Privately, the Chief denied any connection to the assassination. The situation became so critical that Pinina feared that El Patrón would kill them all, if only to break the link with him.
Meanwhile, Pablo moved around Panama like a fish in the water. He was glad to have his airplanes and his pilots, among whom were Roberto Striedinger and Barry Seal. Pablo and The Mexican22 organized new drug trafficking routes with their star pilot, Barry Seal.
The leaders of the M-1923, Iván Marino Ospina and Alvaro Fayad, with whom Pablo maintained a close friendship, introduced him to Federico Vaughan, a man with political influence in Nicaragua. Federico Vaughan specifically held influence with the Sandinistas, who controlled the country after overthrowing Dictator Anastasio Somosa Debayle. Federico Vaughan took Escobar to Nicaragua and connected him with the Sandinistas.
Finding better security in Nicaragua, Pablo settled in Managua. His friendship with Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista leader, greatly furthered the development of his illegal activities. Such was the relationship between the two men that once at a military base with Daniel Ortega and Iván Marino Ospina, Pablo suggested they have a contest to determine the best shooter. Both men laughed and accepted the challenge. A bottle was placed thirty meters away at the top of a wire fence pole. Ortega gave the gun of one of his subordinates to Iván Marino. They asked Pablo to shoot first; he was ready. Pablo took out his gun, the one he always carried with him, and shot the target dead on. A new bottle was placed; it was Ortega’s turn. He missed his shot. Iván Marino followed, and also missed the target. The three of them looked at each other as a triumphant smile played on Pablo’s lips. He aimed his gun again at the bottle. Ortega shook his head. “Pablo, don’t make a fool of yourself. Don’t try again—you already made it!” Iván Marino agreed with Ortega. Without answering, El Patrón shot, hitting the target again. This little game spread his reputation as a great gunman.
In Managua he received exclusive access to landing runways that admitted large aircrafts, giving Pablo and his associates good reason to stay in Nicaragua, despite the boring life there. Because of the country’s poverty at that time, clubs and other places for diversion were scarce and the few that existed were miserable. Pablo also made remarks about the women there, calling them “chubby, tiny, and without grace.”
From the Nicaraguan runways Barry Seal took off, transporting drugs into the United States. The cocaine was processed at labs in Tapón del Darién,24 Panama, with the approval of Noriega, and were supplied, via airplane, with coke paste brought from Peru and Ecuador.
In those days, Carlos Leder was also in Panama, flying his airplane. He was likewise fleeing Colombian persecution. He stayed two months, but left when neither Pablo nor The Mexican included him in their plans. They thought he was too crazy.
In Colombia the new Minister of Justice, Enrique Parejo González, increased persecution of the mob and pushed for the capture of those wanted for extradition.
In June 1984, ex-president of Colombia Alfonso López Michelsen, Attorney General Carlos Jiménez Gómez, Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, Jorge Luis Ochoa, and Pablo Escobar all gathered together. This meeting was the result of actions taken by Alberto Santofimio; he asked Pablo Escobar for millions with the intention of arranging for former president López Michelsen to convince President Belisario Betancur to abolish extradition for good.
To start, Pablo denied any connection to Lara Bonilla’s death. He offered to dismantle the business; hand over his labs, airplanes, and runways; and invest his money in the country’s industry. They never spoke about paying the nation’s external debt, a rumor that had become a bit of folklore in Colombia. The proposal reached up to eleven billion dollars.
The offer was tempting and audacious, for dissolving a drug-trafficking operation at such a great scale was an ingenious and healthy economic proposal for the country—everything in exchange for ending extradition in Colombia. The main obstacle was the minister’s murder; the men promised to consult the government and the U.S. Embassy through López Michelsen.
And then an incident aggravated the situation. General Noriega, weakening under U.S. pressure and seeking their favor for his own benefit, turned over the labs in Darién to the DEA. Pablo and The Mexican began to doubt Panama’s strongman.
But a more delicate matter was at hand. Barry Seal was detained in Miami with a shipment of cocaine as soon as he landed at a clandestine runway. Seal didn’t want to spend any time in prison, so he offered to cooperate with the DEA and agreed to bring in evidence against Pablo, Jorge Luis, and Gonzalo. The Americans let the seized drugs circulate in order to avoid any suspicion; they were more interested in capturing the three gangsters. Seal flew to Managua and continued his activity as normal, but this time as a DEA informant.
Pablo and Gonzalo scheduled a flight with seven hundred and fifty kilos of cocaine ready for use, all brought from a lab in Colombia. Barry Seal, onboard a Fairchild twin-engine C-123K Provider, armed with a camera, landed on the runway. There, Pablo Escobar was photographed loading packages of coke with Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, and Federico Vaughan, who directly supervised the operation.
Seal took off with his evidence; he carried the treasure that assured him little time in prison. When he arrived in the U.S., Seal brought the drugs and the pictures to the DEA agents, waiting anxiously on the runway. The gringo was faithful to his country and its authorities and he betrayed the Chief. Pablo, Jorge, and Gonzalo found out quickly what the traitor had done through their informants and got out of Nicaragua immediately. The news exploded through the media, leaked by the Americans. Pablo’s arrival had been the worst thing that could have happened to the Sandinistas; they made money with him, but the revolution put the Americans on the alert, which opened the way for the Contras, who in the end destroyed the Sandinistas. Barry Seal’s episode couldn’t be hidden from the public eye. The pictures of Pablo, the Mexican, Federico Vaughan, and the Nicaraguan official staff members loading Seal’s plane with cocaine heavily influenced the turn of events. Pablo gave the Sandinistas around five hundred to a thousand dollars for each kilo of cocaine, depending on the size of the shipment. Besides that, they charged two hundred dollars for storage and custody of each kilo of cocaine. What they didn’t see was that they were forging their own political death and the beginning of the end for the Sandinista Revolution.
Panama’s announced negotiation was over. Pablo Escobar decided to go back to Colombia. He arrived in his plane, piloted by Roberto Striedinger, and secretly landed at the Olaya Herrera Airport in Medellín. From there he flew in one of his helicopters to the Nápoles Hacienda. Jorge Ochoa and The Mexican did the same and they took refuge in their infrastructures.
Pablo Escobar directing the loading of a cocaine shipment with Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, The Mexican, and a Nicaraguan official in the Managua airport on June 25, 1984. This image was broadcast on the news program “TV. Hoy” from the network CBS. (Photo courtesy of the newspaper El Espectador)
El Patrón came back ready to fight. Nobody could imagine the bloodbath that would be unleashed through the country. Barry Seal’s trial strongly affected the Panamanian and Nicaraguan governments. The Sandinistas headed by Minister Tomás Borge denied everything and labeled it dirty propaganda against their government. This attitude was not well received by the Americans.
The American Federal Judge Herbert Shapiro issued a warrant of extradition for Pablo Escobar, Jorge Luis Ochoa, Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, and Federico Vaughan. Escobar’s extradition order was based on several facts. For one, the Seal trial demonstrated the level of danger and crime in which Pablo was involved. Seal related that on one occasion, on a flight between Panama and Managua, he was tempted to land on the runways of the United States’ Unified Command (based in Panama) and turn Pablo in to the Americans. But he was stopped by Pablo’s gun—he was never without his gun, not even when he slept.
In Colombia, a great convention took place at La Rinconada, an inn in Girardota, Antioquia. At this convention, a group called the