It’s the early 1990s and the world’s biggest drug kingpin, who is also one of the world’s
richest people, is sitting back in his jacuzzi.
He has a glass of champagne to one side of him and a meal to the other side that was
put together by one of his personal chefs.
He’s in a good mood since his favorite soccer team, Atlético Nacional, is winning 3-0.
While this is going on tons of his cocaine are being both snorted and transported all
over the world.
Looking through a window he sees the usual evening fog start to encapsulate his mountain
fortress.
He’s safe and sound, and living a life of luxury…and yet…he’s officially in prison.
Pablo Escobar, aka, “The King of Coke”, or to his allies, El Patrón, doesn’t need
much of an introduction.
He became the richest criminal in the world, with a fortune amounting to as much as $30
billion.
One of the reasons many of you will know a lot about this man’s life story is because
in death he’s also made a lot of money for Netflix.
Perhaps no other criminal has featured in movies and series as much as Pablo has done
over the last decade.
He started his life of crime in his teen years, selling fake high school diplomas.
He soon moved into moving fake lottery tickets, stealing cars and other petty crimes.
But it was smuggling that would make him a millionaire as a young man.
Let’s first see how cocaine consumption got going in the U.S., Pablo’s Escobar’s
most faithful customer.
Cocaine had actually been consumed in the USA and Europe a long time before Pablo came
on to the scene.
In 1884, an Austrian neurologist who became the founder of psychoanalysis, said cocaine
was a, “magical substance.”
He was of course Sigmund Freud and he struggled to quit taking the stuff in his later years.
The U.S. Food and Drug Act of 1906 ensured that if cocaine was added to certain products,
then that should be on the label.
You might remember that Coca-Cola famously added it to its secret recipe, and from 1899
to 1903 no doubt Coke drinkers also agreed that the drink was pretty magical.
The creator of Coca-Cola, John Pemberton, actually devised the Coca-leaf infused drink
as a way to deal with his own morphine addiction.
In 1914, the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act came into effect, and this regulated the sale of
cocaine and other narcotics.
The stimulant had been around on the streets for a long time before that, but used mainly
on the fringes of society.
It was used by some poorer folks who required the extra push for the hard work they did.
The drug was stigmatized, and outlandish, racist and ridiculous things were said about
the minorities and working classes that allegedly took the stuff.
This is a long way from Escobar’s high castle.
We just want you to know that a long time before 21st century news reports told us that
90 percent of U.S. banknotes contained traces of cocaine, it existed on the fringes of society.
By the time the 1950s rolled around in the USA, cocaine was thought to be a thing of
the past, a substance still associated with poorer folks.
According to a research article called “The ‘Pre-Colombian’ Era of Drug Trafficking
in the Americas: Cocaine, 1945-1965”, in the 1950s very few smugglers brought the drug
to the USA from various parts of South America.
In the 60s things changed, and in 1969 when The Beatles released “Abbey Road” and
many Americans experienced “3 Days of Peace & Music” at the Woodstock festival, the
20-year old Pablo Escobar was about to embark on a career smuggling cocaine to the USA.
Fast-forward a few years and cocaine had been redefined as a party drug and associated with
wealth and glamorous discos.
It was no longer a pick-me-up for a farm laborer.
Cocaine had made a comeback and Pablo Escobar was behind it.
In the mid-70s while Americans were doing lines in restroom stalls, he had already banked
around $3 million.
His operations got bigger; he devised more smuggling routes and bought more airplanes,
and in the 1980s the U.S. was flooded with cocaine.
Wall Street brokers couldn’t get through a morning without a “straightener” and
it wouldn’t be long until the drug had infiltrated many, many neighborhoods in the U.S.
Now Pablo is a billionaire.
He’s thought of as a Robin Hood to the poor communities he helps in Colombia and there
aren’t many officials he doesn’t have in his pockets.
Then a man named Luis Carlos Galán comes onto the political scene in Colombia and he
wants to win the 1990 presidential election.
He wants to clean things up and get rid of corruption and of course he has an extreme
dislike of Escobar’s Medellin Cartel.
The U.S. wanted Escobar extradited to face the music there, and Galan supported this.
This was bad news for Pablo and it wasn’t long until Galan was assassinated.
One of the Cartel’s hitmen, John Jairo Velásquez a.k.a. “Popeye”, has since stated that
Pablo was behind that.
We should also remember that the cartel still had many paid friends in politics and the
military, and Galan being President would have put a dent in their under-the-table paychecks.
The thing was, Escobar and his cartel had just got out of hand.
There had been too much blood on the streets and taking Galan out was seen as perhaps having
too much power.
There was also a lot of pressure from the USA.
A new government came in, and under the Colombian Constitution of 1991 the extradition of Colombians
to the U.S. was not allowed.
This part of the constitution was no doubt ghost-written by Escobar.
Knowing he couldn’t be sent to the U.S. for a life-long stay in an isolated cell,
Escobar made a deal with the Colombian government.
He gave himself up and agreed to spend five years in prison, only there was a catch.
He would design the prison himself and be guarded by people he wanted to guard him.
This only could happen after handshakes with some corrupt officials in the Colombian government.
What Escobar had in mind was not exactly four walls, a cement bed and a steel basin.
In was in fact, quite the opposite.
What he envisioned for his confinement was more like an opulent palace, replete with
all modern conveniences.
This is why the place has been called “Hotel Escobar” or “Club Medellín.”
At the same time, his communications with the outside world weren’t to be affected
by his confinement, so in a way all that had happened is he was being guarded from his
enemies rather than being kept in.
Escobar was well-aware that a lot of people wanted him dead, so the location of his hotel-prison
was on a mountain-top.
He’d chosen this location after a scouting trip with his brother.
From there he could see anyone approaching, and the place had telescopes for long distance
surveillance.
It was not an easy place to travel to, and any enemies coming to get him would have had
difficulties trying to navigate that mountain terrain.
The area was also covered in fog much of the day which would make an air-assault very difficult.
Suffice it to say, the prison was armed like a fortress and included a large building that
contained weapons and ammunition.
Escobar’s hotel might not have looked too luxurious from the outside, after all, he
had to keep up the appearance that he was being detained.
It was surrounded by high walls and barbed -wire fences.
Once you got over those walls, though, things were a little different.
Escobar was a big fan of soccer, so of course he had a soccer field where he and his men
could have a kick-a-about.
It was a quality pitch, too, and at one point Escobar even invited the Colombian National
Team to have a game there.
According to hitman “Popeye”, on one occasion all 22-players for the national team of ‘91
actually did make the trip up the mountain, even though they required some off-road vehicles
to get there.
First they enjoyed a lunch fit for kings and after that, Escobar donned a pair of his best
cleats and grabbed hold of a ball.
The slightly-overweight Escobar wasn’t exactly in the same league as those guys, but they
played along with him.
He wasn’t the kind of man a player would want to slide tackle.
The prison guards served refreshments from the sidelines, and after the game those same
guards served drinks to Escobar and players as they partied in the disco.
As for the interior of the residence, it had to be luxurious enough so that he could host
parties there and people could sleep over in rooms befitting a five-star hotel.
The kitchen was grand, like that of a large hotel, which had all state-of-the-art appliances.
Escobar had his 42nd birthday up there and he was in a mood to celebrate.
He put on an elaborate dinner that was cooked by chefs that had come from some of the finest
restaurants in Medellin.
Escobar loved his food, especially after he’d had a few drinks and smoked some of his beloved
weed.
For his party, his family and many of his closest friends were invited.
On the menu that evening was turkey, smoked salmon, smoked trout and caviar.
Some of the rooms were what you call party rooms, so people could play billiards or watch
sports on the largest TV-screens of the day.
There was a larger space where you could party all night long, dancing under disco lights.
The dance floor had a rotating disc in the middle, so men could dance around the models
Escobar occasionally invited up to his hotel in the clouds.
When models weren’t available, he would invite escorts to his castle.
They’d sneak up the mountain hidden in military vehicles and then be taken down the next day.
Money, women, provisions, would all be taken up there secretly, usually when there was
that cover of fog.
Millions of dollars went up and down that mountain.
For relaxation he had a jacuzzi and sauna fitted, while there was also a pool, gym and
a waterfall.
Unfortunately, the exotic animals he had once had for his personal zoo didn’t end up on
the mountain.
He did, however, manage to build a life-size dollhouse for when his daughter would come
to visit.
It’s thought during his time there he had around 300 visits from guests, but the party
would soon be over.
The place wasn’t even completed when word got out that Escobar had ordered the murder
of two cartel members.
Some say they were brutally tortured first, while other accounts state they were just
shot and buried inside the prison walls.
The CIA was listening into his phone calls, so Escobar had to start using carrier pigeons.
If they were ever intercepted, on their legs would be a little label that read, “Pablo
Escobar—Maximum Security Prison—Envigado.”
After staying up there for just over a year, the Colombian government decided that it was
time to send him to a normal prison, which wasn’t to Escobar’s liking.
Some factions of the government had found out about his luxurious lifestyle in his mansion
and weren’t happy about it.
As to the agreement, they couldn’t move Escobar, but they could condemn him to a cell
if it was at the same facility.
Escobar wasn’t in favor of staying in a real cell, and the country’s extremely corrupt
Bureau of Prisons obviously wasn’t up to the job of building real cells.
Even private contractors were too scared to go up there, with one saying, “We are not
going to build a cage with the lion already inside.”
Escobar had to be taken down from that mountain.
In July, 1992, the 4th brigade of the Colombian National Army surrounded La Catedral's facility.
They had in tow the country’s Vice Minister of Justice.
The men had guns pointed at the place, and in at least one book it’s written that when
Escobar ordered the men to lower their weapons, they did.
But when Escobar took that minister hostage all hell broke loose.
One man was killed and others were injured.
It might never be known how he just managed to walk out of that place, but he seemed to
easily get past many armed men who’d been trained by the United States Delta Force.
He would evade capture for 16 more months, and then he would be shot dead.
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