2023-12-02 11:01:29
“He did not let three presidents govern. He transformed the language, culture, physiognomy and economy of the country. Before him, Colombians did not know the word hitman, Medellín was considered a paradise, the world knew Colombia as ‘the land of coffee’, and no one thought that a bomb could explode there in a supermarket or on a plane in flight. Because of Escobar there are armored cars in Colombia and security needs modified the architecture. Because of him, the judicial system was changed, penitentiary policy and even the design of prisons was rethought, and the armed forces were transformed. Pablo Escobar discovered, more than anyone else, that death can be the greatest instrument of power”.
The paragraph belongs to a note published in the Semana Magazinefrom Bogotá, after the death of Pablo Escobar Gaviriawhich occurred on the afternoon of Thursday, December 2, 1993. Just one day before, the head and founder of the Medellin poster He had turned 44 accompanied by his mother, who brought him a cake to his hiding place, a middle-class house in the Olivos neighborhood of Medellín.
Doña Hermilda Gaviria left him in the early morning complaining of a persistent heartburn that had been haunting him for a long time. It was the last time the woman she saw alive to your children’s favoritethe third of seven he had with Abel Escobar.
Only “Limón” (Álvaro de Jesús Agudelo, 37), a cartel hitman and gangster, was left with Pablo, who had started working for Roberto Escobar (“El Osito”, Pablo’s older brother) and continued under the orders of “The boss” even when everyone abandoned them.
“Limón” fell under the bullets of the Colombian National Police seconds before his boss and was immortalized in Argentina for a topic of Patricio Rey and his Ricotta Rounds: “They kill me, Limón!/ Son of a bitch, Limón! / Through the roofs comes the block / again“says the lyrics. When the Indio Solari The term “block” refers to the Search Block created by the Colombian State to hunt down the boss of the Medellín Cartel.
Photo from June 1992 of drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, then leader of the Medellín Cartel, when he was imprisoned in the Envigado prison. AFP photo.
They searched for him for almost 500 days after Escobar escaped from The Cathedral prison walking through the funds. The prison had been built by him, on his property, and looked more like a country club than a prison. Only in this way – and prohibiting extraditions of drug traffickers to the United States – had the authorities managed to get him to surrender, in 1991.
The Cathedral was like his home and that is why he summoned and killed two of his associates there: Gerardo “Kiko” Moncada and Fernando “El Negro” Galeano, in July 1992. That ended for ridicule the Colombian government, who then attempted to begin controlling the internal movements of the Cathedral.
Given this, Pablo simply fled. He kicked down a false plaster wall and left. He did it just a few days after the double crime of Moncada and Galeano.
The identity document of Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, his credit cards and a criminal record certificate appear printed on a collection of clothing created by his son. Photo EFE / Leo La Valle.
He was never imprisoned again, but ended up dead. Having murdered his former associates (whom he accused of allying with the paramilitary leaders Fidel and Carlos Castaño) added to his enemies from within their own ranks.
Due to his personality, eccentricities and capacity for destruction (he blew up a plane in flight with 100 people on it), Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was a figure in international drug trafficking that has never been surpassed… at least until the appearance and empowerment of the Mexican Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Lorea, “El Chapo”, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.
The armed deployment that led to his death on December 2, 1993 was at the height of his fame and his crimes.
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The drug lord of the Medellín cartel was killed in 1993.
At the end of his days, one of the most powerful and richest men on the planet ended up alone and surrounded by people whose only objective was to destroy him. Not only were the Police and the Army looking for him, but also the paramilitaries of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and a heterogeneous group calling themselves “Los Pepes” (Persecuted by Pablo Escobar).
“Dad committed suicide”, his son’s conviction
It took his enemies 17 months to hunt him down.
To achieve this, they took advantage of Escobar’s obsession with controlling his wife’s safety. Victoria Henaoand their children, Juan Pablo and Manuela.
His family practically lived as hostages of the Police. The reason: in 1988 they had suffered an attack by the Cali Poster in the Monaco building. It was a car bomb loaded with 80 kilos of dynamite.
Pablo Escobar Gaviria and family.
The Escobars knew that they were under control, but Pablo still called the residence’s phone. That December 2, he spoke for a few minutes with his son because Juan Pablo had to answer a questionnaire from the Semana Magazine which would be published as a report.
The young man was careful to keep his talks short. That day, the conversation was abruptly interrupted. Pablo told Juan Pablo that he would call him in 20 minutes. He could not fulfill his promise. The hunt was over.
The official version indicates that 14 men from the Elite Force command of the Colombian National Police participated in the operation: 12 surrounded the house and two entered through the main door and went to the upper floor.
The transfer of the corpse of the “Patron.” Photo SYGMA / Claudia Giordanelli.
When they arrived upstairs, they found the phone off the hook and the window open. They also met Escobar and his bodyguard.
“Limón” was ahead, was shot and fell in the street. Escobar was carrying a 9 millimeter Zig Hauer in one hand and a nickel-plated .22 pistol. He barely managed to fire a few shots.
The drug leader was given three shots: One hit him squarely in the torso, another hit his leg and the third entered through his left ear and exited through his right ear.
Everyone was looking for Escobar Gaviria. His hours were numbered.
The image of Escobar’s barefoot corpse, reproduced ad infinitum, closed almost a year and a half of search and traveled the world. However, he could not consolidate a single version of the end of the Medellín Cartel boss.
Doubts about what happened on that terrace persist to this day.
The Police always maintained that the shooter was Commander Hugo Aguilar, a character who would end up in politics after being dismissed for his links with paramilitarism.
Pablo Escobar’s family claims that, upon finding himself surrounded, the head of the Medellín Cartel committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. “dad committed suicide“, said the boss’s son several times, who with his mother and sister They settled in Argentina with new identities given to them by the Colombian government.
Victoria Henao Vallejos and Juan Pablo Escobar Henao, the widow and son of Pablo Escobar Gaviria, entering Court No. 3 of Morón, in a case for money laundering.
On the other hand, the paramilitary drug lord Diego Murillo Bejarano, alias “Don Berna”, stated in his book “This is how we kill the Patron” that it was “Los Pepes” who found him and that the one who killed him was his brother Rodolfo, alias “Semilla”.
From another sector of “Los Pepes” the authorship is attributed to Carlos Castaño, top leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.
It could have been anyone. They all had reasons and they had dedicated their lives to ending his.
Pablo Escobar was 44 years old at the time of his death.
Luz María Escobar Gaviria places flowers on her brother’s grave, in November 2013, in the Montesacro cemetery, south of Medellín. Photo EFE / Luis Eduardo Noriega.
Three decades have passed since that moment, a turning point in the history of international drug trafficking. Escobar died, but Cocaine trafficking did not end with his death.
Colombia continues to be the main producer of cocaine worldwide and, according to the United Nations, in 2022 the hectares dedicated to the cultivation of the coca leaf increased by 43%.
No war on drugs seems to stop Escobar’s legacy.
Since his death, the traffic has only grown, as has his collection of hippos: of those first three specimens from the Nápoles ranch that were his pets, about 100 offspring were born and became an environmental danger for the area.
It seems that not even the hippos of the “Patron” resign themselves to oblivion.
One of the hippos from the Nápoles ranch, which was owned by the late drug kingpin Pablo Escobar Gaviria, in the town of Doradal, municipality of Puerto Triunfo (Colombia). Photo EFE/Edgar Domínguez.
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