Have you talked with Escobar Gaviria?
With the lawyers. I talk to the lawyers.
What has been decided?
So far, many things,
but he makes the final decisions.
A few days ago, Escobar sent a letter
to the Colombian Attorney General's Office,
which lists several conditions
that would facilitate his surrender.
Escobar wants his family's safety
to be guaranteed by the Colombian authorities.
He wants his own kitchen and chef,
because he fears that someone might poison him.
What worries Escobar the most
is his own safety inside the prison.
- Who are you? - Who are you?
- Who is coming?
We are climbing towards the highest point.
In a few minutes, we'll see the prison.
Now the whole group of journalists
is heading this way, crossing off-road.
Long live Colombia!
Another vehicle has just passed by on its way to the jail.
Finally, almost a month after it was announced,
at 5:00 p.m. yesterday,
midnight in Spain,
Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, the Boss,
the head kingpin of the Medellín Cartel,
one of the world's most wanted,
surrendered to Colombian justice.
Pablo Escobar surrendered,
the Medellín Cartel's cocaine boss,
reported by Colombian broadcasters
at 10:00 p.m., Greenwich, on Wednesday,
according to France-Presse.
When it was announced on the radio,
the breaking news that Pablo Escobar had entered La Catedral
with a group of his henchmen, hired assassins,
or closest lieutenants,
there were very high expectations in Medellín
and for news correspondents
of national and international media in Medellín.
There was a choice of,
"Let's try to go all the way to La Catedral,
to see if perhaps we can enter and meet Pablo Escobar."
Please do not take any shots or photos
until we reach the jail, please.
And the circumstances under which he would stay there,
because there was all kinds of speculation.
Most obviously, that it was a prison he built himself,
with many luxuries.
And one condition was,
being confined in a penitentiary,
prison, or jail facility,
to give him all the guarantees.
Have the remaining 20 arrived?
- They are coming today. - What time?
Later.
The Director of the...
- Are they from the Envigado prison? - Yes, sir.
How many are coming?
Approximately 20.
How many are coming?
Foreign and national journalists in Medellín, Colombia,
confirmed that the maximum-security prison in Envigado
is not a luxury mansion, nor a five-star hotel.
The access, as shown, is a tortuous and narrow road,
the structural design has elements
that provide security,
but there's no marble or gold,
as had been speculated.
Pablo Escobar sent a letter
to the Minister of Justice, Jaime Giraldo,
to allow journalists to enter
and view the actual conditions,
before it is used by him and several drug traffickers.
A few hours ago, the National Assembly amended the constitution
to prohibit the extradition of Colombians abroad.
It was the last condition needed
by Pablo Escobar to turn himself in.
I wish to have a trial,
with my presence and my submission to justice.
I also wish to pay tribute to my parents,
to my irreplaceable and incomparable wife,
my 14-year-old pacifist son,
to my little 7-year-old toothless ballerina,
and my entire family, who I love so much.
At this historic moment
of surrender of weapons by the guerrillas
and the pacification of the country,
I could not remain indifferent to the desire for peace
of most of the Colombian people.
Pablo Escobar Gaviria, Envigado, Colombia,
June 19, 1991.
I will never forget the surrender of Pablo Escobar.
When the helicopter took off,
I said to myself...
"Pablo Escobar won and we lost."
500 DAYS OF ESCOBAR THE DIZZYING FALL OF THE KINGPIN
The prison guards, the penitentiary guards,
were not there to make sure Pablo Escobar did not get out,
but to defend him.
That was the defense plan, just like
the fencing and electrical grid.
And the army had a perimeter a little farther out,
which they'd use for protection.
PHOTOGRAPHER HERVASQUEZ EL COLOMBIANO
It wasn't a prison, that was...
a small school
with a good field,
where they received women at night for the party
and friends to play soccer during the day.
Pablo Escobar has just scored a goal.
We believe that it is certainly
an important achievement that's been acknowledged
by the U.S. authorities,
to have Pablo Escobar in jail
and the main leaders of the Medellín Cartel,
but it is equally important
that he receives a sentence
that is proportionate to the crimes he has committed,
and this is a great challenge
to punish these criminals in an exemplary manner.
But with Pablo there was a very important problem.
You knew what time the game started,
but never when it was over,
because Pablo only finished the game
when it was tied or when he won.
What was your commitment to Pablo Escobar?
To not abandon him,
help him a little,
visit him from time to time.
It was a commitment to compassion.
At La Catedral,
I was the one who organized
the cars with false bottoms for women to come up,
also politicians, who went up there in droves
to ask Pablo for money.
From the very start, it was known that Pablo Escobar
was a big traitor.
Perhaps the only ones to whom he kept absolute loyalty
were the Moncadas, the Galeanos, the Ochoas,
three of the other very important clans.
WANTED: PABLO EMILIO ESCOBAR GAVIRIA US $10,000,000
KIKO MONCADA, FERNANDO GALEANO, FABIO OCHOA US $5,000,000
A large part of his wealth
was obtained by executing partners
and keeping their assets.
The beginning of the end,
is when he executed the Moncada and Galeano families.
Pablo called his brothers,
called the accountants to La Catedral,
and decided to eliminate the Galeano and Moncada families,
because strategically he had no other way out.
They'd already taken sides with the Cali Cartel.
And he confirmed it,
and he decided to destroy them.
JULY 1992
Gabriel, do you remember the previous Saturday,
we questioned the Minister of National Defense
about some communiqués,
pamphlets that were distributed by air
in the capital of Antioquia,
saying that Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria
continued controlling his drug-trafficking business
directly from the maximum-security prison,
and furthermore, he was ordering the murders of several people?
- That's right. Look, Gabriel. - Yes.
I do not know if our Medellín colleagues
could provide us with the names or surnames
of the four members of the same family
who were killed last week
or the last few days in Medellín,
because that's where the whole problem is.
The relatives of these people who died
swore that they would do everything possible
to avenge their relatives.
The question that all journalists are asking ourselves,
that will be the big scoop
in the coming hours and tomorrow,
will be whether there was an intent to assassinate
Pablo Escobar inside La Catedral.
Does this mean there's division within the Cartel?
Yes, there is a deep division
in the Medellín Cartel,
a division that caused what it has caused tonight,
which is the relocation of Pablo Escobar Gaviria
from La Catedral jail
to the 4th Brigade in Medellín.
The government in power was forced
to send government emissaries,
to ask Pablo Escobar the favor
of allowing his transfer to another prison.
So Pablo Escobar said,
"I'm not leaving, and you'll stay here as hostages."
Attention. Breaking:
Pablo Escobar and his lieutenants hold hostage,
in a maximum-security tunnel, the Vice Minister of Justice,
the Director General of Prisons
and the Attorney General of Antioquia.
Pablo Escobar Gaviria says he will fight to the death,
but will not allow his transfer for any reason,
nor that of his men to any other prison.
To all Colombian citizens,
if the government violates
the pacts made a year ago,
we will adopt a fighting stance,
as we were doing before.
And that is not the fault of Los Extraditable
but of the government,
if the country enters into upheaval,
let alone a state of war.
Thank you.
CIVIL SERVANTS... THEY WILL ALL DIE.
When we got there,
I told the INPEC guards and the terrorists
I didn't want any trouble,
to please let us enter in a peaceful manner,
and they refused
when we were already breaking the lock
of the entrance to the prison.
So we drew fire from INPEC,
and that was the beginning of a very tough confrontation.
Immediately the other special forces units,
the Air Force entered from one side,
the Navy entered from another side, the police entered from behind.
We arrived, cleared the areas, and ended up in the kitchen,
where we found the two hostages
and were able to save them.
And from that point,
we began the journey to find out where Pablo Escobar was.
ESCAPE FROM LA CATEDRAL, ENVIGADO JULY 22, 1992
Hey, Juan, I am listening to you
right now on the radio.
Yes, sir.
And I am very confused by the way you deceive the country.
- Yes, sir. - Because...
You are saying that I left at 12 midnight,
that the gentlemen of the 4th Brigade
were assisted by personnel from the same institution.
- Yes, sir. - That...
contradicts what was said by the Director of Prisons himself,
that he saw me at five o'clock in the morning,
carrying a gas mask.
Pablo Escobar is on the loose,
escaped with nine of his henchmen.
To do so, he managed to slip by 180 men from the army.
There are two versions of how the escape happened.
In the first, Escobar escaped through a tunnel
which had been built several months prior.
Escobar used a gas mask
to prevent asphyxiation along the route.
In the second version, Escobar and his men
fled on multi-cylinder motorcycles
that were always inside the prison,
and escaped through the wooded area surrounding the prison.
It's clear that you did not escape at 1:30 in the morning.
No, I escaped when the army came in,
they came in shooting.
I'm calling in because
I don't want you to trick people
or to involve people
who have nothing to do with it.
Was the one dressed as a woman you or not?
No, it's false. They're dreaming up stories
of wigs and women.
My position as a man won't let me
disguise myself as a woman, that's why...
No, no, no, that's fake, that's speculation, all right.
PHOTOGRAPHER JORGE ZULETA EL COLOMBIANO
I'll never forget the day I arrived at La Catedral.
I arrived on the second day after Pablo Escobar
had escaped.
Here's a picture of some of them.
This is one of the prison guards here,
behind the bar.
This person here is Popeye,
one of Escobar's favorite sicarios,
Jhon Jairo Velásquez Vásquez.
I was laughing when we walked in because there were no cells.
It was an apartment. It had sofas,
it had cushions, it had curtains,
all the colors matched.
There were candles on the table.
NATIONAL POLICE WANTED
The biggest TV we'd ever seen,
refrigerators, microwaves, it was a kitchen...
It was a luxury apartment.
What really got me,
there, above his bed, was a big,
very beautiful Virgin Mary in ceramic.
Big bed, a couple of paintings.
Here it's kind of interesting.
He's got about 200 books.
Yes, and the other thing I'll never forget was,
he had about 30 or so comic books
about Pablo Escobar.
...the U.S. and Colombia...
PABLO ESCOBAR GAVIRIA IN CARICATURE
Yes, the image was very contradictory because they were beautiful.
Here, there's a... there's a card.
CARICATURES OF OSUNA EL ESPECTADOR
Mr. President, good afternoon.
There is talk of tunnels and gas masks,
which doesn't seem very secure
for the high-security prison in Envigado.
How else, Mr. President, do you explain
the disappearance, flight, or escape
of Pablo Escobar Gaviria?
Well, I don't have a definite answer to your question.
The most likely scenario,
the one that the government has been working on so far,
is that he is possibly hiding
somewhere in the Envigado prison
or somewhere nearby.
The armed forces and security agencies
continue their search of the prison
and its surroundings.
Today the army increased the number of men looking for Escobar
on the mountain surrounding the Envigado prison.
The soldiers doing the tracking
belong to the Special Ops team
who rescued the Vice Minister of Justice
and the Director of Prisons of Colombia,
who were taken hostage by Escobar and his lieutenants,
after informing them about the prison transfer.
He started telling me to plant bombs,
to plant car bombs,
to place the bombs near schools,
to place bombs wherever they could,
that he would rain dynamite on the country
and that they would kill us all.
And whatever I saw in the prison,
I always reported,
and this was known to the Ministry of Justice,
and somehow the Minister,
Mr. Carrillo and Mr. Eduardo Mendoza,
and somehow, Mr. Pardo Rueda also knew.
Did Pablo Escobar have
a radio phone or two?
In terms of the guards,
the Minister of Justice
was politically responsible,
but in operational terms,
the Director General of Prisons handled it
at the guard transfer level.
I assure you that there was no irregularity.
There were six cells with bars
that were all knocked down to make the apartment.
They built a bunker, they built a chalet.
Obviously there were irregularities.
They dismantled the electrified fence,
and when it was time to escape,
all that the prison had in terms of security
was a fence and a wire.
They didn't even know what they died for,
because they were ordered, they were told,
"You have to love your homeland,
you have to die for it."
I imagine that they're in heaven
looking into this room, right now,
and they must be very excited to see that here
we are legislating and sharing with you here
the state's responsibility.
Pablo Escobar Gaviria had,
as one of his main targets,
the judicial system.
There is a long history
of murdered judges and legal officials.
July 30, killed by hitmen on motorcycles,
Magistrate Hernando Baquero Borda.
Killed by five hitmen, Judge Tulio Manuel Castro Gil.
October 30, felled by bullets of hired killers,
Judge Gustavo Zuluaga in Medellín.
He also murdered Guillermo Cano Isaza,
Director of El Espectador,
on Wednesday, December 17, 1986.
This file was sent to Medellín
and arrived at the office of the anonymous prosecutor,
Rocio Velez.
When she started making decisions in that case,
she was murdered
in September 1992.
THE LIST GROWS
And the state realizes it's starting all over again,
the political crimes and judicial crimes
in the city of Medellín.
GAVIRIA ANNOUNCES REINFORCED PROTECTION
FOR ANONYMOUS JUDGES
CARLOS HOLGUIN POLICE SCHOOL
SEARCH BLOC HEADQUARTERS, MEDELLÍN
NATIONAL POLICE GOD AND COUNTRY
With the escape, the government initiated,
through then-Minister Rafael Pardo,
a proposal to incorporate a model that was called
the Search Bloc.
This special unit brought together
Intelligence, the National Police,
and Special Operations teams,
with the mission to locate Pablo Escobar.
The officers who chased Pablo Escobar
accumulated merits,
faced risks,
because almost everyone who mentioned Pablo Escobar,
as an authority, had a tombstone around his neck.
Colonel Danilo González, I valued him at the time,
as he was one of the first police professionals
who started, let's say,
a seemingly impossible mission:
capture the kingpin of kingpins.
We had excellent communication,
we exchanged information, intelligence.
There were about five to ten raids every day.
- Which one is working? - The stairs!
Danilo González was very important in the Bloc.
He was a friend of mine.
We talked about ideas, how to follow Pablo Escobar,
how to attack him. I was happy.
We would have one more chance
to go after Pablo Escobar,
and this time we were not going to fail.
Absolutely nothing was being done here
without authorization from the police.
You could not move a rifle or a gun,
due to the number of roadblocks in the city.
I was kidnapped directly by the police.
I was tortured by the police for seven hours with electric shocks.
What they asked the entire time
was that I'd say where Pablo Escobar was.
Logically, they knew Pablo was in Medellín,
but not where in Medellín he was hiding.
Hey, send those units a little message,
to that shit, the one who manages the operatives,
that shit has taken two of my boys,
and let me tell you that if those two boys turn up dead,
I'll kill his mom and his cousins and his motherfucking sister.
So because he's a police officer,
he thinks I'm afraid of that son of a bitch?
I think the brains behind all this
is well known.
This is a truly unfortunate act.
We believe it was a dynamite charge
of approximately 800 kilograms.
It exploded right when a police officer
was searching the vehicle.
In a single year, in the city of Medellín,
he murdered more than 500 police officers.
And throughout the pursuit, it was clear to Escobar
that the force bent on pursuing him
was the police.
FOUR MORE POLICEMEN KILLED IN MEDELLÍN
And that's why he tried to intimidate them
with indiscriminate acts of terrorism.
The hired assassins were paid between $200 and $500.
Any police officer might have decided
to stop working until there were guarantees.
No, the Colombian Police continued to do their duty.
There was a story going around that...
and it seemed true,
that every police officer killed represented ten dead young people.
People always knew that after the death of a policeman,
the massacre of young people began.
Many young people paid for the wars
between the state and Pablo,
many young people, most of them innocent.
Were the National Police involved,
or members of the National Police?
Obviously.
MONTECASINO MANSION
The only way to win such an irregular war
was to create an equally irregular army,
just as violent, just as irreverent, just as disrespectful.
This could not be done by the police as such.
I went to talk to Montecasino
with Carlos Castaño and Vicente Castaño,
who were the key people on this matter.
I started participating in operations with them,
intelligence, follow-ups, operations.
The Cali Cartel started financially sponsoring
anyone who could provide information.
They had boxes of money that they contributed,
because you managed to flip someone,
or bring someone close to Pablo's people,
and they were joining this group
that was finally confronting Pablo.
FOR BEING FRIENDS OF PABLO ESCOBAR, "LOS PEPES"
And that turned into 18 months where I became
fully involved in the war with them.
DIEGO MURILLO BEJARANO "DON BERNA"
FOUNDER OF THE PEPES
Well, at that time there was Carlos Castaño, Doble Cero,
I was there...
We had a meeting in Montecasino and said,
"There cannot be another Pablo Escobar here
and these guys need to be controlled,
have them tomorrow in Bogotá,"
because our fear was...
that these boys would end up serving the guerrillas,
or serving a terrorist like Pablo Escobar.
On the one hand, the Search Bloc attacked
high-value strategic objectives.
On the other hand, the Pepes attacked,
and the Pepes pressured Pablo's family.
They pressured the families of Pablo's associates,
they pressured the family of Pablo's hitmen.
The pressure was so high,
many of his hitmen couldn't stand it.
Many of his associates, hitmen and others,
surrendered to the authorities.
Anyone who wants to surrender can do so,
like the three who surrendered yesterday,
like one person surrendered on Sunday,
without any conditions, without any conditions.
There's one law for everyone.
That's the government's position and that's what we'll do.
Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria is wanted.
To anyone who provides information leading to his capture,
the government is offering a large reward.
PABLO EMILIO ESCOBAR GAVIRIA WANTED BY THE JUSTICE SYSTEM
$1,000,000,000 ONE BILLION PESOS
You start to see that Pablo had a death sentence,
and we all already knew that.
The only solution the government had
to get rid of Pablo Escobar
was to kill him, there'd be no more negotiation,
they'd already negotiated.
They begin to fall one by one, Angelito,
all his great military leaders
and gang members,
and he is increasingly alone.
That party had to be clandestine,
only attended by his closest family
and some friends.
And that thoughtful photo, well...
This is one of the ones I like the most.
Pablo was already heavily pursued,
he had all the security forces pressuring him,
he had already carried out
many terrorist acts.
Perhaps he was thinking at the time
about everything that was coming.
I should be dead.
Anyone associated with Pablo Escobar,
who had any kind of relationship with him, was executed.
And honestly, I don't understand
how they didn't notice me.
WARNING: UNSCRUPULOUS LAWYERS CARTEL DEFENDERS, "PEPES,"
DR. WILLIAM GONZALEZ, DR. URIBE, DR. SALOMON, DR. GILBERTO GOMEZ,
DR. CLAUDIA (ATTY. GEN. OFFICE), MR. LUIS ANGEL (ATTY. GEN. OFFICE)
I was traveling between Cartagena, Medellín, and Bogotá,
and always said the opposite destination.
"Secretary, I leave tomorrow for Medellín."
I'd go to Cartagena.
"I'm going to Bogotá," and I'd end up in Medellín.
THE LAWYERS' DANCE
I'd meet with friends in Cartagena, and they'd tell me,
"Salazar, you have eight days to live."
And so, at least,
I'll drink whiskey and eat good meat while I'm dying,
but it was a very difficult year.
VIOLENT REACTIVATION OF LOS PEPES
How did you master the fear?
I didn't master fear. All I did was...
try to ensure that my fear did not trump reason,
and above all, I must also say it,
a person who defends these kinds of people must have...
some sociopathic and psychopathic tendencies.
THE MAFIA'S LAWYER
The day that reason...
loses to fear, you are dead.
CAR BOMB CALLE 26, BOGOTÁ
PABLO ESCOBAR FEBRUARY 15, 1993
Right now,
our camera is recording
the devastation caused by the car bomb
that has just exploded here,
in the capital's downtown district.
From that moment on, Los Pepes adopted
literally the lex talionis of retaliation:
an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
If Pablo Escobar set off a car bomb,
Los Pepes murdered someone in his entourage
or destroyed one of his properties.
In the war with Los Pepes,
many of them planted bombs on us, on my grandmother,
my aunts.
They killed 80% of my family,
99% of my friends.
I was in great pain, but I also knew
that we were involved in a war,
and that in wars, the good die and the bad die.
FUNERAL HOME
It was very painful.
Why did you decide to bury your cousin here?
Hold on, he's my brother.
His name was Jose Roberto Escobar Murillo.
I don't want to know anything about...
who it was, or who did it, or why they did it.
I just want to ask the person who did it
to leave us alone and let us live in peace.
A point was reached
where the war of Pablo Escobar
was personal.
All the friends they killed...
I went to a lot of funerals in Colombia
of policemen that Pablo Escobar killed.
He started using
methods we had never used before,
such as...
working with enemies.
Other criminals who said,
"We'll cooperate with you against Pablo Escobar"...
"Well, come and help us."
Danilo González is a man who, because of his virtues,
was taken by his superiors
to make the task more difficult than it was,
dealing with Los Pepes,
thinking like them, working with them.
And then, there was no way to bring him back
into the police institution.
And he ended up becoming
a disastrous person
for the police and the Colombian government.
When Colonel Danilo González appeared,
Diego Montoya, Rasguño, Tocayo Patiño,
that is, the very highest kingpins who I dealt with,
they could only hit the floor, all of us.
We all did it because the Colonel was coming.
"Look, I found so-and-so."
"I tried to make him switch sides, he won't switch sides."
"He's sticking with Pablo's people."
"That guy is a dog."
And if Danilo González said that this man was a dog,
that dog was dead the next day, within 24 hours,
absolutely.
He was the most dangerous guy this country had.
NATIONAL NEWS EXTRA
An industrialist from Antioquia, Luis Guillermo Londoño White,
allegedly linked to the Medellín Cartel,
was murdered by the criminal organization called Los Pepes.
His legs were tied together and they left this sign,
accusing him of being a servile front man
of Pablo Escobar.
Diego Londoño White, the victim's brother,
allegedly linked to Pablo Escobar,
surrendered to justice,
pressured by the criminals called Los Pepes.
Two months ago, Londoño White himself
admitted that he had indeed
had past business dealings with Pablo Escobar.
I decided to accept a challenge
from the directors of El Espectador.
They suggested I look for a place in Medellín,
where I could work as a correspondent,
for a hidden, clandestine El Espectador.
He was mortified because someone was writing
for El Espectador from Medellín with this byline.
And he gave the order, right? To all of them,
to the hired killers, particularly to alias "El Chopo" who was...
the death strategist for the Medellín Cartel.
He tried to look for that journalist,
to scare him, and they said...
A hitman, as they say, as they said in that world,
he was useful to Pablo Escobar,
who appointed him as the head of the military wing.
OPERATION AGAINST "EL CHOPO," MEDELLÍN
SEARCH BLOC MARCH 19, 1993
When I came out of the elevator of the Bancoquia building,
Search Bloc members were still entering,
shutting things down, and wouldn't let me leave.
BANCOQUIA BUILDING
I told a policeman, "Hey, I'm a reporter
for El Espectador in Medellín."
I showed my press pass.
"Let me go, I work here."
I saw the corpse in the shape of a cross,
no shirt, blue jeans, black shoes,
and the blood that was there was already staining the floor.
Then I remembered that I had seen him,
at least five times.
The elevator opens, I step in,
I go in on the office side.
When we met,
we raised our eyebrows, and that's it.
I realized, then,
that I'd been interacting with this person
for a year and a half already.
EL CHOPO WAS KILLED, MILITARY CHIEF OF THE CARTEL
ESCOBAR'S MILITARY ARM CRUMBLES
ESCOBAR BEGINS TO STAND ALONE
But from that point on,
life totally changed for me too.
PRESS
Just by answering the phone,
I'd receive insults.
"When are you going to leave Medellín, motherfuckers?"
"The Boss wants you to leave."
"Obey Mr. Pablo,
but if you get stubborn as hell,
don't be surprised if you die."
Then he added,
"Mr. Pablo is the king and what he says is the law."
"El Espectador is a magazine and must die."
For the authorities, El Chopo's death leaves Pablo Escobar Gaviria
alone leading the cartel,
accompanied only by Angelito.
Members of the Search Bloc say
that if the Medellín Cartel boss doesn't surrender,
he could be captured at any time.
Breaking news from Medellín
with Diego Alonso Sanchez, National News.
In a different operation in El Poblado,
2000 kilograms of dynamite were seized this afternoon.
With the prospect of the possible surrender of Pablo Escobar,
the Search Bloc's operations will concentrate this weekend
in the eastern Antioquia region.
CALLE 93 CENTER APRIL 15, 1993
CAR BOMB CENTRO 93, BOGOTÁ
PABLO ESCOBAR APRIL 15, 1993
When the car bomb exploded in front of Center 93...
I rushed to the site.
There were pieces of human beings
scattered in the street.
Blood ran like a river in the street.
The charred cars...
people screaming in terror, and the smell of burning flesh.
When you arrived at the sites,
it was to count
the names of the victims, but this was...
to have lived and to have seen in their eyes
what narco-terrorism meant.
THROUGH HIS PROFESSION, GUIDO PARRA
PLANNED KIDNAPPINGS FOR PABLO ESCOBAR
LOS PEPES
Guido Parra was a nice guy, he was a very good man,
very dear, he was...
a kind of diplomat for Pablo.
He called me eight days before,
"Come to Bogotá, don't stay in Medellín."
"See that Pablo needs us."
"It is not the time to visit Pablo."
I was sick for three days with diarrhea,
because I never imagined that they were going to kill...
Guido Parra.
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT BARTERING
WITH BOMBS, DON PABLO?
GUIDO ANT. PARRA MONTOYA APRIL 17, 1993
I remember I managed to say,
"Gentlemen of Los Pepes,
don't kill lawyers. We're not part of this war."
They had already killed Guido Parra, they killed him in April.
This boy, I think it was in February, Zapata.
WARNING DIRTY LAWYERS, CARTEL DEFENDERS. "PEPES"
And José Salomón Lozano Cifuentes was before.
In July 1993, he made the mistake
of filing a claim against the Castaño brothers
and Los Pepes with the Prosecutor's Office.
Popeye himself told him,
"Rest in peace, Mr. Jose Salomon Lozano Cifuentes."
JOSE SALOMON LOZANO MURDER, MEDELLÍN
LOS PEPES JULY 8, 1993
And after Jose Salomon Lozano, we said,
"They'll kill all of us."
MIGUEL AND GILBERTO RODRIGUEZ ORJUELA, CARLOS AND FIDEL CASTAÑO,
HUGO MARTINEZ POVEDA, DIJIN MEMBERS.
PEPES, WHY PLANT A BOMB IN MONACO?
WHY PUT A BOMB IN MY MOTHER'S BUILDING WHERE SHE LIVED?
WHY KIDNAP MY NEPHEW NICOLÁS?
YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN KNOWN
FOR BEING HYPOCRITES AND LIARS.
THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS THE DIJINS ARE LOS PEPES' MILITANTS IN ANTIOQUIA
AND WHO MASSACRE INNOCENT YOUTH ON STREET CORNERS.
I HAVE BEEN RAIDED 10,000 TIMES, NEVER YOU.
THEY'VE TAKEN ALL FROM ME, NOT YOU.
PABLO ESCOBAR G.
COURTESY OF NTC
AIRPORT HEALTH FACILITIES
Pablo Escobar was very, very afraid
of Los Pepes, because of his family.
I was at the Medellín airport
when the family went to board a plane
to the United States, to Miami,
and they had American visas.
COURTESY OF NTC
And the ambassador said, "Let me see the passports."
And he tore up the passport visas,
so they couldn't travel to the United States.
What do you say to the country, Juan Pablo?
What do you have to say to the country, ma'am?
MY LOVE: A VERY SPECIAL GREETING.
I THINK OF YOU A LOT. I HOPE YOU ARE NOT GOING TO FORGET ME.
YOU ARE VERY SPECIAL. I HOPE TO SEE YOU AGAIN SOON.
I WISH YOU THE BEST OF LUCK.
Pablo Escobar Gaviria's Achilles' heel was his daughter.
If Pablo had gotten a call from the girl,
Manuela, and she said, "Dad...
don't continue in this war,"
I am sure, 100% sure
that Pablo would have stopped immediately.
THE WANDERING FAMILY OF PABLO ESCOBAR
For Pablo, the girl was the boss of bosses.
ESCOBAR OFFERS TO SURRENDER
IF U.S. TAKES CARE OF HIS FAMILY
Pablo planned to send his family
to Frankfurt, Germany.
We realized that they were going to Germany.
We put some people from the DEA on the plane,
and I remember there were conversations
at the highest levels: the President of Colombia,
United States, Germany.
We did not want him to stay in Germany.
We wanted them to come back.
The plane that brought Escobar's wife, daughter,
Juan Pablo Escobar, and his girlfriend,
arrived in Frankfurt at 8:00 a.m. Colombia time.
Police immediately boarded the plane and detained the four travelers.
Juan Pablo, the son of the Medellín Cartel boss,
says that he is not seeking German asylum,
they simply entered as tourists.
I went to more than 17 countries
in which I sought asylum,
or the opportunity to live close to my family,
but we were seen as scum,
as Pablo Escobar's family scum,
and we weren't given the chance
to enter anywhere in the world.
THE ESCOBARS TURNED AWAY FROM EUROPE
PABLO ESCOBAR'S CALL TO RADIO SÚPER MEDELLÍN
Mr. German Ambassador to Colombia,
Mr. Ambassador, with great surprise
I received news of the expulsion from Germany
of my innocent family.
It is absolutely disgusting.
PABLO ESCOBAR'S FAMILY EXPELLED FROM GERMANY
Here they were treated with love and respect,
and innocent relatives
were never branded as criminals.
Sincerely, Pablo Escobar Gaviria.
"Sorry, Mr. Pablo, I can't talk to you anymore,
the authorities won't allow it, besides..."
He said, "Don't worry that, those..." And he said a word.
"They can't catch a fly."
He said that his family...
was suffering what he...
suffering something undeserved,
knowing that he was the source,
and his voice broke a bit,
like a whimper, more like.
He showed what his great weakness was,
and that was put to good use by his enemies.
He was a man who...
was blinded.
His people were not able to control him
or to give him serious advice.
Who dared to tell him
that the Pablo Escobar of the last 500 days
was doing things wrong?
It occurred to me
to seek an interview with Escobar's family.
I called Residencias Tequendama.
Juan Pablo Escobar answered,
and I said, "I don't want an interview about your dad right now.
I want an interview about the life you have had to lead,
and especially this last stage,
going around the world to see who will accept you
and how you will save your lives."
Now, everything is in the government's hands.
We haven't demanded a certain kind of country.
We're simply trying any country in the world
that will receive us.
We do not have anything set,
nothing specific that...
Like, no conditions for a certain country.
I'll never forget when I saw the face
of Colonel Hugo Martinez when he heard that voice,
and we had not heard Pablo
in about five or six months.
He was talking to his son,
and he tells me,
"Javier, that's Pablo Escobar, we got him."
They were really listening to him with that frequency.
The first call came from here,
and those locations provided a margin of error
with a radius of one kilometer, a kilometer and a half.
The second call that was located occurred within the same sector.
The equipment technicians were telling us
that they could pinpoint the location with zero errors.
Los Pepes parked in the park.
The Search Bloc arrived.
At that moment, El Limon
comes out and confronts the group.
ÁLVARO DE J. AGUDELO ARIAS (A.K.A. EL LIMON)
Limon was killed,
and then, Pablo was still talking on the phone
with Juan Pablo.
Did you talk to anyone from the prosecutor's office
about your relocation abroad?
The guys from Los Pepes were in the back,
specifically, Don Berna's brother, a.k.a. Semilla.
He made the first shot.
When he turned, he fired the second shot,
that entered at the base of the spine.
The bullet entered, from the bottom up.
It entered and traveled up the spine, up to here.
And at that moment Semilla got onto the roof
and gave him the coup de grace on the floor.
DECEMBER 2, 1993 MEDELLÍN
Attention, breaking news.
Official sources indicate that Pablo Escobar Gaviria
died in the city of Medellín.
A scoop from Colombia's Caracol network,
in a sector of the La América neighborhood,
Pablo Escobar Gaviria was killed at 45th and 74th.
In a press release, the Ministry of Defense
confirmed today the death of Pablo Escobar Gaviria,
and warned that it will not allow
the resurgence of organized crime like the Medellín Cartel.
Pablo Escobar, the world's most notorious drug thug,
was killed in a shootout in Medellín.
Great relief in Colombia.
For years, the police and the army
had chased one man, Pablo Escobar.
The head of the Medellín Cartel died last night.
The Medellín Cartel, the second-largest drug-trafficking ring in the world,
its leader, Pablo Escobar, died in a shootout
against government forces,
according to a Colombian radio station report.
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF LEGAL MEDICINE AND FORENSIC SCIENCES
I contacted a photographer who was helping me,
but we found when we arrived at this sector
that everything was cordoned off.
And based on our intuition as street journalists,
we went straight to the morgue.
I climbed up to a window
to see that room, and for five minutes,
I saw the body of Pablo Escobar.
And what struck me the most
was his mother, Mrs. Hermilda.
"They killed him, they killed him. Pablo was good."
"Pablo was good. They killed him, they killed him."
The lady was shouting loudly and crying.
May God forgive Los Pepes,
those who killed my son and everyone, and I pray to God
that this will not happen to them,
that mothers do not have to suffer
the pain that I am suffering in any way.
Don't think, don't ever think,
that because Pablo Escobar was viciously murdered,
violence in Colombia will end.
Don't be naive.
Drug trafficking and narco-terrorism...
Do you believe that drug trafficking and narco-terrorism will end
with Pablo Escobar's death?
Be honest, answer here, with the cameras.
I feel it could be over, the war could end,
at least between the two cartels.
No, I don't think it will stop.
The murderers in Cali will keep killing.
If not us...
If not us, they'll keep killing many people!
Stand in the Cauca River
to see the corpses of the murderers of Cali come down.
Stand on the banks of the Cauca River.
Colombians, a few hours ago,
I received confirmation
of the death of the narco-terrorist, Pablo Escobar,
at the hands of the Search Bloc.
This is a crucial step towards
putting an end to drug trafficking and narco-terrorism in Colombia,
which have been the cause of so much pain.
There was an ongoing operation,
for 14 months or more,
by the Search Bloc,
which provided lots of continuity to the operations
and made it possible to practically dismantle
the entire Medellín Cartel organization.
It was a direct action of the Search Bloc.
There was no involvement of a third party.
Today's action is the result
of clear and clean intelligence work
by the Search Bloc.
I dare say that Pablo was not killed
by that gentleman in the photo,
Hugo Aguilar, nor the Search Bloc.
He was killed by Los Pepes.
There are serious indications that he was killed by Semilla,
the brother of Diego Fernando Murillo Bejarano.
If he actually killed him
and then let the Search Bloc take the picture,
it means that they were embarrassed to acknowledge
that they had to use illegal criminals
in order to take down Pablo Escobar.
Pablo, Pablo, Pablo!
MEDELLÍN TODAY
♪ The whole of humanity ♪
♪ Groans in chains ♪
♪ Understand the words ♪
♪ Of the one who died on the cross ♪
PABLO EMILIO ESCOBAR GAVIRIA DECEMBER 1, 1949, DECEMBER 2, 1993.
A CONQUEROR OF IMPOSSIBLE DREAMS, BEYOND THE LEGEND YOU ARE,
FEW KNOW YOUR LIFE'S TRUE ESSENCE
As a family, we had to sit down and negotiate
with each and every person
who belonged to the so-called Los Pepes.
At the table sat politicians.
There were people from the police high command.
We had to settle with them, many with money,
others with properties,
so we could be allowed to live in peace
and be able to breathe the peace that we can breathe.
Danilo González, who for me was the architect of all this...
he was the interface between the DEA,
information from U.S. agencies,
the Search Bloc, and criminal organizations
that existed then in Colombia,
affected by Pablo Escobar's abuses.
ANTIOQUIA POLICE DEPARTMENT 1962
I believe that Danilo González in some way
is a tragic figure.
He's been demonized as a guilty character
who was corrupt.
However, when I was in the Truth Commission,
I asked a very high-ranking police officer,
why didn't the police ever remove Danilo González from the institution,
or prosecute him, knowing that he was working with the mafia?
And the answer was that Danilo was useful to them
and he was also useful to the police.
Such a tiger. They killed him.
That was the end of Colonel Danilo González.
He took all of his secrets,
those dealing with the Colombian National Police, to his grave.
Those secrets, about the war, about their businesses,
about their companies, remained intact
and he took them to the grave.
Los Pepes did a great job.
If nobody had confronted Pablo Escobar
on an equal footing,
today we would still be
under the yoke of Pablo Escobar and his group.
And the groups that had helped, like us,
we were left with an important knowledge of drug trafficking,
of the bandits, of all the issues
affecting the drug trade,
so we started drug trafficking.
Pablo Escobar was not the only one who killed.
But Pablo Escobar was a thug
who inspired many others
and left an unemployed army of thugs in the city.
And then they appeared under other names
and were involved in other types of violence.
What do you do with people like Don Berna,
like the Castaños, like the Rodriguez family,
who have been crucial to finishing off
Colombia's number one enemy?
How do you break that level of relationship?
Los Pepes are, in some way, the vehicle
through which the paramilitary project is relaunched.
They are the drug traffickers
converted into war fighters.
DIEGO MURILLO BEJARANO "DON BERNA"
EX-PARAMILITARY LEADER
When Pablo Escobar died,
what was known as Los Pepes... I would have had 40, 50 men.
So, all our resources, all our capabilities
were directed towards the fight against the guerrillas.
We have contacts, experience,
and support in many sectors, like the armed forces,
support from politicians.
This allowed us to scale
much larger.
Steady!
Attention!
Today we are facing an extremely
sordid, sad and dangerous scenario for all of us.
We have no choice but to go back to war.
This principle must be applied here:
Chinese thinker Deng Xiaoping said,
"It doesn't matter if the cat's white or black,
the important thing is that he catches mice."
So, there are narcos who invested money
in creating armies throughout the country,
in order to challenge the FARC for the coca fields
and cocaine transit routes.
And the AUC gets involved there,
through the so-called business sectors to a large extent,
the political sectors, the military sectors.
It is very important...
to understand that it was these public institutions who said,
"Come, help us wage this war against the FARC."
Few inhabitants had the courage
to stay and live in El Tigre.
The warning from the paramilitaries is clear.
Either leave the village or be killed.
So today, they continued to flee
their farms and houses.
AUC IS PRESENT IN THE COUNTRY'S SOUTH
WELCOME UNITED SELF-DEFENSE OF COLOMBIA
The murdered persons were accused
by the paramilitaries of being collaborators
of the guerrilla groups.
They pulled out his fingers, stabbed him,
broke his leg...
Then he was shot in the head.
The shooting started and people said,
"Oh, God, they're killing the people in El Playón."
When I arrived,
I found my daughters dead.
People are afraid, because, imagine coming back to this.
So, they leave.
Now it's worse. Who'll stay here?
We must abandon everything,
because, what else can we do?
In addition to FARC's accusation
that the army is responsible for the massacre,
there's also testimony from peasants
who claim to have seen army soldiers in the raid with the paramilitaries.
In this process, the paramilitaries
come in killing, massacring, displacing...
liberating the land by taking out the peasants.
This is because the Colombian state
really delegated the war to them.
It delegated many of its functions
of territorial control to them, and they consolidated.
Obviously, there was a mutation,
a metamorphosis,
a transformation of drug trafficking.
What Pablo wanted was non-extradition,
and Pablo's heir, who is Don Berna...
ended up being extradited along with 13 other paramilitary leaders,
who were not arrested as paramilitaries,
but as drug traffickers.
Among those extradited were
Salvatore Mancuso, Hernan Giraldo,
Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, Ramiro Vanoy,
Francisco Javier Zuluaga, a.k.a. Gordo Lindo,
Diego Fernando Murillo,
Juan Carlos Serna, Nodier Giraldo,
Edwin Mauricio Gomez, Diego Alberto Luis Arroyave.
Each one, of course,
had their fingerprints taken.
This one we are looking at right now is Don Berna
and each one of them signed their extradition.
They were notified by the National Police.