The eight square mile estate included a Spanish colonial house, a sculpture park, a private airport, and a zoo. Wikimedia Commons Escobar and his son watch television in the early 1980s in their newly constructed house, Hacienda Nápoles, the Escobar’s estate 100 miles east of Medellín, Colombia. He would continue to elude law enforcement for the next decade.

allthatisinteresting That same year, Escobar was briefly arrested, at which time the mugshot above was taken by the Medellín Control Agency. Wikimedia Commons Soon after, they had their first child, Juan Pablo, who was born in 1977. Vintage Everyday In March 1976, Escobar married Maria Victoria after dating for two years. Though her family didn’t approve of their relationship, the pair would remain together until Escobar’s death. Pablo Escobar met his future wife, Maria Victoria, when he was 24 and she was 13.

His brothers believe that he committed suicide. It was never proven who fired the killing shot through his head, and speculation persists. Escobar was shot in the leg, torso, and in the head. Escobar was able to learn of the change of location in time to escape, spending the rest of his life evading the police.Įscobar died in a shootout on December 2, 1993. When the media began to realize that he was continuing his cocaine business in the prison, the government prepared to transfer him to a traditional prison. He maintained control of cartel operations while in La Catedral. Escobar was kept in a luxury private prison called La Catedral, which had a soccer field, a giant dollhouse for his daughter, a bar, jacuzzi, and a waterfall. When questioned about the essence of the cocaine business, Escobar replied with “ simple: you bribe someone here, you bribe someone there, and you pay a friendly banker to help you bring the money back.”Īfter the politician Luis Carlos Galan was assassinated, Escobar surrendered himself to the Colombian authorities in 1991. Escobar was on a list of smugglers under threat of extradition so he paid the M-19 to destroy all the files on ‘Los Extraditables’. The siege, a retaliation for the Supreme Court studying the constitutionality of Colombia’s extradition treaty with the United States and ended with half of the judges murdered. In 1985, Escobar allegedly backed the assault on the Colombian Supreme Court by left-wing guerrillas from the 19 of April Movement (M-19). Escobar became somewhat of a Robin Hood figure and worked to create goodwill among the poor of Colombia by frequently distributing money through housing projects and funding other civic activities. He was the wealthiest criminal in history with a net worth of between $25-$30 billion by the early ‘90s ($49-$56 billion in 2017).ĭuring the height of his operations, Escobar was smuggling 15 tons of cocaine per day, earning more than $70 million per day. Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord, who, at his peak, supplied an estimated 80% of all the cocaine smuggled into the United States.

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