The Colombian Pablo Escobar, until then the most wanted drug trafficker in the world, was killed in Medellín on December 2, 1993 after being intercepted while making some telephone calls. The mission was carried out by police and soldiers from the Search Block, which the Government had reactivated the previous year to capture him after his escape from prison. Formerly known as Grupo Elite, this command supported by the United States anti-drug agency carried out an open war against the criminal apparatus of the Medellín cartel, led by Escobar.
From smuggler to most wanted
Pablo Escobar started early in smuggling, until at the age of twenty-five he created the cocaine production and distribution business that would end up becoming the Medellín cartel, the main criminal organization in Colombia in the 1980s. Drug trafficking was not yet exploited, so there were hardly any controls and anti-drug groups, which led to immense profitability.
Soon drug money intensified the armed conflict that had existed in Colombia since the 1960s over land ownership, pitting revolutionary guerrillas against state forces and right-wing paramilitary militias hired by landowners. But the conflict changed with the creation of paramilitary groups to defend drug trafficking from the guerrillas. When one of these, the M-19, kidnapped the sister of one of the leaders of the Medellín cartel in 1981, the drug traffickers created the group Death to Kidnappers. This germ of narco-paramilitarism would give rise to a war against the left that allowed these groups to finance political campaigns and reach positions of power.
Escobar also had the goal of being in politics, and by 1982 he was already a congressman. With the Civismo en Marcha program he built Medellín without Slums, later known as the Pablo Escobar neighborhood. Drug profits financed this and other social programs that filled some gaps in the State in Medellín, which led some disadvantaged sectors of the city to support the drug trafficker.
However, his victims denounce that his life has not been told well, since the image popularized by series and movies has come to whitewash him. Even advertising has profited from his legend, from which Medellín is still trying to free itself, since Escobar not only promoted a war that left thousands of victims, but also altered the values of the region, taking away the weight of life and turning Medellín into the most violent city in the world.
Pablo Escobar’s war against the Colombian State
Escobar’s political career ended when the media publicized his criminal activities and the leader of Nuevo Liberalismo, Luis Carlos Galán, expelled him from this coalition. At the same time, the United States, the main importer of Escobar’s drugs, decided to intervene by negotiating the extradition of the drug traffickers. Although a sector of the Colombian Government refused, another part supported the extradition.
In response, the Medellín cartel murdered the Minister of Justice, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, and other politicians who were fighting against narcopolitics, such as Galán himself, in 1984. President Belisario Betancur reacted by declaring war against drug trafficking and authorizing extradition. It was the beginning of the war against the State, waged by the group Los Extraditables, and marked by narcoterrorism.
After years of attacks and thousands of murders, the Government of Colombia decided to prohibit the extradition of its citizens in the 1991 Constitution. This allowed Colombian drug traffickers to surrender under agreed conditions. Thus, Pablo Escobar entered, along with other members of the cartel, a prison that he had built himself, known as La Catedral, where he continued his business.
However, faced with the threat of being transferred to another prison, Escobar escaped without difficulty in July 1992. From hiding he unleashed a new wave of violence, accentuated by the Los Pepes group, through which his enemies confronted him. Worn out and with his family exiled from him, he prioritized defending her publicly through phone calls that allowed the Search Block to locate him. Having just turned 44, Pablo Escobar was finally murdered on the roof of a house in Medellín.
Drug trafficking, segmented and on the rise
Escobar’s death led to the fall of his empire, which encompassed most of the cocaine trade. The Medellín cartel was dissolved, as its main associates were also captured or killed. At first, his great rival, the Cali cartel, assumed leadership, but the business went further. New cartels and small gangs appeared that opted for discretion and a less violent strategy. Even guerrillas like the FARC or the ELN, or some political sectors, took advantage to finance themselves. Aside from Escobar’s violent legacy, Colombia is still the world’s largest exporter of cocaine.