Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord pt. 2

                  LA CATEDRAL

It was 1991 when, due to the growing urge to repatriate Escobar, the Colombian government and Escobar’s lawyers came up with what I would define as a “bizarre” compromise: Escobar was given the chance to build his own prison and would not be extradited to the United States or anywhere else, as long as he turned himself in and served a five-year jail term. The so-called “prison”, that could be better defined as a “resort”, La Catedral, was a compound whose designs featured a Jacuzzi, a bedroom with a rotating bed, as well as a soccer field, a discotheque, a doll house for his daughter and its own bar. There was also a waterfall and, in addition to all the things I just mentioned, Escobar had negotiated the right to select his own “guards.” During his permanency at La Catedral he kept running his empire giving orders by telephone. While Escobar was living at La Catedral, his family visited him approximately three or four times a week, just like his friends and prostitutes did (only when he wished). He hosted drug parties with regularity. Everyone knew that Escobar was still running his operation from La Catedral, but in July 1992, it became known that he had ordered four of his lieutenants tortured and killed at the compound in a dispute over money. This was the straw that broke the camel's back for the Colombian government, and plans were made to transfer Escobar to a normal prison. 

Escobar’s death

Fearing he could be repatriated, Escobar escaped and went into hiding. The United States Government and local police ordered a massive manhunt.

By late 1992, there were two organizations searching for him: The Search Bloc, a special US-trained Colombian task force, and “Los Pepes,” an organization of Escobar’s enemies, made up of family members of his victims and financed by Escobar’s main business rival, the Cali Cartel that operated as a tight group of independent criminal organizations and opposed to the Medellín’s structure of Escobar. On the 2^nd of December, 1993, Colombian security forces using US technology located Escobar hiding in a home in a middle-class section of Medellín. The Search Bloc moved in, triangulating his position, and attempted to bring him into custody.

Pablo Escobar, "El pàtron del mal"

Escobar tried to defend himself but there was a shootout where he was eventually gunned down as he attempted to escape on the rooftop. He had been shot in the torso and leg, but the fatal wound had come through his ear, leading many to believe that he committed suicide, and many others to believe that one of the Colombian policemen had executed him. After Escobar’s death, the Medellín Cartel lost power extremely quick to the Cali Cartel, which remained dominant until the Colombian government shut it down in the mid-1990s. The poor of Medellín still think of Pablo as a benefactor.

NARCOS

El señor has been the subject of many documentaries, movies, books and a tv series produced by Netflix called “Narcos” that follows Escobar’s business and personal life. However, the Netflix series, as affirmed by his son Sebastián Marroquín, does not show the real nature of Pablo in his complexity, in fact Sebastián wrote a book called “Pablo Escobar: mi padre” (“Pablo Escobar: my father”), a biography that explains everything that happened during those days.  

Article by Azzurra Furnari