He is even thought to have put pressure on Congress to forbid extradition from Colombia before turning himself in, thus ensuring he could not be sent to the United States. However he was still so powerful that the arrest, when it finally came in 1991, was on his own terms, and the prison was one built by himself. It was during this period that he put a bounty on the head of every police officer in Medellin, resulting in the murder of 600 officers by youths seeking the reward. The killing of presidential candidates who had promised to extradite him to the United States eventually pushed Colombia’s authorities to act and the kingpin had to go underground. The United States increasingly put pressure on Colombia to put an end to his reign. In the end Escobar was too successful and too well-known. In pursuit of power he carried out terrorist bombings as well as individual executions, the worst of which was the bombing of a presidential candidate’s airplane that killed 110 people. His political leanings were to left-leaning, but he also expressed admiration for British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.īut his real business continued all the while, helping to make Colombia the murder capital of the world, peaking at 27,000 murders in 1992. In 1982 Escobar was for a brief period elected to the house of representatives of Colombia’s Congress. They had so much money they stored it in warehouses and Roberto claimed they had to write off 10% of this every year due to rats eating the cash. ![]() ![]() became too small to carry the vast quantities of cash so he bought a new and bigger plane solely for this purpose. He had a fleet of cars and aircraft, extensive estates and what amounted to a private army.Īccording to Escobar’s brother Roberto, who later wrote a memoir called “The Accountant’s Story,” the cartel spent $2,500 every month just on rubber bands for the money and even owned two submarines for transporting cocaine.Īt one point, the plane Escobar was using to fly money back from the U.S. The majority of Escobar’s business consisted of importing cocaine paste from Peru and Bolivia, processing it in Colombia to then fly it to the United States.įor much of its existence the Medellin Cartel was involved in a war with the rival Cali Cartel for control of the trade but until his last days there was no doubt who was on top.Įscobar is reported to have been making $30 billion a year at the height of his success and Forbes magazine named him as the 7th richest man in the world. He would not be arrested again for 15 years. ![]() In May of that year Escobar and some of his men were arrested coming back from Ecuador with a shipment of cocaine paste.Īfter unsuccessfully attempting to bribe the judges he succeeded in bribing the arresting officers and the case was dropped. In 1976, Escobar married the then-15-year-old Maria Victoria Henao with whom he had two children. Pablo Escobar (R) and Maria Victoria Henao He was known not only for killing rivals and opponents – and even their families – but for personally executing uncooperative subordinates. Over time he came to control over 80% of the drug trade to the United States, building his reputation for violence as he did so. All Restrepo’s men were told they were now working for Pablo Escobar.įrom this base, Escobar took over the entire drug trade in Medellin, establishing what became the Medellin Cartel. The drug lordĮscobar initially worked for other drug traffickers until 1975 when a big Medellin cocaine trafficker named Fabio Restrepo was murdered, reportedly on Escobar’s orders. His timing was perfect Demand for cocaine in the United States was about to go through the roof. ![]() He collected $100,000 in ransom money and with this in his pocket he moved on to more lucrative work in the drug-trafficking world of the early 1970s. His first big money came not from drugs but from kidnapping a wealthy businessman. Early exploits included stealing gravestones to re-sell, stealing cars and street scams.īy the 1960s he was a small-time marijuana dealer and a gunman in the drug-trafficking business.īut Escobar was a man of ambition and not content to be small-time. His criminal career is said to have begun in earnest after lack of money forced him to leave university. When he was two years old the family moved to Envigado, a town bordering Medellin to the south that was to remain home for most of his life. Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was born in 1949 to a poor family in Rionegro, a village outside Medellin, his father a poor farmer and his mother a schoolteacher.
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