At the time, Escobar was protected by parliamentary immunity; the judges couldn’t touch him, much less the police. Everything was perfect. He had tons of money and a congressional seat. He had reached great power and his movement, with its popular base in Antioquia, found the road open for unsuspected growth.
But El Patrón, in our long hours of conversation, told me how he was given his first low blow. His father, Don Abel Escobar, was kidnapped from his farm in the countryside of La Ceja, Antioquia by a group of delinquents. They were not only testing Escobar, founder of the MAS (Death to Kidnappers), but one of the biggest mobsters in the country, if not the greatest. Pablo retaliated from every possible angle.
He distributed lots of money among backers of the kidnapping industry, hoping for a clue. He also tightened his military fist. Bodies once again filled the streets with the MAS in a rage. City drugstores were warned and offered rewards if they turned in anyone coming to buy the medicine Don Abel used. While this was all happening, the kidnappers contacted Escobar with a taunting message: “If you are so tough, come and take the old man away from us.” They demanded astronomical amounts of money. Pablo responded that the amount they asked for couldn’t even fit in a semi truck. He used military connections to further attack the kidnappers. Every place suspected of holding Don Abel was fiercely searched using helicopters, airplanes, trucks, etc.—anything and everything that was needed.
Pablo Escobar accompanies Alberto Santofimio at a Liberal Renovation political event (Photo courtesy of the newspaper El Espectador – the magazine Cambio)
Even the army helped the Capo17 search for his father. In a new call, the kidnappers spoke of negotiating a new sum. The chief of the band continued to mock Pablo during those talks. They finally agreed on sixty million pesos, with the condition that the bills not be of consecutive numbers. Pablo asked the bank for the money and made a record of each one’s number in order to trace them. He varied the bills as the captors had demanded.
The money was then delivered and Don Abel released. But Pablo continued his investigation; in a lucky break, he picked up on the kidnappers’ trace, and found one of the band. He then forced the unlucky individual to call the band’s leader and plan a meeting at a local restaurant. Pablo Escobar and his men finally had their hands on the chief of the band. The poor guy was at Escobar’s mercy.
From the start, the man denied any connection to the kidnapping, but in a brief search they discovered some of the bills from the payment. And then La Yuca switched on a tape recorder where they could listen to the voice of the band’s leader negotiating and making fun of Pablo. The voice was a match.
“So it was you who told me that I would never catch you.”
“Pablo, don’t kill me. You’re also a kidnapper.” The chief of the band spoke clumsily.
“Yes, I am also a kidnapper, but I didn’t kidnap Pablo Escobar’s father.” El Patrón responded, breaking the tape recorder on the man’s head.
Pablo similarly went after every single one of the members of the naïve criminal organization. Only one of them managed to escape. The death of his father’s kidnappers was a great triumph for Pablo Escobar and the message to the city’s criminals was clear: “Nobody messes with Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria’s family.”
Chapter V
A Road with No Return
For the first time in his life El Patrón stepped into the Honorable Congress of the Republic of Colombia, but not without a minor issue: the police wouldn’t let him enter without a tie. The problem was solved immediately after a remarkable number of senators and representatives offered him their own. “Take mine, Pablo,” they all insisted; however, Pablo only accepted one from a personal bodyguard. He entered and there mixed with the rotten Colombian political class. Some looked at him out of the corners of their eyes with loathing. But the vast majority was on his side. They would wait near his office beside the Colegio de San Bartolome18 and say, “You can count on me anytime you want Pablo; don’t ever hesitate to call.” Pablo’s bodyguards constantly heard that invitation—each time a congressman left Pablo’s office, the same promise was heard. And the men kept their word; whenever Pablo ran into some difficulties with the police, he would show his congressional credentials. He also traveled to foreign countries on parliamentary commissions. On one rare opportunity, he even got in on an interview with the Spanish chief of government, Felipe González.
El Patrón told me once of a visit to a nightclub in Madrid where, under the influence of alcohol, two fellow congressmen asked him for some cocaine for their own use. This infuriated Pablo and he denied knowing anything about cocaine.
Between draft laws and long debates at the House of Representatives, Luis Carlos Galán grew more annoyed with Pablo Escobar’s presence in politics. He had the Chief in his crosshairs. El Patrón’s informants reported to him that the DEA, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, had approached Luis Carlos Galán and asked him to help remove Pablo from Congress and politics.
Galán, accompanied by Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, soon went after Pablo in an attempt to massacre him morally and politically. Pablo Escobar told me that in this fight he had no chance of escape. In this battle he faced a mafia more powerful than the drug or criminal cartels: he faced the mafia of Colombian politics. Minister Lara Bonilla investigated Pablo’s past and began his cruel attack.
On June 7, 1983, the tenth superior judge of Medellín requested that the Honorable House of Representatives withdraw Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria’s immunity due to his possible ties to the murder of DAS agents Fernando Vasco Urquijo and Gilberto de Jesús Hernández Patiño. Escobar, accustomed to fighting in his own interest, publicly confronted the minister on August 19, 1983. The minister then began a legal process against Escobar, publicly accusing him of drug trafficking and having a relationship with the MAS. Pablo was up to the challenge; he counterattacked, revealing a photocopy of a check for a million pesos written to the minister by drug trafficker Evaristo Porras. Lara Bonilla managed to control the check issue. The debate raged in full force in the Congress, in the media, and in every opinion circle in the country. The minister had the support of Luis Carlos Galán and the DEA.
And then a new issue was added to the debate. On September 7, 1983, the United States canceled Congressman Pablo Escobar’s tourist visa. The minister argued that this move publicly highlighted Escobar as a powerful drug trafficker whose network had been identified by the United States.
The Ministry of Justice attacked with everything they had and, on September 23 of the same year, the tenth superior judge of Medellín released a detention order against Congressman Pablo Escobar Gaviria and his cousin Gustavo de Jesus Gaviris Riveros. They were accused of murdering the two DAS agents.
Finally, on October 18, 1983, the first superior judge of Medellín released a warrant for the arrest of Pablo Escobar for the two murders. But Escobar wasn’t detained, for he was still protected by parliamentary immunity. Senator Luis Carlos Galán and the Minister of Justice continued to prepare the field for a political checkmate against the Chief. El Patrón was being beaten by the two politicians. The two men, supported by the DEA and the U.S. Embassy, revealed to Escobar that neither his influence nor his money could save him. Their political massacre ended on October 26, 1983, when the House of Representatives withdrew Escobar’s parliamentary immunity. The Chamber acted in full assembly, influenced by the minister and led by Galán.
The minister’s attack didn’t stop there. On November 17, 1983, he managed to have Inderena19 impose a fine of four hundred and fifty thousand pesos on Escobar due to the illegal import of animals for his zoo at the Nápoles Hacienda. Afterwards, the Superior Customs Tribunal ordered the public sale of the animals. The Chief had an employee buy the whole lot and the zoo continued to operate under his power.
In