Welcome back to The Deep Dive. Today, we're looking
at a force that became, well, incredibly powerful,
immensely wealthy, and so ruthlessly effective
it really destabilized an entire nation. It reshaped
the global drug trade, but also, importantly,
the dynamics of modern terrorism. It's right.
We are diving deep into the rise, the reign,
and the, frankly, revolutionary legacy of the
Medellin cartel. And it's... Absolutely vital
right from the start that we use the proper term
here. Our sources, they consistently refer to
the Medellin cartel, not just as, you know, a
big drug trafficking group, but specifically
as a highly organized private terrorist organization.
Terrorist organization. That's a key distinction.
It really is. Yeah. Because their main function,
eventually it shifted. It moved from purely making
money through smuggling to systematic political
coercion, using fear, bombings, targeted kidnappings,
assassinating judges, journalists. even presidential
candidates. And that's our mission for this deep
dive. Right. To unpack the absolutely staggering
scale of this operation, trace how it went from
like petty crime to this global oligopoly detail.
It's brutal. It's unique war against the Colombian
state. And then analyze the. Really polarizing,
sometimes just bizarre legacy it left behind.
And to really appreciate the scope, we need to
start with the numbers, ground ourselves in the
reality of it. Now, the organization, it was
built around Pablo Escobar. Obviously, everyone
knows the name. Sure. But the leadership, it
was a real partnership. His cousin, Gustavo Gaviria,
he was the main logistics guy, the shipping expert.
Then you had the Ochoa brothers, Jorge Luis,
Fabio, and Juan David. They handled key distribution
routes. Okay. And you also had - had Jose Gonzalo
Rodriguez -Gacha, known pretty darkly as the
Mexican, and Carlos Lader, who's a real pioneer
in logistics. And when we say dominant, I mean,
the sources suggest this single organization
at its peak was supplying at least 80 % of the
world's cocaine. 80%. That level of market control,
it's almost unheard of in any industry, really,
let alone an illegal one. The sheer volume just
into the U .S. market sometimes hit upwards of
15 tons of cocaine per day. 15 tons a day. And
the money... naturally match the volume. At its
peak, say mid to late 80s, the cartel was bringing
in an estimated U .S. $200 million daily in drug
profits. That translates to billions a year.
But, and here's where it gets really interesting,
that kind of wealth, it presented an immediate,
very unique logistical challenge. Ah, the cash
problem. Yeah, I've read about this. It's one
thing to make hundreds of millions in cash. Cash
you can't trace. It's another thing entirely
to actually deal with the physical weight and
volume of all that money. Precisely. You can't
just walk into a bank. The sources describe these,
well, frankly, absurd efforts to handle the physical
cash, storing it in huge high security warehouses,
burying millions in containers on remote farms
across Colombia. spending enormous amounts just
on rubber bands to bundle it, apparently, and
dealing with securing it from, you know, rats
chewing through it, water damage, mold, or even
rival thieves. Well, they were losing money just
because they couldn't store it properly. Estimates
suggest they'd write off maybe 10 % to 20 % of
their profits annually. Hundreds of millions
of dollars just gone, spoiled, eaten by rats,
lost before they could even spend it or figure
out how to launder it. Which kind of explains
the desperate need to spend it on these huge,
visible things like massive estates, zoos, stuff
like that, nonproductive assets. Exactly. This
whole financial empire, it operated across Colombia,
obviously, had crucial hubs in Panama, the Bahamas,
relied on coca paste coming from Peru and Bolivia.
And it just flooded major U .S. cities, L .A.,
New York. but especially Miami. Right. And this
empire basically dominated the cocaine trade
for roughly two decades, didn't it? From about
1976 until Escobar finally died in 93. So how
did this... This colossus even gets started.
We have to go back to Escobar himself, right?
His path before cocaine became the big thing.
Yeah, and it's a fascinating, almost, like you
said, bizarre start. His early life in crime
was really small -time opportunistic, but it
showed this early flair for fraud. The tombstones.
The tombstones, yeah. Sources detail how he apparently
began by stealing tombstones from cemeteries.
Think about that. He'd allegedly sand down the
granite markers, erase the names and dates, make
them look fresh, and then re - sell them to funeral
homes. Wow. That's audacious and grim. It tells
you something, right? About his disregard for
social norms, even then. From there, he quickly
moved up. Highly organized car theft in Medellin.
Then into the really lucrative but also very
dangerous world of illegal cigarette and liquor
smuggling. Okay. This allegedly got him involved
in the violent Marlboro Wars. These were turf
conflicts over controlling the black market for
contraband. It sort of foreshadowed the later
drug wars, you could say. And he was already
using violence even then. It wasn't just about
the money. Crucially, yes. He'd already embraced
violent extortion. He got involved in early kidnappings
for ransom, notably the alleged 1971 kidnapping
and subsequent murder of a wealthy Medellin businessman.
So you see this progression, fraud, property
crime, then violent extortion. It sets the stage
for the plata o plomo silver or lead strategy
that would define his whole career. For Escobar,
violence wasn't a last resort. It was a fundamental
business tool. OK, so he's established in crime,
but how does he make the leap to cocaine? Well,
the transition was really driven by historical
timing and just simple economics. Back in the
1960s, cocaine wasn't a big deal in Colombia.
The trade routes were mostly run by neighbors,
Argentina, Brazil, Chile. Key ports were Rio,
Valparaiso. Transshipment points were Havana,
Panama City. And Colombia was mostly known for?
Marijuana. That was the big illegal export back
then. But then 1973 happened. Exactly. The military
coup in Chile. That led to these brutal crackdowns
on the existing drug networks there. So suddenly,
Chilean traffickers needed new, safer routes
north. And many look to Colombia. Creating a
vacuum. A perfect vacuum for ambitious Colombian
smugglers like Escobar and his cousin, Gustavo
Gaviria, to step into and fill. And cocaine itself
just had more appeal than marijuana. Oh, absolutely.
Logistically, it was perfect. It packs much tighter,
right? So you maximize your profit relative to
the volume and weight you're smuggling. The profit
potential was just exponentially greater. Makes
sense. And the production importing the coca
paste from the Andes, refining it that could
be effectively monopolized in South America.
Unlike marijuana, which was increasingly being
grown closer to the North American markets anyway.
Plus the demand side changed too, right? In the
U .S.? Definitely. By the late 70s, cocaine wasn't
obscure anymore. It became a status symbol. It
gained this huge prestige in the U .S., especially
in like Hollywood circles, the big party scene
down in Miami. It was just irresistible for criminal
entrepreneurs. Okay, so the conditions are right.
But how did they solve the actual how? getting
it into the U .S. reliably. This is where Lader
and Jung come in. This is the pivotal early partnership
that cracked the infrastructure problem. Carlos
Lader and George Jung. Boston George. The sources,
they detail how they met as bunkmates in prison,
FCI Danbury in Connecticut. Lader was in for
car theft, Jung for marijuana trafficking. And
Jung tells this story, Lader's sales pitch. Yeah,
Young recounts asking later about cocaine and
later just casually says, you know, it costs
$60 ,000 a kilo. $60 ,000? That single fact,
according to Young, just completely shifted his
focus. Young had years of experience flying marijuana
across the U .S.-Mexico border. He knew the routes,
the techniques, so he pulled his expertise with
Later. So Young had the how for North America.
Later had the what's and the who back in Colombia.
Essentially, yes. Young provided that critical
knowledge of U .S. distribution logistics, the
geography of getting the product in. Later had
the connections back to the source, Pablo Escobar.
And this alliance led directly to the most crucial
early piece of infrastructure, Norman's Cay.
That little island in the Bahamas. That little
island. By 1978, Lader had somehow bought or
leveraged control over Norman's Cay. He transformed
it into this major fortified transshipment hub
for the Medellin operation. Fortified how? Like
defenses? Oh, yeah. Airstrip, radar, armed guards.
The works. It was a logistical breakthrough.
It solved the huge problem of U .S. market access.
Allowed them to fly in multi -ton shipments.
stored them safely, and then shuttled them straight
over to Florida on smaller planes or boats. It
just fueled the cartel's incredible initial growth.
So with the distribution saw the money flowing
like crazy, these independent smugglers started
to team up. Exactly. Between about 76 and 79,
these successful independent rings quickly coalesced
into a genuine cartel. Mention again that term
cartel. It wasn't their name for themselves.
It was coined by the U .S. State Department.
Right. To describe this new kind of thing, it
was a financial oligopoly, way more sophisticated
than traditional drug gangs. It was like an official
recognition that this was a new kind of economic
power. Pretty much. Escobar and Gaviria, they
leveraged their success, their wealth, to bring
in the other major players, gotcha, the Ocoas.
This merger, it maximized their power. concentrated
it, and they focused almost exclusively on cocaine.
That gave the organization the strong, single
backbone it needed to fight Well, both its rivals
and eventually the state itself. OK, so fast
forward to the 1980s. The cartel is established,
making billions. How did the actual business
operate day to day? Well, the production chain
was highly organized. It started with importing
just massive quantities of coca paste from the
source countries, mainly Peru and Bolivia. And
the processing, the labs, not in Peru or Bolivia.
No. The refinement was mostly done deep inside
Colombia in these huge hidden jungle laboratories.
Sources describe places like Tranquilandia. This
wasn't just a lab. It was a sprawling complex
like the size of a small town. Wow. Dozens of
individual labs, housing for workers, power generators,
even its own security networks, all designed
just to process that paste into high -grade powder
cocaine for mass export. And then getting it
out, they got creative, right? Oh, relentlessly
innovative. They used every method you can imagine
to evade detection. You hear stories about cocaine
stuffed into hollowed out pellets, multilayered
condoms or balloons swallowed by human mules
flying commercial. Mules. Yeah. And of course,
loading massive quantities onto specialized aircraft.
The Cessnas became kind of legendary, didn't
they? They did. And not because they were fancy
jets. They were valued specifically because they
could fly. slow allowed for more precise low
altitude deliveries to remote jungle drop zones
and critically it made mid -air transfers easier
transferring bales of cocaine to boats waiting
below or even to other aircraft closer to the
destination especially near florida And law enforcement
just couldn't keep up initially. These methods
were just too varied, too rapid. Early American
interdiction techniques, they just weren't equipped
to counter it effectively. Not on that scale.
Can result back in the U .S. was. The cocaine
boom. It drove prices down just enough that the
drug became popular far beyond just the wealthy
elite. And that, in turn, it fueled widespread
addiction, massive crime waves in major cities
and local turf wars. Miami. In the early 80s
is the classic example, just intense violence.
And the impact on Colombia's own economy. Staggering.
Think about this. By 1982. Cocaine had actually
surpassed coffee as Colombia's chief export.
More than coffee. Wow. Yeah. And all that wealth,
untaxed, hard to track cash. It catapulted the
traffickers into positions of global influence.
Escobar famously made the Forbes billionaires
list for seven years straight, starting in 87.
But all that money, all that power, it also created
friction, right, between Medellin and the other
big players like the Cali cartel. Huge friction.
Initially, they were sort of strategic allies.
They split turf. Medellin kind of focused on
L .A. Cali took New York City. And they shared
the really lucrative transit points like Miami
and Houston. But they had fundamentally different
ways of operating. Completely different philosophies.
And this split is really important to understand
because it dictated their survival strategies.
Medellin, under Escobar, was all about immediate,
brutal violence and intimidation. Plata o plomo?
Silver or lead? Bribe or bullet? Exactly. Violence
was the quickest, most effective motivator for
anyone standing in their way. And their reputation
was horrific. They were known for murdering not
just their targets, but often their immediate
family members too, just to send this message
of absolute terrifying finality. Whereas Cali?
Cali was the business cartel, led by the Orihuela
brothers, Gilberto and Miguel. They much preferred
institutional corruption bribery. They saw overt,
messy violence like Escobar's as actually bad
for business, highly detrimental to their long
-term financial stability. Because it attracted
too much attention. Partly that. And their famous
core philosophy was dead people do not pay what
they owe. Huh. That's pragmatic in a chilling
way. So Medellin was fighting this very public
short -term war, making headlines, while Cali
was trying to build something more sustainable,
more hidden. Exactly. Cali was quietly infiltrating
every level of Colombia's professional and political
infrastructure. They were hyper -professional
in their own way. Sources say they required detailed
application forms from potential employees, ran
background checks. They prioritized security,
discretion. Application forms for a cartel. Yeah.
They want to be seen as these discreet, powerful
businessmen. Someone described their ambition
as wanting to be the Kennedys of Colombia. Whereas
Escobar was chasing this overt populist political
power. Cali knew the more public the violence,
the more the U .S. would eventually come down
on them. And this difference terror versus corruption,
it also helps explain the rise of the paramilitaries.
Fundamentally, yes. You had these traditional
guerrilla groups like the FARC who increasingly
saw the wealthy traffickers as, well, walking
ATMs. They started kidnapping cartel members
for ransom. Carlos Slater got kidnapped. Martha
Ochoa, the sister of the Ochoa brothers. Right.
They demanded extortion money, sometimes a grommage,
like a tax, on cocaine production and movement
in areas they controlled. And the cartels weren't
going to stand for that. Absolutely not. This
was a direct threat to their economic base, something
they'd invested billions in protecting. So this
led to the formation of Muerte Sequestradores,
Death to Kidnappers, or MAS, back in 1981. And
this wasn't just Medellin. No, this was a broad
coalition, included members from both Medellin
and Cali initially, influential military figures,
major industrialists, wealthy ranchers, anyone
whose financial interests or land holdings felt
threatened by the leftist insurgents. So it started
as defense, but quickly became an offense. Very
quickly. Yeah. MAS transitioned from just anti
-kidnapping defense into a full... political
terror apparatus. By 1983, these MAS death squads
were already linked to something like 240 political
killings, systematically targeting community
leaders, labor organizers, local officials. Anyone
suspected of being a subversive or sympathetic
to the guerrillas. And Escobar's role in this
grew. Massively. By the mid-'80s, Escobar was
funneling enormous amounts of cash into MAS.
He was effectively privatizing state -level violence.
They bought modern military gear AKMs, FN FAL
rifles, often through corrupt military contacts.
And the training. I read they brought in foreign
instructors. Critically, yes. They hired specialized
foreign trainers. British, Israeli, American
military veterans, often ex -special forces guys,
to teach counterinsurgency tactics, how to handle
explosives, high -level assassination skills.
That's chilling. Outsourcing military training.
It meant the cartel's private army could operate
with a level of precision and strategic planning
usually reserved for actual state forces. It
just completely blurred the lines between private
criminal muscle and state conflict. Made the
traffickers incredibly hard to fight using just
normal police methods. And locally, he needed
muscle too, right? For debt collection and intimidation.
Right. So around the mid-'80s, he formalized
his enforcement wing, founded the Oficina de
Envigado de Office. It was an actual physical
office in Envigado, a suburb of Medellin, basically
a criminal debt collection service. And if you've
seen it at Cobro, it dispatched teams of sicarios,
hired killers, who formed the backbone of the
cartel's street -level violence against anyone
who didn't choose Plata when offered Plomo. This
whole infrastructure became absolutely critical
for the war against the government that was coming.
So with the muscle in place, the war really kicks
off when Escobar tries to go legitimate. Tries
to enter politics. His ambition was just boundless.
In 1982, he really capitalized on this Robin
Hood image he'd cultivated. He actually got elected
briefly as an alternate member, a supplanted
to the Colombian Chamber of Representatives for
the Liberal Party. How do you manage that? He
poured money into social projects, built housing.
The famous Barrio Pablo Escobar still exists.
Funded sports facilities, infrastructure in the
really poor neighborhoods of the comunas around
Medellin. He used all that goodwill as political
capital and also as a layer of community protection.
People felt indebted to him. But that political
dream didn't last long. Violently short -lived.
In 1983, the Minister of Justice, Rodrigo Larabonia,
publicly and very aggressively denounced Escobar.
Called him out as a trafficker, presented evidence
linking drug money to political campaigns, including
Escobar's. This pressure forced the Liberal Party
to expel him, and Escobar resigned his seat in
January 1984. And that public humiliation, that
was the trigger. That seems to be the turning
point, his political exile. Just three months
later, April 30th, 1984, Laura Bonilla was assassinated
by cartel gunmen on a Bogota street. And this
wasn't just revenge. It was the opening shot
in what became a decade long campaign of narco
terrorism, specifically designed to destroy the
Colombian state's ability to govern, especially
on one key issue. Extradition. Extradition. That
was the ultimate target for the traffickers getting
sent to the U .S. federal prison system. That
was an existential threat. They called it a death
sentence in a dark, cold cell because all their
local power, their influence, their bribery networks,
none of that could reach them there. So they
formed a group specifically to fight it. Escobar
and his allies formed Los Extraditables, highly
publicized. Their strategy was pure terror. The
bend -or -break approach applied systemically
across the judiciary, across the political class.
Officials were offered a choice. Take the bribe,
placa, give in to extortion, or face immediate
murder, plomo. And they followed through. The
list of assassinations is just... Chilling. It
really is. You have the murder of Superior Judge
Tulio Manuel Castro Gil in 85. He'd indicted
Escobar. Supreme Court Justice Hernando by Carol
Borda in 86. He was the key rapporteur for the
extradition treaty. Justice Minister Enrique
Lomertra in 91. The message couldn't have been
clearer. Challenge extradition and you will die.
Which brings us to the Palace of Justice siege
in 85. That's always been linked to Escobar,
but it's controversial, right? Slightly controversial.
What we know for sure is that the M -19 guerrilla
group. stormed the Supreme Court building in
Bogota in November 1985. The army's retaking
operation was incredibly violent, resulting in
over 100 deaths, including 11 Supreme Court justices.
And the allegation is that Escobar paid M -19
to do it. That's the central, deeply disputed
claim. Sources allege he provided maybe up to
$2 million in cash, weapons, explosives. Now,
M -19 had its own revolutionary goals, but the
alleged objective for Escobar was very specific.
intimidate the court, and crucially, destroy
the extradition files stored inside that could
implicate him and his associates. But it's never
been definitively proven in court. It's vital
to stick to what the sources confirm here. While
the allegations are plausible, widely reported,
they remain legally unproven. Colombian courts
have established M -19's initial responsibility
for the siege itself. And importantly, the state's
responsibility for serious human rights violations,
including disappearances of court staff during
the army's retaking. But regardless of Escobar's
direct hand in that specific event, the siege
itself served as a powerful, terrifying message
to the entire judiciary. And whether or not he
was behind the palace siege, the broader terror
campaign just escalated dramatically after that,
didn't it? From 87 to 89. Violently escalated.
Agreed. The goal seemed to shift from just intimidation
to full scale political disruption. Yeah. Trying
to paralyze the government. And the peak was
the assassination of Galan. Absolutely. August
1989, the assassination of the leading presidential
frontrunner, Luis Carlos Galan. He was shot dead
at a campaign rally, an attack universally attributed
to the cartel. Galan was strongly anti -drug,
had vowed to reinstate extradition if elected.
His murder just plunged Colombia into this state
of national shock, a real... governmental crisis.
It was basically open warfare at that point.
Completely. And the cartel showed its willingness
to inflict massive, indiscriminate civilian casualties
just months later. November 1989, the bombing
of Avianca Flight 203. The plane bombing. The
target was widely believed to be Cesar Gaviria
Trujillo. who was seen as Gallant's political
successor. Luckily, he wasn't actually on the
flight. But the bomb killed 107 innocent people,
including two U .S. citizens. And that finally
drew significantly greater U .S. involvement,
counter -narcotics aid, intelligence sharing,
training. And there were other major attacks,
too. Oh, the list of atrocities from that period
is just horrifying. The DAS building bombing
in Bovita, targeting Miguel Maza Marquez, the
head of Colombia's intelligence agency. That
bomb killed 52 civilians. Unbelievable. Overall,
estimates suggest the cartel was responsible
for around 3 ,500 killings during its reign,
including a devastating toll of over 500 police
officers specifically targeted and murdered in
Medellin alone. This wasn't just crime anymore.
It was a sustained, organized war against the
very fabric of the Colombian state. So the endgame
for the cartel, it actually begins with Escobar
achieving a kind of twisted victory in 91. In
a way, yes. The campaign of terror, it worked
to a degree. It resulted in this massive concession
from the state. The new 1991 Colombian constitution
included a ban on the extradition of Colombian
nationals. Yeah. So they won on extradition at
least temporarily. Temporarily. And it was widely
seen internationally as a direct result of the
cartel's relentless pressure and violence. And
under this new reality, Escobar surrendered.
He surrendered in June 1991. But under an agreement,
he basically negotiated himself. He agreed to
be confined. But in a prison, he essentially
designed and had built La Catedra. La Catedra,
the luxury dorm. The absurdity of it is just...
Off the charts. It was officially billed as a
maximum security facility, but as anything but.
It was a self -designed luxury compound. It had
a fully stocked bar, a giant satellite dish for
communications, a professional -grade football
pitch where he hosted games, even a waterfall.
And the guards. Guarded by his own hand -picked
men. Sources describe him conducting cartel business
from inside, receiving guests whenever he wanted,
basically running his empire from confinement.
It sounds more like a resort headquarters than
a prison. Pretty much. The sources mentioned
specific details like high -end gold bathroom
fixtures, fine imported liquors, the ability
to order takeout from Medellin restaurants. It
was a complete mockery of the justice system.
It allowed him to continue directing operations,
collecting debts, maintaining total control of
his network. How long did that last? The charade
finally collapsed in July 1992. Escobar ordered
the torture and murder of two of his own high
-ranking associates inside La Caradral. Kills
him right there. Inside the prison. Inside the
prison. It proved he had total impunity, that
the government had zero control. So the Colombian
government finally decided they had to move him
to a real military facility. And he just walked
out. He was tipped off, apparently, and escaped
with very little resistance before they could
transfer him. This triggered a massive nationwide
manhunt that lasted 16 months. And his escape,
it happens around the same time this new group
emerges, Los Pepes. Exactly. His escape coincides
with the rise of this vigilante group, Los Pepes,
and that dramatically changed the power dynamics
on the ground. Escobar always had enemies, of
course, but the internal feuding really turned
fatal around this time. The Cali cartel, remember,
had been escalating its rivalry since Medellin
bombed the Monaco apartment building in 88, targeting
Escobar's family. So Los Pepes wasn't a government
group. No, no. Los Pepes, it stood for Perseguidos
por Pablo Escobar, People Persecuted by Pablo
Escobar. Officially formed around January 1993,
it was this ruthless, shadowy force, largely
financed, intelligence suggests, by the Cali
cartel. And led by former Medellin members who
had personal vendettas against Escobar, most
famously the Castaño brothers. And they fought
Escobar how? They basically adopted Escobar's
own brutal tactics and turned them against him.
escalating the violence to unprecedented levels,
targeting his family members, his lawyers, his
financial associates, bombing his properties.
It was essentially the cartel tearing itself
apart from the inside. Wow. This vigilante war,
it accelerated Medellin's internal collapse far
more quickly than the stay alone probably could
have managed. That, combined with the relentless
pressure from the Colombian search block, which
was trained and heavily assisted by U .S. technology
and intelligence operatives, effectively cornered
Escobar. Which leads to the final moments in
December. The final hunt ended on December 2,
1993, the day after Estabar's 44th birthday.
He was tracked down to a middle -class residential
house in the Los Levos neighborhood of Medellin.
And the fatal mistake was a phone call. That's
what the sources clearly indicate. He made a
phone call from the hideout to his family, his
wife and kids, who were being protected by the
government in a hotel in Bogota at the time.
And they traced it. U .S. tracking technology.
They were using highly sensitive radio directional
finding gear specifically deployed to monitor
any transmissions he might make. They pinpointed
the call's origin with incredible accuracy. The
search block moved in. Gunfire erupted immediately.
Escobar and his one remaining bodyguard, a guy
nicknamed Limon, they tried to escape across
the tiled rooftops of the adjacent houses. Limon
was killed almost instantly on the roof. Moments
later, Escobar was hit multiple times, torso,
leg, and then took a final fatal shot that entered
near his ear. In that last shot, the ear shot,
that's the source of the controversy, right?
Whether he shot himself. Exactly. That detail
sparked this enduring controversy that continues
today. His son. Juan Pablo, has always remained
adamant that his father shot himself in the ear.
He claims it was consistent with a vow Escobar
supposedly made never to be captured alive, never
to face extradition, and a U .S. prison. So we
don't know for sure who fired the fatal shot.
The official account says it was the search block.
The family says it was suicide. The end result,
though, was the same. Pablo Escobar was dead.
The Medellin cartel as a hierarchical structure
was effectively headless and its reign was over.
His death marked the end of the cartel as that
entity. But the legacy, it's incredibly complex,
isn't it? Contradictory and still really defining
for Colombia. Absolutely. That dual nature of
his public image is just profound. On one hand,
you have Escobar, the monster synonymous with
the violence, the corruption, the terror that
nearly broke the nation. But on the other hand,
you have this cultivated Robin Hood image. And
it still holds genuine influence among many people
in Medellin's poorer districts. Thanks to that
initial very high profile funding, he did the
housing, the sports fields, the infrastructure.
And that division was visible right at the end
at his funeral. Starkly visible. Despite all
the horrific crimes, the terror he unleashed,
sources say over 25 ,000 people turned up for
his funeral at Matasacro Cemetery. apparently
struggling with police just to get close enough
to touch the coffin. It just shows the deep societal
split he created. And the physical stuff he left
behind, the mansions, the properties, what happened
to them? The state's response to his massive
wealth, his properties, it's been a very conscious
effort, it seems, to dismantle that narrative
of narco -glorification. Take Kassi Andanopoulos.
His enormous 7 .7 square mile estate, the one
with the private airstrip, the sculptures, the
infamous zoo, after years of being abandoned,
looted, it was seized by the government. And
eventually it was repurposed. It's now a family
-oriented theme park. But it also includes museum
spaces specifically dedicated to memorializing
his victims. So the tourist attraction itself
carries this anti -glorification message. Trying
to reclaim the narrative. Exactly. And another
really stark example. The Monaco building, that
was his former family mansion in Medellin, the
one that Cali cartel hit with a huge car bomb
back in 88. It stood there gutted for years,
becoming this kind of morbid tourist spot. Right.
So in 2019, the Medellin authorities made a very
public, very political statement. They demolished
the whole six -story building and replaced it
with a park. specifically dedicated to honoring
the thousands of victims of cartel violence,
including the four presidential candidates, the
hundreds of police officers he ordered killed.
Putting the focus on the victims, not the perpetrator.
As President Ivan Duque said at the demolition,
the act was intended not to glorify the perpetrators,
but to honor the victims. It's this active, ongoing
effort by the city, by the nation, to redefine
its memory and firmly reject the Escobar figure.
But then there's the other legacy, the most successful,
maybe the weirdest, certainly the most uncontrollable
physical legacy of all that extravagance, the
hippos. Ah, the cocaine hippos. Yeah. This is
a truly unique story in environmental history.
Escobar imported just four hippopotamuses for
his private zoo at Haciendanapolis back in the
80s. Just four. After he died, the estate was
abandoned. The other animals were relocated or
died off. But the hippos, they were just too
big, too dangerous, too expensive to capture
and move. So they were basically just left to
fend for themselves in the lakes and rivers around
the estate. And they did more than fend for themselves.
Oh, they thrived. They started reproducing rapidly.
They dispersed out from Naples along the massive
Magdalena River Basin, and they created the world's
first known feral breeding population of hippos,
a megafauna species outside of Africa. How many
are there now? The population growth is explosive.
By the early 2020s, estimates were somewhere
between 80 and 120 hippos. But the population
models are alarming. If they're left unmanaged,
that number could potentially exceed 1 ,000 by
2050. And that's bad for the local environment.
Ecologically, they pose huge risks. They displace
native Colombian species like manatees and capybaras.
They change the aquatic vegetation because they
eat so much. Their waste, tons of it, fundamentally
alters the water chemistry, which can affect
fish populations. And there are worries about
them. potentially spreading pathogens to livestock
or even humans. Can't they just manage them,
control the population? It's incredibly difficult.
The sources detail these immense challenges.
Local communities, some of them actually see
the hippos as charismatic, maybe even good for
local tourism, which complicates efforts like
sterilization or culling. There are these ongoing...
Multi -million dollar international plans being
discussed, trying to capture dozens of them,
relocate them to sanctuaries in places like Mexico
and India, just to try and curb the population
explosion. It's this literal biological inheritance
of unchecked criminal excess. So wrapping this
up, we've tracked the Medellin cartel from Escobar's
petty criminal beginnings. Yeah, the tombstones.
Right. Through those vital logistical breakthroughs
like Norman's K that really fueled the cocaine
boom into that full scale narco terrorism campaign
designed purely to defeat extradition. The war
against the state. Exactly. Culminating in his
death, the destruction of his assets. And yeah,
this bizarre biological inheritance he left behind
with the hippos. And the sources are really clear
on this. The collapse of the Medellin cartel.
It didn't end Colombia's role in the cocaine
trade. Not by a long shot. It just shifted the
dominance. First, it went to the more discreet,
business -like Cali cartel. And then, after Cali
was eventually dismantled too, it fragmented
into smaller, more decentralized, harder -to
-track networks. The whole kingpin strategy,
taking out the leader, it was effective in destroying
that specific hierarchy. But the drug flow itself,
the underlying criminal infrastructure, it persisted.
It adapted. The sheer scale of what Escobar built,
though, I mean, financing housing projects one
day, ordering the murder of a presidential candidate
the next, it really defined the term narco -terrorism,
didn't it? And showed the terrible price a nation
pays for that kind of organized criminal ambition.
It absolutely did. But the ultimate, maybe profound
question that the sources leave us with is, When
a criminal empire like this finally falls, what
actually remains? What lasts? Yeah, what's the
final takeaway? Well, consider this. The cartel,
as an organization, ultimately failed in its
central political objective. It was destroyed.
Extradition eventually happened for many others.
His vast properties, they're now either memorials
to his victims or family theme parks designed
specifically to dispel his myth. Right, the anti
-legacy. Exactly. Yet the hippos, this symbol
of completely unnecessary, absurd extravagance,
they haven't just survived. They've successfully
colonized an entire ecosystem. They're posing
this escalating environmental threat that could
last for centuries. So what does that say? What
does it say about human control, or maybe the
lack of it, that the most successful, the most
self -sustaining entity to emerge from Pablo
Escobar's entire multi -billion dollar empire?
isn't the criminal network he founded, but a
herd of invasive African megafauna thriving,
basically uncontested, in the Colombian jungle.
It's going to be the ultimate uncontrollable
cost of a legacy built entirely on excess.