"I'M A DECENT MAN WHO EXPORTS FLOWERS"
Antioquia, Colombia. December 1, 1949. The rise of the wealthiest criminal in history and his sudden fall.
Son of a famer and an elementary school teacher, Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, was the third of seven children. They lived in the city of Medellín surrounded by violence and instability. This man would become one of the most notorious and powerful drug lords in the world, and one of the most hunted.
Before becoming a man, he started out as a teenage criminal. He would steal tombstones to then sell on to someone else. Later, he progressed to stealing cars, a crime that would land him in jail for the very first time in 1974. His criminal background growing, Escobar found himself involved in the drug smuggling world, a world that was growing more and more in Colombia.
After having apparently found his calling with the illegal trafficking of drugs, he founded in 1972 one of the most known drug cartels in history: the Medellín cartel. He positioned himself as the leader of this organization and directed all its businesses which mainly meant the production and sale of cocaine.
With his empire growing, Pablo Escobar situated himself and his cartel as the main distributor of cocaine during the 1980s. All this made him the richest criminal in the world, his net worth being around US$30 billion at the time of his death (today that would be about $64 billion). With this money he indulged in all his desires including big mansions like the Hacienda Nápoles, worth $63 million.
But he wasn’t considered a criminal by all. In Colombia a lot of citizens saw him as a kind of Robin Hood figure. He started projects to help those less fortunate. As a result of his popularity, he won an election in 1982 to be part of Liberal Alternative movement. He never got too far though, as his own government and that of the US were trying to arrest him. Plus, even with the good deeds done, his bullets or bribes way of making things go away didn’t sit well with most individuals.
He was also known for ordering the assassinations of several rivals, politicians and for the killing of hundreds of civilians. One of the most know was ordering the hit that killed presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán.
By 1991, he was being hunted down by the government and finally, he surrendered himself to the authorities. But he had conditions: there was to be no extradition and he was permitted to live in a luxurious prison he built for himself called La Catedral which included a nightclub.
Escobar messed up though when he killed two cartel members in that “prison” in 1992, leading to a decision to move him to a normal prison. Having realized this, he escaped. For more than a year, Escobar was in hiding until he was found out the day after his birthday. He fled across the rooftops with his bodyguard but was shot in the gunfight by the Colombian National Police and died. Soon after, his cartel crumbled.
Here is a link to a scene depicting the death of Escobar in a series called Narcos. Warning: contents might be disturbing to some viewers.
WANT TO KNOW MORE? Here is some interesting trivia about this notorious drug lord.
1. He had an expensive estate in Puerto Triunfo called Hacienda Nápoles which, amazingly enough, included his own private zoo with hippos, giraffes, elephants, etc.
2. He was responsible for the deaths of 4.000 people, including 200 judges and 1.000 cops, journalists, and politicians.
3. Escobar made the Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people 7 years in a row starting in 1987.
4. His greatest fear was extradition, he didn’t want to live the rest of his life in an American prison.
5. When he was gunned down, they found a shot through his ear. Some believe it was self-inflicted.
6. His burial was attended by 25.000 people.
And finally, here is an interview with the son of this criminal that I hope you find interesting:
Comments