Pablo Escobar, the notorious leader of the Medellin cartel, was killed on December 2, 1993, in Medellin, Colombia, by members of Search Bloc, the Columbian Special Forces.[1] After months of evading capture, Escobar was finally located through a phone call to his family. He was shot while attempting to escape from a roof, with bullets striking his torso, feet, and head. The nature of the shooting sparked multiple conspiracy theories as to who actually killed Escobar. Despite leading a cartel, he was revered by locals and many attended his funeral.
The tomb of Pablo Escobar and family in the Monte Sacro Cemetery, Itagüí
That they will never catch me in the great fucking life, and that from the jungle I will order them all to be killed and in the long run the ones who will lose will be them.
—Audio intercepted of Escobar speaking in a threatening tone.[2]
Although he managed to evade the Search Bloc for another 6 months, by October 1992, Escobar had lost all of his power; his last chief of bodyguards, 'El Angelito', was killed by the police on October 6 along with his brother, Álvaro Puerta.[3] Escobar tried on several occasions to negotiate his surrender in exchange for safeguarding his family, but his proposal found no support in the government. His mother was the victim of several unsuccessful assassination attempts by the Pepes,[4] and his brother Roberto, despite being in prison, was the victim of a letter bomb sent by the Pepes that left him blind in one eye.[5][6]
Escobar faced threats from the Colombian police, the U.S. government and his rivals Los Pepes, and the Cali Cartel. By this reason Escobar attempted to get his family (his wife Victoria Henao and his children Juan Pablo along with his girlfriend Doria Andrea Ochoa, and his youngest daughter Manuela)[7] out of the country; twice to the United States without any success, and finally to Europe with a stopover in Germany, but the German authorities were warned by both the Colombian police and the DEA (with two agents on board the plane), and they were all immediately deported to Colombia.[8][9][10][11] Upon arrival at El Dorado airport, the Escobar Henao family was taken into the custody of the Colombian authorities and confined to an apartment in the Hotel Tequendama Residences in the International Center of Bogotá, under strict police surveillance.[12][13][14]
Knowing that the Tequendama Residences belonged to the Retirement Fund of the Military Forces, Escobar knew that the phones were tapped. The government took advantage of Escobar's constant concern for his family, which they used as bait to locate him with French and British technology that they had acquired with the help of the DEA; which not only identified the calls but also triangulated his location.[15] Escobar also knew that he could not spend more than two minutes making a call. When calling Residencias Tequendama he used to fake his voice, pretending to be a reporter, in order to be able to speak to his family.[16][17] With no men or money, Escobar, who was already suffering from gastritis, tried to create a guerrilla movement called 'Antioquia Independiente', but instead preferred to make approaches to the FARC to become an accountant for the money from extortion and kidnappings, and for the drug trafficking business in which they had begun to venture a few years earlier. None of these initiatives came to fruition.[18][19]
On December 1, 1993, Escobar celebrated his last birthday accompanied by his cousin Luzmila Gaviria,[20][21] his mother and Álvaro de Jesús Agudelo 'Limón', the latter being his last bodyguard but who had previously been his brother Roberto's driver.[20][22][23] The next day, on 2 December 1993, desperate, Escobar called his family again. Although in the previous days Escobar had been moving in a taxi accompanied by his Bodyguard 'Limón' to avoid being located and calling for less than 2 minutes, Escobar remained inside the house, but that day he managed to avoid being located by speaking for less than two minutes. Following the same routine, Escobar continued calling pretending to be a journalist, but the second call went over two minutes, so he was immediately located. Escobar was found in a house in Los Olivos neighbourhood, a middle-class residential area of Medellín close to Atanasio Girardot Sports Complex by Colombian special forces, using technology provided by the United States, which allowed them to trace Escobar's location after he made a long call to his family. Police tried to arrest Escobar but the situation quickly escalated to an exchange of gunfire. Escobar was shot and killed while trying to escape from the roof, along with 'Limón', who was also shot. He was hit by bullets in the torso and feet, and a bullet, which struck him in the head, killing him. This sparked debate about whether he killed himself or whether he was shot and killed.[24][25][26][27][28][29][excessive citations]
Conspiracy theories
There are several hypotheses about his death:
Escobar committed suicide by shooting himself below the right ear.[30] This version coincides with the motto of Los Extraditables: "We prefer a grave in Colombia than a prison in the United States" and is the version defended by his family.[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][excessive citations]
He was shot by Carlos Castaño Gil, the top leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), according to a confession by a paramilitary named José Antonio Hernández, known by the alias John.[46][47]
He was shot dead by a squad of the Search Bloc, which is the official version of events.[48]
Aftermath
Escobar's death would lead to the subsequent fragmentation of the Medellín Cartel, the cocaine market became dominated by the rival Cali Cartel until the mid-1990s when its leaders were either killed or captured by the Colombian government. The Robin Hood image that Escobar had cultivated maintained a lasting influence in Medellín. Many there, especially many of the city's poor whom Escobar had aided while he was alive, mourned his death, and over 25,000 people attended his funeral. Some of them consider him a saint and pray to him for receiving divine help. Escobar was buried at the Monte Sacro Cemetery.[49]
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