the year was 2006 and somewhere in
Mexico Sinaloa mountains the drug boss
Joaquin el chapo guzman had been
delivered a gift to rival los zetas
cartel members with a stick in his hands
el chapo beat these men so badly he
fractured many of their bones as one
witness later put it the men were so
broken they looked like rag dolls the
men were then slung over ATVs and taken
to a raging bonfire where El Chapo
pulled out his gun made some derogatory
comments about the guys moms before
shooting them and then ordered their
bodies to be burned he said to one of
his workers I don't want any bones to
remain that was El Chapo to a tee
heartless relentless and ruthless
protector of his monopoly roughly 30
years prior in the 1980s the mother of
one of Pablo Escobar's friends was
riding a bus in Colombia the driver
didn't see that the woman hadn't quite
fully stepped off the bus when he drove
off leading to her falling and dying the
king of coke was upset by what had
happened and ordered one of his hitmen
Jairo Velasquez aka Popeye to kill the
bus driver speaking about the incident
later Popeye said I found the driver and
killed him I didn't feel anything we're
guessing the man who ordered the hit
didn't feel any remorse either so there
you go just two examples of how these
famous drug kingpins were quite similar
they both ran zero-tolerance campaigns
when it came to anyone that bothered
them and they were cruel and unusual
people and while they shared a lot of
similarities you will also see that they
were quite different let's start with
Joaquin our chief aldo guzmán loera
that's a bit of a mouthful so we'll
stick with his nickname el chapo that
translates as shorty
el chapo was born on April 4th 1957 in a
rival part of Mexico in the state of
Sinaloa he was poor dirt poor and there
were many mouths to feed in his large
family his father made his income as a
cattle rancher but it wasn't the most
lucrative business to be in so el chapo
used to sell oranges to get some extra
cash he dropped out of school at a young
age and began working with his father
full-time at 15 he started another side
business this time with marijuana
instead of oranges as a means to help
out with family finances and by age 20
he was already working with Mexican
cartels it's why you might call a rags
to riches story working in the fields
earning $2 a day wasn't for El Chapo the
illegal substances industry was way more
liquor it
Escobar has some surprising similarities
in his early life born Pablo Emilio
Escobar Gaviria on December 1st 1949 he
grew up in a small town called Rio Negro
which is about 45 minutes from Medellin
in Colombia his mother and middle bell
was a school teacher and his father Abel
was a cattle farmer just like El Chapo's
throw Escobar's early life wasn't quite
as humble as El Chapo's he was also part
of a big family and was one of seven
kids though his family didn't struggle
as much financially but young Pablo was
always around - narcotics
specifically marijuana and cocaine and
it didn't take him long to realize the
financial opportunity they represented
especially when it was sold to Americans
who were quickly embracing cocaine with
a passion back to El Chapo and his rise
to power
first he worked for a cartel when a
number of Mexican drug cartels were part
of an alliance formed by Juan Miguel and
he'll félix Gallardo's aka
El Padrino The Godfather really got
things organized and moved enough coke
into the u.s. to keep Wall Street
bankers partying for the next millennia
Guzman became a major player in the
Sinaloa cartel under one hector el Guero
Palma Palma liked del Chapo he was
trustworthy and he also wasn't scared to
use violence crossing or mess up his
shipment and bang bang that was it when
the Godfather was eventually arrested a
power vacuum was created in the Mexican
drug trade various cartels including the
Sinaloa cartel one of the best routes to
get their Colombian coke into the
booming US market even the DEA knows
that when you take out a boss all that
happens is lots and lots of violence and
basically no interruption of the flow of
drugs so with the Godfather put away one
naturally happened his body started
piling up the violence was incredibly
brutal people were getting sawn in half
with chainsaws heads literally rolled in
the streets in 1995 when El Chapo's
associate was arrested he was finally
able to take control of the Sinaloa
cartel
he was just 38 years old it was a
meteoric rise from the cattle farmer to
drug lord soon his cartel would become
the most powerful in all of Mexico
he had cops in his front pocket local
politicians in the back and he even
managed to bribe his way out of prison
Escobar's on the other hand was involved
in all sorts of petty crimes as a child
but he was in his early 20s that he got
into more
serious violent crime and kidnapping
while working with a local mobster he
had a reputation for being a very
violent and unpredictable young man he
made a bigger name for himself when he
kidnapped a local businessman who had
recently laid off many poor workers his
family paid the ransom but Pablo and his
gang killed them in any way
Pablo soon had his eyes set on bigger
profits and in Colombia that meant one
thing cocaine he knew you could buy
stacks of coca leaves for pennies turn
them into paste and sell the product to
US dealers who were seeing a huge demand
for the drug it was the 1970s the time
of the hippies had ended and Americans
were turning towards disco music LSD and
Mary Jane said their goodbyes and mr.
cocaine made his entrance to the party
there were no drug cartels back then and
Escobar realized in his early 20s that
he could make a fortune and make it fast
cocaine was like the Louis Vuitton of
drugs you could take a cheap product and
sell it for outrageous prices at 26
Escobar had already banked three million
dollars which today would be about 15
million and unlike El Chapo he did it
without having to chop off any heads he
could have bought a big house with a
swimming pool and retired but of course
for these guys it's never enough
in the late 90s El Chapo was also moving
methamphetamine into the u.s. he could
produce the stuff without much hassle
from the authorities and it proved to be
very popular with Americans like to do a
lot of housecleaning or play video games
for three days straight without sleeping
it was also very cheap compared to coke
another benefit for the cartel was the
fact that he didn't have to buy it from
the Colombians he could have his people
make it in meth labs and move it
straight into the US he soon became the
boss of bosses and had controlled the
cartels in many states in Mexico he
became the new Godfather and wielded
great power he was arrested and
imprisoned but broke out of prison in
2001 that breakout apparently cost him
two and a half million bucks or
virtually nothing for Mexico's new boss
of bosses but soon the peace pact that
the cartels had made was broken and
before you could say chainsaw thousands
upon thousands of people were caught up
in the violence that followed and killed
this included civilians women and
children as well as those directly
involved with the cartels El Chapo
somehow stayed on top and it's not he
was protected at least in part by the
DEA since he gave up a lot of other
cartel members
he was wanted in the US but because he
helped the DEA that indictment was
dropped for a time the violence didn't
stop and what happened was one of the
bloodiest and most vile turf wars the
world has ever seen with people killed
in the most horrific ways men were
tortured cut to pieces beheaded and did
one especially gruesome case a man's
face was stitched onto a soccer ball and
sent back to his cartel as for Escobar
his people were all so extreme and it's
thought his gang killed as many as 4,000
people during their cocaine dealing days
they took out leading politicians
lawyers and even blew up an airplane
carrying a presidential candidate
killing 107 people
Escobar's power was greater than
anything else chapo would ever have he
really was the king of coke whereas el
chapo was more like a very big flash in
the pan
Escobar created the business of
trafficking cocaine while the Mexican
gangs were merely buying their cocaine
are being paid to move it for them
Escobar was also seen as a kind of Robin
Hood figure since he gave a significant
amount of cash to poor communities and
built up infrastructure like schools and
hospitals while the murder rate in
Medellin was out of control
Escobar was out of El Chapo in the
Mexican cartels League when it came to
killing sure he blew up buildings and
made Medellin the murder capital of the
world
he killed lawyers and took out around
600 cops but his level of violence was
not close to what would later happen in
Mexico he had so much control he simply
didn't have the need to fight off a
large number of competing cartels he was
also a master at public relations and he
ran things more like a business than an
unruly bloodthirsty mob it was simple
with him you take the money or you take
the bullet the deal he gave to officials
was an offer that couldn't refuse
Plateau o Plomo silver or LED and it was
a very real offer and the Colombian
authorities had every right to be
fearful of this powerful man he could
bribe or take out anyone no matter how
high they were in their particular
office at one point Escobar was getting
around 15 tons of cocaine into the u.s.
every single day this worked out to
something like 26 billion dollars a year
for the cartel Forbes even put Escobar
down as one of the richest men in the
world with a net worth of 30 billion
dollars he truly was the king
el chapo may have been successful but he
was never the king or if he was his
kingdom paled income
Harrison to Escobar's Escobar was killed
in 1993 at 44 years old at the time of
his death he had more money stashed away
than you can imagine
he owned properties all over the world
25,000 Colombians mourned for their
real-life Robin Hood at his funeral but
did the drug stop moving after Escobar's
death of course not
they just started getting trafficked by
different people namely the Cali cartel
this cartel also had power in politics
and could easily buy off certain law
enforcement agencies one thing that did
change is the crime rate in murder rate
in Medellin did go down by a lot but
mostly because cocaine now comes out of
other South American countries the stuff
is cheap and easy to grow although the
farmers don't make much from it and
that's one reason why the traffickers
don't mind getting their shipment
stopped it doesn't cost much to buy from
the producers so if you lose a shipment
it's no big deal
it's as simple as that the risks are
great since you might get killed or
tortured or imprisoned but the profits
are too good not to do business El Chapo
wasn't killed like Escobar but was
arrested for the last time in 2014 when
he was 56 years old
how much cash he had is up for debate
the US has been looking for his money
for years and has come up with next to
nothing
meanwhile reports suggest it cost the US
taxpayer billions of dollars to capture
this cartel leader who was simply
replaced in a heartbeat the Sinaloa
cartel is still as big as it ever was
with its biggest competitor arguably
being the Jalisco new generation the DEA
is now spending more billions trying to
capture the leaders of those gangs who
will only be replaced by a never-ending
queue of men ready to take their place
cocaine use in the US and in many parts
of Europe especially the UK is on the
rise as we speak
so it's likely these men will just
continue to get more and more powerful
since El Chapo's arrest and the power
vacuum opened in its wake Mexico's
murder rate had steadily increased and
hit an all-time high in 2019 a report
released by the Secretariat of Public
Security stated that there were over
thirty four thousand five hundred eighty
two murders in Mexico that year and in
March 2020 the highest number ever of
homicides was reported two thousand five
hundred eighty five why compared these
two world-famous drug lords well one
reason is so that you can see that the
war on drugs will never end and can't be
won and another reason is to show you
that El Chapo was just one guy in the
game
he was replaced and some other guy will
probably get some media attention soon
he'll become the number one outlaw and
scapegoat for something that's much
bigger than him as for Escobar well sure
he's been replaced but let's remember
one thing he started the game he was no
flash in the pan he was the very fire
that ignited decades of cocaine use and
abuse in the USA and across the world
now go watch this hotel Escobar the
luxury prison Pablo Escobar built for
himself or try this video how insane is
El Chapo's prison cell security