Hate him or love him, as the people of Medellin still do, but Pablo Escobar is a fixture in world history.
Known as the richest criminal in history, Escobar was a billionaire in his early twenties.
A Cocaine Empire
Pablo did to cocaine what Bill Gates did to computers.
He made an empire. Pablo and his associates founded the Medellin cartel in 1976.
A Waiter’s Demise
There is a story about a server at one of Escobar’s gatherings at his home in Colombia that had a grizzly ending for one poor servant.
For stealing silverware the 28 year old cocaine kingpin had the waiter bound and tossed into a swimming pool.
It is believed that afterwards the rest of the party watched on in shock as the man struggled to escape his bindings.
He drowned and died.
Pablo Escobar
Before Escobar the term narcoterrorism was used sparingly.
With Escobar and his dark turn after his failed attempts at joining the aristocratic Colombian ruling class the term took on a whole new meaning.
Pablo understood at a deep level how the system worked. He had been testing its limits since his early twenties.
Escobar dreamed of becoming part of the ruling political class of Colombian.
Perhaps it was a desire to be viewed legitimately as an influence on Colombian history that drove him to seek election to the Chamber of Representatives.
Pablo did in fact get elected in 1982, but a photo surfaced from a newspaper of his past criminal record and most damning, a mugshot.
He tried his best to have the paper removed from circulation but failed to make a comeback in light of this public discovery.
Escobar’s Downfall
One of the things Escobar did wrong was underestimating the consequences of a public campaign of violence.
In doing so he alienated his partners and turned the drug trade into a public crisis.
The Colombian government had no choice but to work with the CIA and DEA at this point.
Escobar would regret turning the crisis into an international manhunt aided by the most powerful military in the world.
Before public bombings were associated with islamic terror they were with Pablo Escobar.
To a lesser extent this could be said of Danny Greene and the summer of bombings in Cleveland, Ohio during his mob wars with the Chicago mafia.
In 1993 Pablo was gunned down on a rooftop in his home town of Medellín.
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