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La Catedral, the Search Bloc & the Rooftop in Medellín
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Pablo Escobar industrialised the cocaine trade, declared war on the Colombian state, and died on a Medellín rooftop — this is the full arc of the narco terror that reshaped a nation. From plata o plomo to La Catedral prison, the Search Bloc, and the assassination of Galán, no story in drug cartel history cuts deeper.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Some criminals leave a mark. Pablo Escobar left a wound.
Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was born in nineteen forty-nine in Rionegro, a municipality in the Colombian department of Antioquia. He grew up modest, the son of a farmer and a schoolteacher.
The key point here is scale. Escobar didn't just become a cocaine trafficker.
Running that machine required control. And Escobar's method of control was simple, brutal, and effective.
While he was corrupting institutions on one side, Escobar was building a different kind of capital on the other. In the comunas of Medellín, the hillside barrios where the poorest families lived without running water or paved roads, Escobar arrived with construction crews and money.
In nineteen eighty-two, Escobar made a move that still defies easy categorization. He ran for congress.
What followed was a period of violence that's difficult to fully convey in its scope. Escobar's cartel targeted anyone who supported extradition.
By nineteen ninety-one, Escobar was under intense pressure. The Colombian government offered a deal.
The Search Bloc had existed since nineteen eighty-six, a specially created Colombian police unit with a single mandate. Find Escobar.
The death toll attributed to the Medellín Cartel under Escobar ranges from twenty-five thousand to fifty thousand people. That range itself tells you something.
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