Now Playing
The Assassination That Started a War: Galán, Extradition & Total Terror
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Pablo Escobar didn't just run cocaine — he declared war on a nation. This chapter follows the killing of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán, the cartel's industrial-scale pipeline, and the plata o plomo terror campaign that left Colombia on its knees.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
August nineteen eighty-nine. A man named Luis Carlos Galán is speaking at a political rally in Soacha, just outside Bogotá.
By the late nineteen seventies, Escobar and a small group of associates, including the Ochoa brothers and Carlos Lehder, had formed what became known as the Medellín Cartel. The word cartel implies something centralized and corporate.
In the comunas of Medellín, Escobar was building soccer fields. He was funding housing projects for families who had been living in shacks.
The phrase means silver or lead. You take the bribe, or you take the bullet.
By nineteen ninety-one, Escobar had negotiated a deal. He would surrender and face imprisonment in Colombia, in exchange for a guarantee that he would not be extradited to the United States.
The Search Bloc had been created back in nineteen eighty-six, a specialized police unit built specifically to find and capture Escobar. After the escape from La Catedral, it was rebuilt and reinforced.
Colombia did not become peaceful after December second, nineteen ninety-three. The Cali Cartel, which had largely stayed out of Escobar's war with the state, moved to consolidate control of the cocaine market.
Chapter summary auto-generated from the verified script. Listen to the full episode for the complete content.