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a founding member of the medellin cartel
rodriguez gotcha was one of the most
industrious and powerful drug
traffickers in the history of narcotics
welcome to nutty history and today let's
find out the untold story of rodriguez
or as his peers called him el mexicano
gatcha was born jose gonzalo rodriguez
gotcha on may 14 1947 in a town called
pacho in kundinamaka and no the town of
pacho has nothing to do with cali
cartel's pacio herrera gotcha's parents
were a humble peasant couple who earned
their living by raising pigs the
financial situation of the family played
a part in gotcha's decision to not
pursue formal education after grade
school in the early 1970s young gotcha
moved to mutso boychaka oychaka back
then was the center of emerald
exploitation in colombia and gotcha
found just the right plan to work
gilberto molina gacha's new boss was
known as the czar of emeralds gotcha
joined the emerald smuggling group as
security for molina himself before
gotcha turned 25 years old he had gained
a fearsome reputation as molina's ice
cold hit man dean a killer helped gotcha
to jump ranks in molina's organization
as molina was in dire need of ruthless
soldiers like him for the green war
the green war is not always talked about
but since the 1970s colombia had been
suffering from a series of civil wars
between left-wing guerrillas right-wing
paramilitary drug lords and the
government itself the war in the 1970s
started because of an armed dispute
between two cartel-like groups one was
led by victor carranza and the other was
the rincon clan which soon became an
all-out civil war called the first green
war multiple groups were involved trying
to gain ownership of the emerald mines
of colombia the colombian government
would try to seek an agreement with
mining concessions in an attempt to take
the business away from the mafias and
legalize emerald exploitation molina and
gacha aligned themselves with victor
carranza during this conflict their
partnership allowed them to gain control
of a large mine escaranza managed to
negotiate the end of the first green war
soon molina and carranza became the
beneficiaries of the mine concessions
after the approval of the colombian
government this allowed both mafias to
legalize their immense riches and
consolidate their power and i think
michael corleone couldn't achieve the
same thing in three movies
just when i thought i was out
they pulled me back in
meanwhile gacha was cooking up something
new for himself and molina in medellin
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by the time the first green war came to
an end colombia's blood emeralds were
not the hottest colombian product in the
market a new czar had carved his kingdom
in colombia and his empire was made of
white powder instead of green gemstones
pablo escobar and his associates were
building a new drug empire that was far
more profitable and was going to change
the history of colombia forever gotcha
was introduced to the drug trade by a
lady named veronica rivera de vargas
veronica was known as the queen of cocoa
in colombia veronica vanished from the
drug scene during the late 80s after
being captured by the dea
there isn't even a single photograph
available of her for the public on the
internet but long before she said
farewell to the medellin cartel and the
drug industry veronica introduced gotcha
to the kingpin himself pablo escobar
impressed pablo escobar with his
industrious work and soon prospered with
his newly earned wealth rodriguez gotcha
began buying large amounts of land in
the middle magdalena region in the
valley ordering the antioquia bojaka
molina at first was not approving of
mingling with drug traffickers and this
caused a rift between the two close
associates molina perceived gacha's
involvement in the immediate cartel as
an act of betrayal and removed gotcha
from the control of emerald mines gacha
responded with an attack at molina's
property in sansei however later both of
them reconciled and gotcha invited
molina to join the drug trade and this
time molina accepted
it was suspected that molina provided
helicopters and hangers for drug
trafficking and his ranch la fortuna was
used as a drug distribution center
molina was also arrested on the
allegations of owning a 200-acre cocoa
plantation but the narcotics charges
were later dropped
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during the late 1970s gotcha rose in the
medellin cartel for finding new traffic
routes through mexico to reach u.s
cities like los angeles and houston to
do so he created relationships with the
mexican cartels specifically miguel
angel felix gallardo with the aid of
gotcha the medellin cartel was
trafficking narcotics through mexico
haiti and nicaragua one of gotcha's
prominent pilots was barry seal who was
portrayed by tom cruise in the hollywood
blockbuster movie known as
american maid
following the success gacha purchased a
string of farms in his hometown in the
locality of bacho with mexican-inspired
names such as where novaka chihuahua
sonora and mazilan
he also set up rankillandia which was
one of the largest and best known of the
medellin cartels jungle laboratories
more than two thousand people lived and
worked in this lab making and packaging
colombian snow
his connections with mexicans coupled
with an infatuation with mexican culture
music and their style of speaking earned
him the name el mexicano among his peers
as he became one of the main couples of
the rising cartel rodrigo scotia started
having problems with the farc gorillas
the insurgent army was taxing some of
his cocoa plantations and also robbing
gotcha's men these left-wing militias
were supported by the patriotic union
party and as the friction between gotcha
and the gorillas turned bloody everybody
on the other side faced gotcha's
unhinged wrath gotcha had made so much
money by now that he had hired israeli
and british mercenaries to train teams
of assassins and his own fleet of the
paramilitary these paramilitary groups
were created with the support of the
landowners and cattle ranchers who were
fed up with left-wing gorillas act of
marauding when the farc crossed paths
with gonzalo rodriguez gotcha he had
become the supreme commander of the
narco paramilitary of colombia
with support and impunity from the
right-leaning government gotcha hit him
hard with vengeance and fury about 800
members of the patriotic union party
were killed by gotcha's men
jaime pardo lial the president of the
patriotic union party was assassinated
on october 12 1988.
gotcha didn't spare any peasants who
sympathized with leftist guerrillas
either and sponsored many massacres of
poor people who were connected with
left-wing militias in any form
gotcha had his fingers in other
operations of the medellin cartel too
throughout the 1980s rodriguez served as
a catalyst for the medellin cartel's
explosive rise to power by financing the
importation and implementation of
expensive foreign technology and
expertise
he was also engaged in the bloody gang
war between the medellin and the cali
cartel
and he didn't forget about the emerald
mines either gotcha twisted every arm to
get a share of bloody emeralds as a new
green war broke out after molina's
assassination
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1989 brought a lot of changes in the
political scene for the usa and colombia
presidents of both countries were under
immense pressure to combat the rampant
narcotics problem
president george h.w bush was a newly
elected president who was facing the
challenge of increasing drug usage and
drug related violence plague in american
cities in colombia president virgilio
barcode vargos was losing his popularity
his distaste for publicity and
reluctance to make public appearances
had left many people calling him the
ghost president so it was quite
surprising that when the usa confronted
him over the government of colombia's
ignorance toward the drug cartels the 67
year old civil engineer president
surprised everybody by formulating a
ferocious attack on the whole medellin
cartel colombian military called it
operation apocalypse under pressure from
washington to cut the flow of narcotics
from colombia to the u.s president
vargas ordered raids on processing
laboratories and jungle airfields this
was a direct threat to gacha who had a
prize of 500 million pesos on his head
to add to his woes he got the news of
his son being arrested for illegal
possession of weapons in bogota the
colombian government was hoping by
keeping his son arrested they would put
pressure on gotcha to do something
stupid and reckless but gotcha was too
smart for stuff like that but something
unexpected happened
one of the most loyal henchmen of gotcha
turned on him and snitched gacha's
location in cartagena to authorities
gotcha was chased to his el tesero
property where two helicopter gunships
landed to end the reign of el mejicano
in colombia after intense shooting
gotcha attempted to escape but his leg
was wounded gotcha and his son freddie
were shot at the same time and
authorities found their bodies next to
each other
two days later his body and that of his
son were buried in his hometown in the
middle of a mass funeral many in his
village saw him as a benefactor of the
poor and a kind man
others saw him as a savage whose luck
had run out
according to forbes magazine el mexicano
gotcha was one of the richest men of his
time he was the owner of more than 100
properties farms houses apartments lots
and vehicles that were valued at 40
billion colombian pesos not only was he
into real estate but the man invested in
football as well it is not a secret that
as a football fan and a supporter of me
and adios fc he was the biggest investor
of this team
financing the hiring and salaries of the
players the article also claimed that he
bought several championships in favor of
his team
what can we say the man loved winning
so what do you think did gotcha deserve
the grand funeral that he got or does a
criminal like him not deserve posthumous
respect
tell us in the comments and if you'd
like to watch more videos about the
medellin cartel check out these videos
on the screen and thanks for watching
nutty history
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