Pablo Escobar, also known as "The Teacher", born in 1949, is a Colombian drug dealer who plunged his country into a spiral of violence that killed thousands of people, in an attempt to impose his control over the drug market, making a huge fortune from this trade, which made him hunted by many security and intelligence services in the world, until he was killed by Colombian authorities in 1993.

With his slogan "Plata o Plombo", which means "take a bribe or you will die by a bullet," he built his empire on corruption and violence that led to the deaths of more than 10,1989 victims, including police officers, judges, state employees and journalists, as well as the assassination of the country's justice minister and presidential candidate in <> Luis Carlos Galán.

Birth and upbringing

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was born on December 1, 1949 in the Colombian city of Rionegro to an agricultural father, Abel do Jesús Dari Escobar, and a teaching mother, Himilda Gaviria.

In 1976, he married Maria Victoria Henao and had a son, Juan Pablo Escobar, and a daughter, Manuela Escobar.

Drug trafficker Pablo Escobar and his wife Maria Victoria in 1983 (Getty Images)

Underworld

Dreaming of wealth since childhood, he dropped out of education as a teenager due to the dire financial situation of his family of nine, only to be captured on the streets of Rionegro, where he began his first steps in the criminal world by stealing tombstones and violence for looting.

At the age of 22, in 1971, he joined the gang of the dangerous Colombian criminal Oscar Bernal Aguero, who involved him in the crimes of forgery, selling betting game cards, stealing luxury cars, selling smuggled cigarettes, and daily fraud on the streets of Medellín.

His strong physique and criminal practices made him a popular commodity that gang bosses try to lure to work for them like the Álvaro Briato gang, and in 1972 he managed to kidnap an influential figure in the city of Medellín and then release her in exchange for a ransom paid by her family estimated at $ 100,<>, a sum that allowed him to develop his influence in the world of crime and the contraband trade.

Pablo Escobar took the path of criminality and quickly amassed a fortune (French)

Control of the drug trade

In the mid-seventies of the twentieth century, Escobar took control of the drug trade in Medellin, Colombia, surrounded himself with hundreds of loyal friends and relatives with precedents and named his gang "Cicarios".

Escobar took advantage of the geographical nature of Colombia, where forests cover two-thirds of its area, to the advantage of his activities, forcing farmers to change their activities related to the "coca drug" plant from cultivation to cultivation and processing by concentrating dozens of secret random laboratories, in which they convert the plant into cocaine dough, with the help of chemical laboratory experts.

With the boom of his business, Pablo Escobar developed the means of transporting drugs to the United States, which he considered an ideal market for cocaine, by using planes from Colombia to Panama, and from there to American states such as California and South Florida.

His planes carried the equivalent of 11 tons of drugs per flight, which prompted him again to develop distribution routes and logistical capabilities suitable for the prosperity of his activities, so in the mid-eighties he supervised the manufacture of two remotely piloted submarines to deliver shipments.

The Medellín cartel and its boss Escobar now control many drug distribution and trafficking routes in the United States, Spain, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and other countries in Europe, and his network was reported to have reached Asia as well.


Confronting the state

In 1975, upon his return from Ecuador, he was arrested with a group of his men in possession of 39 pounds of cocaine, and with the failure of his many attempts to bribe judges to acquit him of the charges against him, he assigned his arms to assassinate the two policemen who arrested him, thus dropping the total charges against him and he was able to leave prison.

In 1982, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies of the Colombian Parliament and briefly belonged to the Liberal Party of Colombia, thus enabling him to visit the United States and represented his country at the coronation ceremony of Felipe González as Prime Minister of Spain.

Escobar was also reported to have been a supporter of left-wing April 19 Movement (M-19) fighters who stormed Colombia's Supreme Court in 1985, assassinating several judges and destroying records and documents as it prepared to consider an extradition treaty between Colombia and the United States, which would have allowed the country to extradite drug lords to Washington for trial.

To prevent his arrest and to send him and others like him to trial in the United States of America, Pablo declared war on the Colombian regime and authority and on all the supporters of the Colombian-American cooperation bill by bribing politicians, judges and government officials and killing anyone who threatened him with trial.

In November 1989 he was accused of attempting to assassinate presidential candidate César Gaviria by blowing up Colombian Airlines Flight 203, killing all 203 passengers and crew.

In December 1989, during Christmas, he was accused of blowing up the Colombian intelligence building in central Bogotá by planting explosive devices weighing 500 kilograms of explosives, killing 89 employees and bystanders on the street.

In 1992, the number of judges assassinated by Escobar's gang reached 70 judges who tried to prosecute him for the murders and assassinations that he stood behind in his battle with power.

Pablo Escobar forced peasants to change their activities in coca cultivation to start manufacturing cocaine (Shutterstock)

Escobar Empire

The drug baron built a huge 5,6-hectare estate in Porto Triunfo called "Hacienda Napolis" with 14 swimming pools, 100 artificial lakes, racehorse breeding stables, a farm with 700,<> fruit trees and a zoo with nearly <>,<> species of animals and more than <> workers.

Many Medellín residents liken him to "Ruben Hood Colombia" because he financed hundreds of homes, churches and parks, as well as football stadiums and hospitals in the slums of western Colombia.

In 1989, the number of drug farm workers and gang members reached 750,80 individuals, and the Colombian security services considered him responsible for 6% of the quantities of cocaine circulating in the world, which generated annual profits of about $ 350 billion in exchange for distributing <> tons of cocaine annually.

Roberto Escobar, Pablo's brother and account manager, stated in his book "The Tale of an Accountant in the Violent World of the Medellín Gang" that he used to buy $2500,<> worth of rubber bands a month that were used to tie bundles of money from the drug trade.

He added that his brother's empire was losing annually the equivalent of 10 percent (of an estimated annual profit rate of $6 billion) of its revenues as a result of rain, insects and rodents that infiltrate the money stores that were unable to absorb and save the entire amount deposited inside it.

Escobar imposed on all drug traffickers in Colombia a protection tax of between 20% and 35% of the proceeds of their activities and executed anyone who refused to obey these orders.

From 1987 to 1993, he was on Forbes magazine's list of billionaires, ranking seventh in 1989.

In 1989, Escobar was accused of attempting to assassinate presidential candidate César Gaviria by blowing up a Colombian Airlines plane (Getty Images).

The beginning of the end

In 1991, the Colombian authorities chased him and then negotiated with him and persuaded him to turn himself in exchange for their commitment not to extradite him to the United States of America and sentence him to a reduced prison of 5 years while allowing him to build his own prison to serve his sentence, which he actually did by building a prison called the Cathedral, which is a luxurious and comfortable residence for cocaine king Escobar, who supervises from within the conduct of his criminal activities, organizes crazy sessions, and also receives his friends and family.

In 1992, the prison conditions of Pablo Escobar provoked a wave of criticism and ridicule against the government and security services, and many considered that allowing a criminal like him to reside in a "private prison" without serious supervision is a state scandal by all standards.

The pressure of the street and the country's intellectuals made then-Colombian President César Gaviria intervene to contain the crisis, prompting the government to order Escobar to be placed in a real prison.

Escobar rejected the decision and 24 hours later, he and 13 of his followers escaped outside the walls of his private prison, the Cathedral, prompting the government to announce a $10 million reward for information leading to his arrest.

His family tried to leave the country, but many Western countries refused to receive them, and under pressure from the United States, Germany returned them to Colombian territory after it had accepted their asylum application, and then they were arrested by the Colombian police and presented in front of photographers and television stations, and then placed under house arrest in a hotel under heavy security waiting for Escobar to make a mistake in trying to contact them.

Escobar built a huge 5,<>-hectare estate in Porto Triunfo and named it "Hacienda Napolis" (Shutterstock)

Some gangs that owe him loyalty tried to carry out acts of vandalism and attacks on the hotel where Escobar's family was placed, but all attempts failed, leaving him living in a state of severe psychological pressure from his hiding.

Despite the technological arsenal placed at the disposal of the various security units tasked with arresting Escobar, his rapid and precise movements prevented this, which put the security leadership in embarrassing positions on a number of occasions due to its successive failures.

Escobar's escape was repeated at the last minute, reinforcing the hypothesis of betrayal in the ranks of the team in charge of the hunt, focusing on their suspicious behavior in relation to information from around the city, which was provided by drones, listening and voice fingerprinting devices, and revealing the traitorous policeman who was receiving money from the Baron for his services.

Escobar's murder

With the interruption of the information artery represented by the traitorous policeman, Escobar became isolated from the movements that lurk him, and on the second of December / December 1993 monitored a phone call he was making, after which the units raided a house in the city of Medellín, which led to his death with two bullets, one hit him in the back and the other pierced his ear, to end the career of the cocaine emperor.