When was pablo escobar caught

Once the gun blasts had subsided, Col. Hugo Martinez, the Search Bloc leader who had pursued Escobar for three bloody years but was not on the scene, heard one of his men shouting into the radio.

Reports emerged afterward that Escobar had gone down firing his own weapon , and the confusion of the encounter has left the question of who fired the fatal shot open to speculation. In January , according to Bowden, a new group had joined the hunt for Escobar.

Earlier, in mid, Pablo's execution of two lieutenants had broken his cartel into warring factions. Los Pepes were, in Bowden's words , "some extralegal muscle … who didn't mind crossing the lines of legality and morality that Pablo so blithely ignored. According DEA documents cited by Bowden, the group probably received funding from the rival Cali cartel and likely got information from the Colombian National Police and, allegedly , American intelligence agents operating in the country.

A court ruling ordered the CIA to release more documents that could shed light on the suspected cooperation between the American government, Colombian security forces, and Los Pepes.

Los Pepes quickly mounted a campaign that rivaled that of Escobar's in sheer violence. In early , there were up to six killings a day. Low-level cartel managers, former state officials linked to the cartel, Escobar's attorneys — anyone was fair game.

Escobar retaliated with more bombings in urban areas, and Los Pepes responded in kind, destroying numerous properties belonging to Escobar and his associates.

Read more: Meet the cocaine-addled, Hitler-obsessed drug smuggler who tried to take down Pablo Escobar. In Don Berna's telling , it was his brother, Rodolfo, who delivered the coup de grace, shooting Escobar in the head with an M He would try to bribe fellow politicians to get policy to sway in his favor, and if the bribery plata or silver was refused, he would order the death plomo or lead of the opposition.

Escobar ordered the death of an estimated police officers during his lifetime. In , Escobar faced multiple drug charges, so his lawyers came up with an unprecedented compromise. Escobar would build his own prison, and choose his own guards. Needless to say, the prison was essentially a mansion, with a Jacuzzi and other luxurious add-ons, and the guards let him carry out business from prison. Authorities said intelligence provided by the U. Leaks and a network of rural safe houses he supposedly moved among every night allowed him for years to resist a scorched-earth campaign by the military against the Gulf Clan.

As he defied authorities, his legend as a bandit grew alongside the horror stories told by Colombian authorities of the many underage women he and his cohorts allegedly abused sexually. He also asserts that his father had committed suicide. Beginning in the early s, the country became a prime smuggling ground for marijuana. Situated at the northern tip of South America between the thriving coca cultivation epicenters of Peru and Bolivia, the country came to dominate the global cocaine trade with the United States, the biggest market for the drug, just a short trip to the north.

Escobar moved quickly to grab control of the cocaine trade. In , drug trafficker Fabio Restrepo from the city of Medellin, Colombia, was murdered. Escobar worked with a small group to form the infamous Medellin Cartel. Cash was so prevalent that Escobar purchased a Learjet for the sole purpose of flying his money.

In some ways he positioned himself as a Robin Hood -like figure, which was echoed by many locals as he spent money to expand social programs for the poor. As a young man, Escobar told friends and family that he wanted to become president of Colombia. Yet as he saw it, his path to wealth and legitimacy lay in crime. But the reasons for his wealth could not stay hidden, and two years after his election he was forced to resign. The justice minister who revealed Escobar's notorious background was later slain.

Escobar was responsible for the killing of thousands of people, including politicians, civil servants, journalists and ordinary citizens. His goal was a no-extradition clause and amnesty for drug barons in exchange for giving up the trade.