993.

Biography

Family

Medellin, Colombia's second largest and most populous city, where Escobar grew up and began his criminal career.

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was born on December 1, 1949 in the village El Tablazo located in the rural area of Rionegro, Antioquia, Colombia. Within a humble peasant household, he was the second in a household of seven children, his parents were Abel de Jesús Escobar Echeverri (March 14, 1914 - October 25, 2001), a peasant farmer who left an immense fortune when he died., and Hermilda de los Dolores Gaviria Berrío (April 5, 1917 - October 26, 2006), a school teacher. His siblings, in order of birth were: Roberto de Jesús, alias El Osito, Gloria Inés, Argemiro, Alba Marina, Luz María and Luis Fernando (the youngest, born in 1958 and murdered at the age of 19 in 1977).

His maternal grandfather, Roberto Gaviria Cobaleda (January 31, 1873 - March 10, 1943), had already preceded him in illegal activities, since he was a renowned Whiskey smuggler in times when it was illegal (beginning of the 20th century). The aforementioned Roberto Gaviria was also the grandfather of the Colombian lawyer and politician José Obdulio Gaviria. José Obdulio has had to fight against his last name. For 20 years he has had to overcome the circumstances of being Pablo Escobar Gaviria's cousin.

In an interview with national television at the time (in the 1980s), Pablo Escobar stated the following about his origins:

For my family did not have important economic resources and we are experiencing difficulties like those experienced by the majority of the Colombian people, so we are not alien to those problems, we know them deeply and understand them.

Pablo Escobar

However, his ancestors and his closest relatives stood out as politicians, businessmen, ranchers, and figures of the Antioquian elite, for which reason his widely publicized "popular origins" would not correspond to reality. Among his extensive family we can mention Isabel Gaviria Duque, first lady of the Nation, wife of Carlos E. Restrepo, who was president of Colombia between 1910 and 1914. Pablo Escobar's godfather at his baptism was the renowned Colombian diplomat and intellectual Joaquin Vallejo Arbelaez. In the parish of Rionegro rests his game that says:

In the parish of St. Nicholas of Rionegro, on December four, a thousand nine hundred forty-nine, the Pbro. Juan M. Gómez baptized a child who was born first of the present, whom he named PABLO EMILIO, the legitimate son of Abel de Jesús Escobar and Hermilda Gaviria, neighbors of this parish. Paternal grandparents: Pablo Emilio Escobar and Sara María Echeverri. Grampas maternos: Roberto Gaviria and Inés Berrío. Godfathers: Joaquín Vallejo and Nelly Mejía de Vallejo, who were warned of spiritual kinship and obligations. I give faith. Agustín Gómez. Cura. CONFIRMATION MARGINAL NOTE. Confirmed in the Basilica Minor by His Excellency. Mr. Alfonso Uribe Jaramillo, on October twenty-nine hundred and fifty-two. Godfather: Gustavo Gaviria. I give faith. Juan M. Gómez, Pbro. MATRIMONY MARGINAL NOTE. Case in Palmira, Valle, parish of La Stma. Trinidad, March twenty-nine, nine hundred and seventy-six. Witnesses: Alfonso Hurtado and Dolores de Vallejo. He married Victoria E. Henao. I give faith. Mons. Samuel Álvarez Botero».

Childhood and youth

According to his mother's testimony, Escobar began to show insight and cunning as early as elementary school; and at the beginning of high school, another of his qualities became evident, his leadership over his peers. Escobar and his cousin Gustavo Gaviria Rivero did small "businesses" at the Lucrecio Jaramillo Vélez high school, where they both studied. They held raffles, traded comics, sold tests, and lent money at low interest. In this way, Pablo Escobar began to develop his "ability" for business and commerce.

In 1969 he finished high school at the aforementioned Lyceum, then he was admitted to study at the Faculty of Economics of the Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana de Medellín, where several of his Gaviria cousins studied, including José Obdulio, but finally he opted for retire since he preferred to dedicate himself to his personal "business". As a curious fact, he always felt self-conscious about his short height (1.60) and this made him wear special high-heeled shoes to look taller.

Marriage and children

His wife was Victoria Eugenia Henao Vallejo, La Tata, whom he married when she was 15 years old in 1976. From this union their only two children were born: Juan Pablo Escobar Henao on February 24, 1977 and Manuela Escobar Henao on May 24, 1984. Gloria Gaviria Flores, who was her spoiled cousin, was the godmother of the wedding along with Carlos Fersch, the best friend of the Cartel del Sur. She states that:

Paul long before he died told me that he wanted his son and mine to be the owners of the empire, since he did not want his empire to end.

Carlos Fersch

Juan Pablo Escobar and his father in 1977.

Gloria currently lives in Bogotá and pays home for jail, the parental authority of her youngest son is his grandmother, the last thing that was known about the young man is that he lives in Antioquia, together with his grandmother. Escobar's children, Juan Pablo and Manuela Escobar Henao, left their country after Escobar's death, but were returned upon arrival in the United States, running with the same fate in Germany. They finally settled in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where they had several legal problems that they later managed to resolve. For security reasons, and to remove the stigma of having the Escobar surname, their first and last names were changed by the Colombian authorities before they left that country. Thus, Victoria was renamed María Isabel Santos Caballero, Juan Pablo is now Juan Sebastián Marroquín Santos and Manuela is called Juana Manuela Marroquín Santos, identities that were recently revealed by her own will.

Pablo Escobar and his son in 1979.

In 2009, a young man born in San José, Costa Rica, told the Colombian press that he was the son of a relationship that, in 1974, Pablo Escobar would have had with a Costa Rican woman. According to his version, he would have been raised by his mother in the Desamparados neighborhood. In 1985, when the boy was 10 years old, his mother took him to the United States. He called himself Pablo Escobar Jr. and dedicated himself to singing hip hop and acting: he was part of the cast of the series The Cartel de los Sapos and the telenovela El rostro de Analía. Escobar's family denounced that he would be an impostor.

On December 11, 2009, his son Juan Pablo presented the biographical documentary Sins of my father, in which he apologized to the families who were victims of drug-trafficking violence.

On November 8, 2006, one day after the death of his mother Hermilda, Escobar's body was exhumed by order of Nicolás Escobar, Pablo's nephew and son of Roberto Escobar Gaviria, alias El Osito. Juan Pablo Escobar accused his cousin of having sold the images of the exhumation to television (they were broadcast live) and of profiting from the memory of the murderer. The family dispute deepened after learning that Nicolás was left with three teeth and a piece of his mustache that was still in the skeleton, although he alleges that he kept them to carry out DNA tests that would resolve the paternity claims of two alleged children of the drug dealer.

Criminal Career

Escobar's beginnings in organized crime took place slowly but surely and throughout his criminal career, he used a strange mixture of violence, blood, paternalism and philanthropy to achieve his ends. While, on the one hand, He mercilessly eliminated his competitors, ordered assassinations, encouraged intrigues or conspired against influential figures in politics or the Government, on the other hand, he gave sandwiches to beggars, erected houses for the poor of Medellín or built soccer fields for the children of the suburbs, which gave him strong popular support in the poorer neighborhoods of the city.

Tranquilandia was the main cocaine production centre of the Medellin Cartel located in Caquetá. It consisted of 19 processing laboratories, abundant fresh water (the Yarí River), an independent electrical system, bedrooms and a runway for landing. The complex was destroyed in 1984 by the National Police and DEA seized about 14 tons of drugs, valued at $120 million.

Escobar began his criminal career with petty scams, theft, and working for Colombian smuggling king Alfredo Gómez López "Don Capone". Contrary to what was said, he did not have a bicycle business or steal tombstones to resell them, since he was a deeply believer from a very young age, just like his family. Years later he would build several churches, soccer fields and rebuild the city with the income derived from the cocaine trade.

As he grew older, he became involved in car theft on the streets of Medellín, and soon became involved in trafficking marijuana to the United States. He was also involved in the kidnapping and murder of the industrialist Diego Echavarría Misas in 1971, and of the drug lord Fabio Restrepo in 1975. He first acted as an intermediary who bought coca paste in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru, to later resell it. to the traffickers in charge of taking her to the United States.

In the 1970s he became a key player in international cocaine trafficking, associated with Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, Carlos Lehder, Jorge Luis Ochoa and his brothers Fabio and Juan David, he founded and led the so-called Medellín Cartel that became It took control of the tracks, routes, laboratories and monopolized the illegal trade from production to consumption. In 1976 he was arrested for drug trafficking but the process expired and he was released months after his arrest. However, the process was reopened by Judge Mariela Espinosa, who also withdrew from the investigation due to threats against her life. Espinosa she was assassinated in 1989, by order of Escobar.

Later, he would come to be listed as the seventh richest man in the world according to Forbes magazine, something that his son would deny years later. He owned an exotic and extensive hacienda, called Hacienda Nápoles, which it became their center of operations.

Pablo Escobar was among the world's billionaires due to his immense fortune invested in buildings, houses, automobiles and farms. At the Hacienda Nápoles he gathered more than 200 species of exotic animals for the region, such as hippos, giraffes, elephants, zebras and ostriches, all introduced into the country as a result of bribing the customs authorities, which did not prevent the television broadcast of the property in a propaganda report. He was fond of luxury cars and, after the attack perpetrated by his enemies from the Cali cartel, more than 40 sports cars were found in the parking lot of the Monaco building in Medellín, where part of his family lived. It is difficult to calculate all of his real estate such as buildings, offices, farms, commercial premises and houses, but some data speaks of more than 500 properties owned by him. He also owned helicopters, motorcycles, boats, and several small planes to transport the drug through various regions of the country.

According to DEA documents, the Medellín Cartel founded the group Muerte a Secuestradores (MAS) in 1981 as a response to kidnappings (kidnapping of Martha Nieves Ochoa, attempted kidnapping of Carlos Lehder) and guerrilla actions in against him, this group is also related, after the death of Pablo Escobar, with Carlos Castaño and his brother Fidel, known paramilitary commanders.

Political Activities

In the late 1970s (or early 1970s) he realized he had to create a "front" to protect his lucrative drug trade. He began to cultivate an image of a respectable man, to contact politicians, financiers, lawyers, etc. Without knowing for sure his true intentions, Pablo Escobar built many charities for the poor, including 60 soccer fields, or an entire neighborhood called "Medellín without slums"; ―also called Pablo Escobar neighborhood―.

He imposed the «silver or lead law», by which many members of the Colombian government, police and military either accepted "silver" (money) or a rain of "lead" (they were shot to death).

Escobar in political campaign, Virginia Vallejo on the second floor, 1982.

He gained, through extortion, the support that would lead him to be elected as a substitute to the Senate for the Liberal Alternative movement, after having been expelled along with Jairo Ortega Ramírez, from the New Liberalism founded by Luis Carlos Galán. He was invited in 1982 to the inauguration of Felipe González, the third president of democratic Spain, by the Spanish businessman Enrique Sarasola, who had important businesses in Medellín.

In this way, at his best moment he managed to accumulate great influence in multiple legal, civil, economic, religious and social sectors of Medellín, Antioquia and the country.

But his screen began to collapse in 1983, when Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla also led an investigation against Escobar after verifying the presence of money of dubious origin in politics and in national soccer teams, publicly accusing him of being one of the founders of the MAS paramilitary group.

In 1990, the FBI prepared a report according to which Escobar would have financed political campaigns in the 1990 legislative elections.

The War on Narcoterrorism

Escobar was accused of sponsoring the M-19 Palace of Justice in Bogotá in 1985, which ended with the Supreme Court of Justice of that time.

The investigations by Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, together with police colonel Jaime Ramírez Gómez, prove Escobar's links to drug trafficking when the boss had given the minister an ultimatum to prove his accusations or, failing that, I would accuse him of slander and defamation. The newspaper El Espectador published a series of editorial notes written by its director, Guillermo Cano Isaza, which revealed what was really hidden behind Pablo Escobar. Congress, initially hesitant, removed his parliamentary immunity, clearing the way for the authorities to begin pursuing him.

Escobar, together with Ortega, attacks the minister by showing a check from drug trafficker Evaristo Porras financing Lara's campaign for the senate, but the minister denies such a link and manages to discredit Escobar by publicly showing a documentary on the drug lord on ABC while Ramírez led an operation that dismantled Tranquilandia, a gigantic complex of laboratories for cocaine processing belonging to the Cartel, located near the Yarí River, in the then Guaviare police station. Therefore, Escobar loses his seat, his visa to the United States is canceled, and Escobar publicly resigns from politics.

On April 30, 1984, Lara is assassinated on Escobar's orders, beginning a period that has gone down in history as "narcoterrorism." After this fact, President Belisario Betancur, previously opposed to the extradition of Colombians, decides to authorize it, unleashing a series of operations by the police to capture the members of the Medellín Cartel. The main leaders of the Cartel had to take refuge in Panama and tried, in May 1984, in the midst of the so-called Panama Dialogues with former President Alfonso López Michelsen, a last attempt to get closer to the State. Its failure was due to the fact that the dialogues had been leaked to the press. Months later, they would clandestinely return to the country and total war would be a matter of time.

One year after the murder of Lara Bonilla, despite government announcements to combat them, the drug traffickers of the Medellín Cartel, now renamed Los Extraditables, remained unpunished, expanding their criminal apparatus by vast parts of the country and opening new cocaine trafficking routes through Nicaragua and Cuba. All this in collusion with some sectors of the public force, bought with money and terror.

In November 1984, "Los Extraditables" blew up a car bomb outside the US embassy in Bogotá, killing one person and, in June 1985, they ordered the death of judge Tulio Manuel Castro Gil, who was in charge of investigating the crime of Lara Bonilla. Escobar, at war with the guerrillas, after the MAS episode, approached the M-19 through negotiations with Iván Marino Ospina. According to some versions, it is believed that he was aware of the takeover of the Palace of Justice due to the threats of Los Extraditables to the magistrates of the courts and for having offered economic support for the operation, which was not It has been accepted by the former M-19 militants, since the operation, according to them, had political objectives. The operation was authorized by Álvaro Fayad and was carried out between November 6 and 7, 1985, leaving 94 dead as a result. and the disappearance of 11 people during the retaking of the Palace by the Public Force.

The campaign of terror continues against his enemies in the Government and those who supported the extradition treaty, made effective in January 1985 with the shipment of the first captured to the United States through the newly inaugurated Minister of Justice Enrique Parejo González, in replacement of the assassinated Lara, and all those who denounced their businesses and mafia networks. The Extraditables assassinated, in February 1986, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the pilot and witness before the US justice Barry Seal; in July, magistrate Hernando Baquero Borda, rapporteur for the 1980 Extradition Treaty, and El Espectador journalist Roberto Camacho Prada; and on August 18, already with the new president of Colombia Virgilio Barco Vargas, the captain of the anti-narcotics police Luis Alfredo Macana.

In addition, they would demonstrate their power of corruption when they prevented Jorge Luis Ochoa and Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, captured in Spain and both known drug traffickers, from being extradited to the United States and deported to Colombia, where they paid paltry jail terms. Until then, the country's main drug-exporting groups generally maintained good relations with each other, although the attention of the authorities was essentially focused on the violent leaders of Medellín, who controlled up to 90% of the lucrative business. And, despite the fact that the Cali bosses mainly opted for corruption and infiltration within the institutions as a means of dealing with the State, in September 1986 they ordered the murder of the journalist from Diario Occidente, Raúl Echavarría Barrientos. After the rise to the presidency of Virgilio Barco Vargas, in September 1986, motorized hitmen killed Judge Gustavo Zuluaga Serna, in charge of investigating the death of two DAS agents, who, in 1978, had arrested Escobar for possession and trafficking of narcotics. In October 1986, they killed anti-narcotics police colonel Jaime Ramírez Gómez. On December 17, 1986, they killed Guillermo Cano, director of the newspaper El Espectador. In January 1987, Escobar's hit men carried out a terrorist attack in Budapest, Hungary, against Enrique Parejo González, former Minister of Justice and, at that time, Colombian ambassador to that country.

It is believed that Escobar was the one who caused the capture and extradition to the United States of Lehder on February 4, 1987. Escobar and the rest of the leadership, being aware of the danger that extradition represented to their interests and determined to fight it They reinforced their military and economic apparatus and set about the task of raising substantial resources among all drug traffickers, even among those who were not part of their group, in order to finance the foreseeable escalation of violence.

Cartel war (1986-1993)

The cocaine sent by the Medellin Cartel to the United States was packed into blocks and entered hidden between parts of machinery, cars, submarines, boats and even in the rims of the planes from Colombia. Up to 15 tons of this drug entered the northern country every day.

The principle of the distancing between the two cartels is not entirely clear. In 1984, when the group "Los Extraditables," associated with the Medellín Cartel, decided to assassinate Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, a 'pool' of bosses who contributed large sums of money. The Cali Cartel seems to have disapproved of the plan, and sent a message in which it hinted that said crime would turn against everyone and that if Lara was assassinated they would not count on them. Escobar's ambition to dominate the situation led to a first purge within the organization, including Pablo Correa Arroyave and Hugo Hernán Valencia, all through an exchange of favors with Gilberto Rodríguez. After Hélmer Herrera Buitrago's refusal to hand over Piña, one of his men, Escobar orders Piña's kidnapping and his murder at the hands of Negro Pabón, one of his lieutenants. Said murder motivated the rupture between both cartels. The capture in November 1987 of Jorge Luis Ochoa in Buga (Valle) was seen as the product of a denunciation by the traffickers from Cali.

In the midst of this discussion, on January 13, 1988, 70 k of dynamite exploded in front of the Monaco Building, owned by Pablo Escobar and his family's place of residence.

There were no deaths, despite the fact that the building was semi-destroyed. Although the Cali Cartel insisted on denying responsibility for the attack, for Escobar this seems to have been the Llorente vase that unleashed open warfare between cartels. They had not only messed with him but with his family and it is stated that his daughter was left with serious hearing damage.

From that moment on, an offensive against the businesses and properties of the Cali Cartel began. On February 18, 1988, a branch in Medellín of the Drogas La Rebaja chain was set on fire and this was followed by about 40 dynamite attacks against the drugstore chain, and 10 more against the Colombian Radial Group, both belonging to the Rodríguez Orejuela family. 1988 marks the beginning of the espionage and counterintelligence offensives. First, Escobar set up an intelligence operation for the Cali Cartel. The Rodríguez Orejuelas, in turn, hired five retired soldiers to set up an espionage service against Escobar. He discovers them and kidnaps them. The Cali cartel then made a peace proposal, to which Escobar put two conditions: compensation of 5 million dollars for the attack on the Monaco building, and the handing over of Pacho Herrera, Escobar's staunch enemy. Gilberto Rodríguez refused to surrender and the five ex-soldiers were found dead a few days later with a card that said. "Members of the Cali Cartel executed for attempting to attack people from Medellín."

In December 1988, Escobar attempts to kidnap Pacho Herrera in Cali, the operation fails and Herrera becomes Escobar's primary target.

1989 offensive and negotiations

The possible extradition of Escobar reactivated the offensive against the State. A few days later, the politician and candidate for mayor of Medellín, Juan Gómez Martínez, escaped an attempted kidnapping claimed by Los Extraditables. And although Ochoa was released with impunity under the right of habeas corpus a month later, the confrontation did not stop. In the first days of January 1987, the government—publicly humiliated—issued extradition orders against the main members of the organization. On January 13, Pacho Herrera dynamited the Monaco Building, where Escobar lived with his family. The bloody hit-man war between the two cartels intensified. Several bombs exploded in the pharmacies of the Drogas La Rebaja chain, owned by the Rodríguez Orejuela.

On January 16, 1988, Escobar's hit men kidnapped Andrés Pastrana—a candidate for mayor of Bogotá and later President of the Republic—and kept him hidden for several days on a farm near Rionegro. On January 25, 1988, they kidnapped Carlos Mauro Hoyos ―Attorney General of the Nation (Head of Prosecutors)―, at the moment he was going to the Rionegro airport (Antioquia).

That same day, the Rionegro police released Pastrana, and in retaliation Popeye shot dead Carlos Mauro Hoyos (48), who had been kidnapped for 10 hours and whose plan was previously to keep Pastrana and Hoyos kidnapped in the same place. In March 1988, several hundred uniformed soldiers fell on the El Bizcocho farm ―property of Escobar―, but he was warned at the last minute and escaped.

Starting in July 1988, the Secretary General of the Presidency, Germán Montoya, had entered into talks with the leaders of Los Extraditables. Subsequent statements by the Government were interpreted by the drug traffickers as an invitation to dialogue, so on the following September 15, they responded with a letter to the Barco administration, and sent Montoya a pardon bill and a demobilization plan.. However, given the intransigence of the United States, reluctant to have a dialogue with the drug traffickers, the talks were delayed and in the end they were presented as the personal initiative of the intermediary, separating the president from them.

As a reaction to this dialogue without results, the cartel headed by Escobar and Rodríguez Gacha, began a chain of assassinations of judges, government officials and public figures. In March 1989, Los Extraditables killed Héctor Giraldo Gálvez ―a proxy in the Lara case replacing Castro Gil―, and two months later they dynamited the headquarters of the Mundo Visión television station. On May 4, 1989, the former governor of Boyacá Álvaro González Santana, father of Judge Martha Lucía González, was assassinated. After the assassination attempt against the head of the DAS, General Miguel Maza Márquez on May 30, 1989 in Bogotá, using a powerful explosive charge that liquidated 7, terrorism took over the country. On July 4, 1989, in Medellín, in an attack directed at Colonel Valdemar Franklin Quintero, the governor of Antioquia, Antonio Roldán Betancur, died along with five of his companions. On July 28, 1989, Escobar's hit men assassinated Judge María Helena Díaz —Espinoza's substitute— and her two bodyguards.

On August 16, 1989, Escobar's hitmen killed the judge of the Cundinamarca superior court, Carlos Ernesto Valencia, and on August 18 in Medellín, Colonel Quintero, treacherously riddled with dozens of bullet wounds. Although the news of the crime that occurred in the morning hours was overshadowed, when at night during a political rally in Soacha, several dozen gunmen at the service of Rodríguez Gacha infiltrated the demonstration and killed the presidential candidate for the liberal party, Luis Carlos Galán, staunch enemy of drug traffickers and supporter of allowing the extradition of drug traffickers to the United States, who had the best chance of becoming president of the nation. The politician Alberto Santofimio Botero is also involved in this murder, who in 2006 was shown to have been the mastermind of the act.

As a consequence of Galán's assassination, the talks were completely interrupted and the president declared war on drug trafficking in the same way that Betancur had done 5 years before. With Decree 1830 of August 19, 1989, Barco established the extradition through administrative means, without counting on the decision of the Supreme Court of Justice; With Decree 1863, he authorized military judges to carry out searches where it was presumed or there were indications of persons or objects related to a crime; with Decree 1856 he ordered the confiscation of all personal and real property belonging to drug traffickers; and with Decree 1859 he authorized the detention in conditions of absolute incommunicado and for a time that exceeded the constitutional norms, of people of whom there were serious indications of having committed crimes against the existence and security of the State. In addition, the creation of the Elite Group was arranged with 500 men, essentially aimed at hunting down the terrorist leaders and placed under the command of Colonel Hugo Martínez Poveda. In the days that followed, the Army and the Police carried out more than 450 raids throughout the national territory and arrested nearly 13,000 people accused of being linked to drug trafficking.

Flight 203 of Avianca was destroyed on 27 November 1989 in full flight by Escobar's orders to kill César Gaviria Trujillo, who did not board the ship at the last moment; 110 people died. Gaviria would become the president of Colombia in 1990 and Escobar would be discharged under his mandate. In the image, a Boeing 727 similar to that destroyed.

On August 23, Los Extraditables responded to the government in a letter to public opinion, assuming the challenge of total war. With 3,000 armed hitmen, the paramilitary association and the support of a significant portion of the population under his control, to which was added the financial muscle that gave him control of at least 90% of cocaine trafficking abroad., the Medellín Cartel confronted the Colombian State with bombings and selective assassinations. Terrorism became a true daily nightmare, it multiplied and put the government in check like never before: between September and December 1989, more than 100 devices exploded in Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Bucaramanga, Cartagena, Barranquilla and Pereira, against government buildings, banking, commercial, service and economic infrastructure facilities. In those three months, adding up the hit men's attacks, the narco-terrorists were responsible for 289 terrorist attacks in that period, with a fateful balance of 300 civilians killed and more than 1,500 injured.

On August 30, 1989, a first bomb exploded in Medellín, on September 2 the facilities of the newspaper El Espectador were almost destroyed, which on that same day continued its edition in the afternoon, on September 11, Escobar's hitmen assassinated the liberal leader Pablo Peláez González on September 21, Escobar's hitmen dynamited 9 political headquarters in Teusaquillo and on September 26 they attacked the Hilton Hotel in Cartagena. Despite not being able to stop the continuous explosions, the authorities did not give up their efforts, they multiplied the raids and captured two major drug lords: Eduardo Martínez Romero and Rafael El Mono Abello, to later extradite them to the United States. In retaliation, on October 16, 1989, a car-bomb razed the headquarters of the newspaper Vanguardia Liberal (from Bucaramanga) and killed 4 journalists. On November 8, 1989, Escobar's hitmen killed judge Héctor Jiménez Rodríguez and journalist Jorge Enrique Pulido (who had already received threats) when he was about to return to his program, after the Sunday newscast Mundo Visión , receiving several bullet wounds. They also killed Luis Francisco Madero (Representative to the Chamber). At the end of October, seven policemen were assassinated in Medellín, five of them in the explosion of a bus in front of the Club of Officials of the city.

On November 23, 1989, a lightning operation was launched against the El Oro hacienda, in Cocorná (Antioquia), where Pablo Escobar and Jorge Luis Ochoa were. Escobar managed to escape, but two of his men died -one of them his brother-in-law, Fabio Henao-, and 55 were arrested. Four days later, on November 27, Escobar's hitmen blew up Avianca flight 203 in order to kill then-candidate César Gaviria Trujillo, Galán's successor (who had not boarded the plane on the advice of his advisers), with a balance of 107 civilians killed. On December 6, 1989, Escobar's hit men placed a bus bomb in front of the DAS building -the Colombian secret police-, trying to assassinate its director, General Miguel Alfredo Maza Márquez, who escaped unharmed despite the fact that the building was left half destroyed The bus-bomb also destroyed more than 200 commercial establishments around it. 63 civilians were killed and 500 wounded.

The newspaper The Spectator, one of the oldest in America, held a severe attitude against drug trafficking and was the one who revealed details of Escobar's criminal life after his arrival in the House of Representatives in 1982. His director, Guillermo Cano, was signed by orders of the cape in 1986. Its installations (in the image) were semi-destroyed by a car bomb in 1989, also by Escobar's orders.

On December 15, 1989, the Boat Government managed to kill the second leader of the Medellín cartel and its military leader, the Mexican (Rodríguez Gacha). He was located by an informant on the north coast of the country, where he was taking refuge from the persecution of the authorities. Responsible for more than 2000 homicides and claiming the attack on the DAS building, he was killed after a hard persecution between the municipalities of Tolú and Coveñas in the department of Sucre, along with his son Freddy Rodríguez Celades, his main lieutenant Gilberto Rendón Hurtado and to Four hitmen of your security body. The Mexican was attributed most of the terrorist attacks in recent months. The extraditable ones tried a new strategy of dialogue and negotiation with the State, wanting to press it with the kidnapping of the son of the Secretary of the Presidency, Álvaro Diego Montoya and two relatives of the President of the Republic. A proposal by former president López Michelsen, backed by former presidents Julio César Turbay and Misael Pastrana, by Cardinal Mario Rebollo Bravo and by the president of the UP Diego Montaña Cuellar, consisting of the formation of a notable commission to negotiate with The narco -terrorists.

On January 17, 1990, they responded to this proposal by presenting in a statement as legitimate candidates for judicial forgiveness and expressed a "true will to negotiate." Immediately afterwards the kidnapped released, delivered a bus with a ton of dynamite, and one of the largest drug processing laboratories in Chocó. As the drug trafficking expected the creation of the high -level commission that would be in charge of the legal procedures that would allow their surrender. However, this never happened and the attempted dialogue and negotiation ended in a new wave of terrorism.

effectively deceived by the Government and in front of a strong military offensive in envigado, declared a area of military operations by the IV Brigade under General Harold Bedoya, the extraditable ones ended the truce on March 30, putting a price on The head of each dead police. Medellín and his metropolitan area were involved in a true urban war, after the first uniformed executions and after the attack against an elite group truck, which occurred on a Itagüí bridge on April 11. This attack that left 20 dead and 100 injured was the first of the 18 that happened until the end of July with a balance of 100 fatalities and 450 injured.

On May 12, the eve of the Mother's Day celebration made explosion in 2 commercial neighborhoods of Bogotá Pumps that killed 21 people. On the same day in Cali another terrorist act came from the life of 9 civilians. At the end of the month at the same time that a hitman was flying in front of the Intercontinental Hotel in Medellín, ending 6 police and 3 passersby, Senator Federico Estrada Vélez and his driver was riddled. The violence is intensified and the victims were thousands: in retaliation for the death of 215 uniformed executed between April and July 1990, squadrons of death go up every night to the communes and shoot dozens of men, several of them minors.

Shortly after the military chief of Escobar, Pinina (John Jairo Arias Tascón), he was killed on June 14, another series of war actions came: 19 young people from the high -society of Antioquia are killed in the massacre of the Oporto bar And a car-bomb exploded in front of the Police Libertadores station, killing 14 civilians. Finally, at the end of July, after an immense operation in the Magdalena Medio Antioqueño, which once again escaped Escobar, the extraditable ones decreed a new truce and put themselves defensive, waiting for the decisions that the incoming administration of Gaviria. In any case, they affirm the impossibility of surrendering to justice as long as the State security agencies are not restructured and the appropriate legal mechanisms will not be created to avoid extradition.

Pumps and kidnappings. Rendary and delivery

Apart from an unfinished peace process, President César Gaviria inherited the "war on drug trafficking" with which his predecessor had intended to reduce the Medellín cartel and his network of hitmen, declared enemies of the State. Although during his presidential campaign he had demonstrated total support of both the offensive and to the measures taken by the president, including the most feared by narcoterrorists, which was extradition administratively; Once possessed, he suggested that the high economic and human cost of this war deserved the search for an alternative exit in which the strengthening of justice would be a key element. On August 12 in any case, in a hand blow, men of the elite group murdered Gustavo Gaviria Rivero, cousin and right hand of Pablo Escobar.

Taking advantage of the respite of the indefinite unilateral truce announced in July by the extraditable ones, the Minister of Justice Jaime Giraldo Ángel designed the legislation of the state of site that would be made public as "policy of submission to justice." This policy, which materialized in five decrees that subsequently would be high after a purification, to permanent legislation in the new Criminal Processing Code, aspired in simplified terms, to favor with the reduction of the penalty to drug traffickers who would voluntarily delivered And they will confess at least one crime, with the guarantee, in some cases conditional, of being tried in the country and held in high security pavilions. The first to benefit from the offer, between December 1990 and February 1991, were the Ochoa brothers, Jorge Luis, Juan David and Fabio, nearby partners of Escobar who suspicious of the Government's intentions, which had already breastfeeding him previously, organized him A series of selective kidnappings of renowned journalists and influential characters in national life.

Escobar orders the kidnapping to relatives of members of the Government and journalists, of the long list of kidnapped the most recognized were: Francisco Santos Calderón (editor chief of the newspaper El Tiempo ), Maruja Pachón de Villamizar (Journalist and General Director of Focine, wife of the politician and diplomat Alberto Villamizar), Beatriz Villamizar de Guerrero (sister of Alberto Villamizar and Focine Personal Assistant), Diana Turbay (director of the Television News Cripton and the magazine Hoy X Hoy, today, daughter of the former president of the Republic Julio César Turbay) and who died in confusing events during an attempt to rescue the police, Marina Montoya de Pérez (sister of former Secretary General of the Presidency, Germán Montoya) and who is executed by her captors as reprisals For the death of hitmen and collaborators of the Police Hands, especially for the death of the Armando and Ricardo Prisco Lopera brothers, priscer leaders, armed arm of the poster, Álvaro Diego Montoya (eldest son of the then general secretary of the Presidency, Germán Montoya), Patricia Echeverri and her daughter Diana Echeverri, political relatives of the former president of the Republic of Baro by pressing the outgoing and elected president to be treated as a political offender, becoming beneficiary of the step of the pardons reserved for the guerrillas Escobar also intended to start the Executive an agreement made tailored to him and continued to press again by the armed route, threatening to execute the hostages and restart his terrorist offensive.

On December 13, 1990, a bomb killed 7 police officers in Medellín and another 7 would be killed by hitmen in the first 3 days of January and with a new streak of attacks: a dozen police officers were victims of sicariato, An explosion in a bus left 6 dead and on February 16 an atrocious bombing against an F2 patrol in Medellín in front of the city's bullring, resulted in 22 dead civilians. Two months later, Sicarios de Escobar killed former Minister of Justice Enrique Low Murtra, in Bogotá.

The government had to fold to the demands of Escobar, who freed the rest of the kidnapped as a gesture of "good faith." But only when it was sure that the National Constituent Assembly had voted and approved on June 19, 1991 the article that prohibited the extradition of Colombians by birth, Escobar is delivered in the company of Father Rafael García Herreros and Alberto Villamizar, mediators in his Rendary. He would then be held in the famous Cathedral jail in Envigado. From there in spite > Moncada and several of its hitmen.

War in Magdalena Medio

The Hacienda Nápoles, a place of residence in Escobar for several years, currently works as a theme park and still preserves the exotic fauna brought by the criminal.

Since the policy of negotiating sentences also covered the paramilitaries, many members of the organizations based in Córdoba, the Magdalena medio, the Sierra Nevada, Boyacá, Valle del Cauca and the Llanos Orientales acquiesced to the authorities, confessing only the crime of illegal carrying of weapons, all of them covered by decrees 2047 and 3030 of 1990 and 303 of 1991. The largest group under the command of Ariel Otero demobilized 400 of its members in Puerto Boyacá, while in Córdoba Death to Revolucionarios del Fidel Castaño's Northeast (MRN) delivered 600 rifles, and some portions of land as supposed compensation to the peasants dispossessed of their plots. Also a redoubt of about 200 men, formerly under the command of Rodríguez Gacha, accepted the amnesty in Pacho (Cundinamarca). Consequently, starting in 1992, a significant reduction in the murders of civilians was observed, attributed to the self-defense groups in previous years. But in practice these structures remained active, keeping a low profile.

The self-defense groups in Magdalena Medio were involved in a brutal fight with their former drug-trafficking associates beginning in 1990. Henry Pérez, the first commander had been assassinated by a gunman during the celebration of the Virgen del Carmen in July 1991, and Ariel Otero, his successor aligned with the Cali Cartel, would suffer the same fate at the beginning of 1992. The surviving force was fragmented and some of its remains entered the service of Escobar, while other gangs such as the one headed by Ramón Isaza, withdrew from the area.

Meanwhile, in the southern part of the region, near Honda, Tolima, Jaime Eduardo Rueda Rocha, Galán's assassin, escaped from prison a year ago and now the head of a party of 150 criminals, gained prominence. Seeking to position himself as the top leader, he killed and dismembered the mayor of Puerto Boyacá in March 1992, to later throw his body and that of 4 of his companions into the Magdalena River. But his promotion was cut short by a GOES patrol that killed him and 6 members of his security force in a Honda restaurant on April 14 of the same year. After his death, the activity of the self-defense groups in the area decreased considerably, since they chose to mimic their criminal activities. Eliminated Escobar in December 1993, Ramón Isaza would retake control of Magdalena Medio.

The paramilitary groups held a truce between 1992 and 1994, with the delivery of some weapons and land, and they had a new impulse at the end of the Gaviria four-year term. This is how, after Escobar's death in 1993, the Campesino Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá (ACCU), under the command of Fidel Castaño and Carlos Castaño, staged their expansion, with the support of hundreds of demobilized EPL persecuted by the FARC-EP and the EPL dissidence led by Francisco Caraballo.

The Cathedral and Fugue

On June 19, 1991, the drug lord voluntarily entered prison in exchange for not being extradited to the United States. However, to do so, he demanded that the government, among other things, go to an exclusive prison on the grounds that that he could be in danger of death if he entered an ordinary correctional facility. Thus, the Government authorized the works of the location that would later become the worst shame of the Colombian penitentiary system: called La Catedral. A "custom-built" facility, which was erected on land acquired by Escobar himself, and which had innumerable luxuries for him and his associates, in addition to strong security provided by the Colombian Army outside, restricted airspace and the prison authorities designated by the state to guard his confinement that although the majority were Escobar hit men in prison guard uniforms.

Nearly a year after his imprisonment in early July 1992, Escobar had become a high-ranking extortionist. He stopped exporting cocaine and began collecting large sums of money from other drug traffickers. Suspecting his closest allies, Galeano and Moncada, on the pretext that they were hiding $20 million from him, Escobar ordered the execution of both.The subsequent purge of those closest to both capos and of his relatives left some 50 dead. The Government and the Prosecutor's Office, upon learning of the serious facts and to prevent Escobar from continuing to commit crimes from his comfortable prison, ordered his transfer to a new prison. But in dark conditions that once again demonstrated the power of corruption and the fear generated by the dangerous drug trafficker after kidnapping the Vice Minister of Justice Eduardo Mendoza and the director of INPEC prisons Colonel Hernando Navas who anticipated the movements of the Government to Escobar at the time it is discovered that the soldiers in charge of guarding the outskirts of the prison had been bribed by the boss.

Escape from the Cathedral

Pablo Escobar's Search Cartel, 1992.

On July 22, 1992, Escobar, his brother Roberto and nine of his men fled from the prison after kicking one of the rear walls of the building built with plaster for this purpose. The capo and his henchmen fled on foot, surrounding the mountains and taking advantage of the fog that covered the area and the blackout of the so-called Gaviria Hour. The capo's evasion meant the greatest mockery of the Gaviria government before public opinion and Colombian justice would end up being discredited internationally.

The Government touched in the deepest, created the Search Block, a body made up of the National Police, the National Army and the anti-drug forces of the United States to hunt down the fugitives and dismantle their criminal empire once and for all. The leaders of the Cali Cartel were in charge of unleashing the war again, by activating a car bomb in Medellín that they attributed to their Antioquian enemies.

Faced with the onslaught of state forces, they reactivated their campaign with a series of attacks in which they executed 30 uniformed officers and a judge, between September and October 1992. But this time the situation had changed abruptly for the Cartel: The death of Galeano and Moncada generated a fracture within the organization. Diego Murillo Bejarano 'Don Berna', head of security for the murdered capos and the Castaño brothers, aligned themselves with the Valle narcos in a broad alliance against Escobar, which included corrupt officials from the Search Bloc and several from his former associates. With the information they were able to supply to the authorities, they dealt very hard blows to the "Patron" networks. On October 28, Tyson (Brances Alexander Muñoz), one of his most important military leaders, was killed in a special operation.

At that time, Escobar tried to negotiate his redemption and had authorized the surrender of several of his closest lieutenants, including his brother Roberto, alias “Popeye” (John Jairo Velásquez, who died in 2020), “Otto” and the “Mugre”, unleashed a new total war in response. Dozens of gunmen executed a hundred policemen until February and the car bombs reappeared in the big cities from December 1992. Although the mechanisms were no longer so sophisticated; the human and material losses were considerable, since the attacks were no longer aimed at a specific objective, but were totally indiscriminate. In Medellín, 19 people died, in Bogotá 39 and in Barrancabermeja 16. The Aburrá Valley was affected by 3 attacks in December 1992 and in Bogotá the explosions occurred from January 1993: on the 20th in the north, on the 30th in front of the Chamber of Commerce, mid-February in two commercial areas and on April 15 in Parque de la 93.

Despite the harsh onslaught of the terrorists, until March 1993 the authorities murdered 100 hitmen and 10 military leaders of the Cartel, among whom were El Chopo (Mario Castaño Molina), HH (Hernán Darío Henao) and El Palomo (Jhonny Edison Rivera), all trusted men of Escobar. 1,900 suspected members of the organization were also arrested, and 18 senior officers of its military wing surrendered. This ―added to the defeat by rival gangs of their gun groups―, in a war that left 300 dead, ended up decisively weakening the Medellín group, which in 8 months lost 80% of its military capacity. In addition, on January 30, a paramilitary structure called itself Los Pepes (Persecutedby Peablo Es cobar), behind which the Castaño brothers were and who would be dedicated to killing the front men, accountants, lawyers and relatives of the capo, as well as destroying their properties and undermining their finances.

Death

“That I will never be caught in the great fucking life, and that I command you to kill everyone from the jungle and in the long run those who will lose will be them.”

Hide in threatening tone on an intercepted audio.

On December 2, 1993, one day after he turned 44, Escobar was cornered by the public force and the threats that weighed on his family. The capo tried to negotiate his surrender, conditioning it at the exit of his wife and children's country, but this time his proposal did not find echo among the Executive Power. Although he managed to evade the search block for 6 more months, the death of his security chief El Angelito (León Puerta Muñoz), in October 1993, left him unprotected, in command already of hitmen satin. Finally, the concern about the situation of his wife and children - refuge in Tequendama residences under strict police surveillance after seeking failurely asylum in the United States and Germany - was used as bait by the Government to attract Escobar who until that time suffered gastric problems and had allegedly announced an armed group called independent antioquia.

The search block was delivered to the task of locating Escobar until, after a year and four months of intense intelligence tasks, on December 1, 1993, he managed to track and locate six calls that Escobar made him to his son.

Previously Signal Intelligence Units of the Dijin had located the whereabouts of the capo through French and British technology acquired by the National Police in 1991 and operated by officers and intelligence non -commissioned officers of the Colombian Police. In an interview with Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, he said he helped the purchase of this technology.

That same afternoon of December 2, 1993, units of the search block surrounded the house where it was hidden once located in the Los Olivos neighborhood, a middle class neighborhood in the city of Medellín. At the time of being discovered in his hiding place, he took care of him only one hitman, Álvaro de Jesús Agudelo ( the lemon ), which he died dejected when he faced the agents who entered the house where he hidden THE CAPO.

When he was cornered, Pablo Escobar tried to escape through the roofs of the surrounding houses and received three shots. The first of the three shots that impacted him He received it when he tried to return on his steps, on the roof, and was reached in the back of the shoulder by a bullet that lodged between the teeth 35 and 36, according to the opinion of the forensic. The capo would probably fall on the tile roof after this impact. A second shot located in the left thigh, prevented him from getting up again. Finally, the third and more controversial reached its head a short distance (this would be denied later by the search block) and entered from the right side of the face, near the ear, to exit on the left. The bullet killed him instantaneously.

of his death there are several hypotheses:

Members of the Search Block with the body of Pablo Escobar, killed in a shooting after 17 months of intense search.

• He committed suicide by shooting under the ear, which was seen in the exhumation of the body. This version coincides with the motto of Los Extraditables: "We prefer a grave in Colombia to a prison in the United States" and is the version that his family defends.
• He was shot by a group sniper. The Pepes.
• He was shot by a DIJIN officer who was part of the Search Block.
• He was shot by a Delta Force sniper (DF).
• Colonel Hugo Heliodoro Aguilar, who led the assault group that arrived at the house, shot him.
• He was shot by Carlos Castaño Gil, the highest leader of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), according to a confession by a paramilitarist named José Antonio Hernández, known by the alias John.
• It was written by a Search Block squad. This scene is represented in a famous Botero picture, and it is the official version.

Reactions to his death

Escobar's corpse in the morgue.

Escobar's death generated different reactions: his family and his protégés mourned his death, and his funeral was attended by thousands of people, mostly from the poor neighborhoods of Medellín. But the press and the Government considered it a triumph in the fight against drugs and the beginning of the end of drug trafficking, which has not happened to date; today guerrillas, paramilitaries and organized crime groups known as Bacrim (criminal gangs) dispute the drug-trafficking business. Although immediately after his demise, the Cali and Norte del Valle cartels had control of drug trafficking until their respective dissolutions.

Among the myths surrounding his death is one that says he did not die, that he hired a double and that he is in hiding enjoying his money.

Among those who consider him dead, his image is still very current and is used politically. Photos of him are sold next to those of Che Guevara.

Tomb of Escobar in the Montesacro Gardens Cemetery in Itagüí.

Even in some places he is still venerated as a saint and offerings are deposited in his tomb. The legend of him is part of the tourist circuit of Medellín. His farm in the countryside is now a museum visited by thousands of tourists a year. His image has so much weight that it continues to be used even for political campaigns, the sale of T-shirts in Austria, the United States, Guatemala and Mexico, The sale of children's figurine albums, watches with his image and books about his life.

Exhumation

The body of Pablo Escobar was exhumed on October 28, 2006 at the request of some of his relatives for the purpose of taking a DNA sample to confirm the presumed paternity of an extramarital child and clear up any doubts about the identity of the body who had been buried next to his parents for 12 years. A video of the moment was broadcast by the RCN channel, a fact that upset his son Juan Sebastián Marroquín (Juan Pablo Escobar) who accused his uncle, Roberto Escobar Gaviria and the nephew of the capo Nicolás Escobar ―who coordinated the act― of being &# 34;merchants of death".

In popular culture

Being one of the most famous characters in Colombia and the world, Escobar has been portrayed in countless formats for different audiences around the world. He has been the subject of study in documentaries, and several actors have played him.

TV soap operas

• The Pattern of Evil (Choose the Pattern of Evil) (2012): It was played by Hernán Mauricio Ocampo (Scobar boy), Mauricio Mejía (Scobar young), and Andrés Parra (Escobar adult).
• The Three Cains (2013): Interpreted by Colombian actor Juan Pablo Franco.
• Search block (2016): played by Arturo Álvarez.
• Surviving Escobar, alias JJ (Surviving Escobar - Alias JJ): Interpreted by Juan Pablo Franco.
• In the mouth of the wolf: Interpreted by Fabio Restrepo.
• Narcos (2015 - 2017) Like himself (archive): It was played by the Brazilian actor Wagner Moura.
• El Chapo (2017 - 2018): Interpreted by Mauricio Mejía. Netflix Series
• General Naranjo (2019 - Present): Interpreted by the Colombian actor Federico Rivera.

Movies

• Blow (2001) devoted Interpreted by New Zealand actor Cliff Curtis
• Escobar: Paradise Lost (2014) devoted Interpreted by Benicio del Toro
• American Made (2017) towards Interpreted by Mauricio Mejía.
• Loving Pablo (2017) towards It was played by the Spanish actor and director Javier Bardem.

Documentaries

• The private archives of Pablo Escobar
• Pablo Escobar, or demon?
• The television channel ESPN made a documentary in 2010 on Monday, June 21 on the life of footballer Andrés Escobar Saldarriaga and the Narcotraficante Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria and described through testimonies the links that occurred in the late 1970s and the 1980s and 1990s between teams of professional Colombian and drug traffickers of the posters of Medellín and Cali.
• In 2012 Caracol Televisión Colombia made a documentary called Los Tiempos de Pablo Escobar Lessons from an Epoca.

Music

The 2013 song Pablo of the American rapper E-40 serves as an ode to the legacy of Pablo Escobar. The song " the pattern " From the Mexican Brucia band, it refers to the famous drug trafficker.