There was such a cocaine smuggler in this world, who became the seventh richest man in the world with a cunning and devilish mind. He tricked the governments with such deceit that even 22 years after his death, examples of this ‘bastard’ are given.
So rich that he had to dig pits and bury bundles of notes. He is so dangerous that He is believed to be responsible for 4 to 5 thousand deaths. This article today is about Pablo Escobar, the most successful and richest criminal in world history.
The city of Rionegro, Colombia. In 1949, the third child was born to a poor farmer. The child grew up and reached college but the family could not pay the fees, so the name was cut from the college. The boy was young. Stole stones from the grave and started selling them to smugglers. And from here the ‘criminal career’ of Pablo Escobar started at the age of a youngster.
In the last phase of adolescence, his crimes started becoming serious. Such as the supply of ganja, the banning of cigarettes, the sale of fake lottery tickets, and the theft of cars. In the early 1970s, he was identified as a thief and a bodyguard.
At the age of 20-21, he tried kidnapping. From his hometown of Madeleine, he kidnapped a wealthy executive and received a ransom of $100,000 from him. In today’s era, this amount is equal to 6 lakh dollars i.e. about 4 crore rupees. At the age of 22, he was a million dollars man.
Gangsters are only infamous for violence and fraud. The year was 1975. The age was 26 years. He tried to make a deal of 14 kg of cocaine with Madeleine’s biggest drug mafia. But in this meeting, he murdered the drug mafia and entered the drug business. Then personal life also came back on track. A year later, in March 1976, at the age of 27, he married 15-year-old Maria Victoria. They had two children, Juan and Manuela.
That was the period when the conflict was going on in Colombia between the government-paramilitary forces and the left-wing guerrillas. The image of Colombia was being tarnished in the world by the Civil War. It was during this period that Pablo Escobar – who had become the ‘no nonsense shit’ of the world of crime – was pursuing his dreams. It was his bloody fight, to show that he was stronger than the whole of Colombia.
He had his style of crime. The policy for government officials was clear. ‘Eat my bribe or my pill’. His men used to ask the officers – ‘Plata or plomo?’ That is, silver or lead? Did it mean bribery or death? In Colombia, this question had turned into creepy rhetoric.
People used to say that if he fails to bribe you, he will surely kill you. Thousands of officers were killed. Thousands became rich. In total, Escobar is considered responsible for about 4 to 5 thousand deaths.
Pablo’s brother Roberto Escobar has written in the book ‘In the Accountant’s Story’ how Pablo rose from middle-class simplicity and twilight to become one of the richest people in the world. His method of business was so brash that cocaine was carried hidden in the tires of the plane. For this, he used to give pilots up to $5 lakh per flight. He smuggled tons of cocaine for him. Not guessing, Many tons means many tons.
In one flight, 5 to 11 tons of cocaine were smuggled. He used to earn more than 5 lakh dollars on one flight. His henchmen lived happy and prosperous.
You must be thinking that then Escobar will be very rich. But no. ‘Very rich’ is a very short adjective. He had immense wealth. Forbes magazine considered him the 7th richest man in the world.
According to Escobar’s brother, they used to spend 1 thousand dollars every week (in today’s time 65 thousand rupees) only in buying those rubber bands, through which bundles of notes were tied.
His godowns were always full of cash. Many times he had to dig the land and get the cash buried. He had his zoo, which also had all the animals that do not exist in Colombia.
At one time, 80 percent of America’s cocaine was supplied from here. Legend also has it that once it got very cold on the journey, he burnt two million dollar notes to keep his family warm. That means, about Rs 13 crores had gone hot.
At the peak of the business, he had made 60 million dollars in a single day. According to today’s era, about Rs 400 crore in a day. You will keep on counting to zero.
In later days, American agencies followed him. He knew that it was not easy to control Americans by bribing them. Therefore, to avoid extradition, he resorted to politics. He joined the Liberal Party of Colombia. Here too he did not prove to be a raw player. In 1982 he was elected as an alternate member of the lower house of the Colombian parliament. he Was in the Labor Party of Colombia. His drug empire was also at its peak in Spain at this time.
When Philip González was sworn in as Prime Minister of Spain this year, ‘drug lord’ Pablo Escobar attended his swearing-in ceremony as Colombian representative. Now he was getting respect officially.
It was no longer possible for him to remain violent for long. He surrendered in 1991 after declaring to give up violent activities. He was kept in the luxury private prison ‘La Cathedral’, which had discussions of luxury. Even before his surrender, the new constitution of Colombia had made arrangements to stop the extradition of Colombian citizens. This created controversy. It was alleged that Escobar had influenced the framers of the constitution.
Despite being in prison, Escobar’s business also ran parallel to his political career. Domestic conditions were bad in Colombia. It came to be called the Murder Capital of the world. People were afraid to even go out in the neighborhood. Anyone could kill anyone at any time. Some were the result of a civil war, some the effect of Escobar, and the character of an entire country had changed. In 1992 there were 27 thousand deaths in Colombia. That is about 74 deaths daily.
It would be an understatement to say that he was easily killed. In 1992, a new branch of the Colombian police was created to locate him – the ‘Search Block’. Escobar was killed by the ‘Search Block’ on 2 December 1993. Radio triangulation technology revealed that he was hiding in a middle-class area in Madeleine. There was a shootout on both sides. Escobar and his bodyguards tried to escape by climbing onto the roof but were killed.
It is still not known whether he fired the bullet with which he was killed, or whether the police hit him. Some members of Escobar’s family do not rule out the possibility of his suicide.
Escobar’s story or some references have been used in many books, films, and TV series. Escobar is referenced in the book ‘News of a Kidnapping’ (1998) by the famous Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez.
Robinhood of the poor:
Escobar loved the poor and the great thing was that the poor also loved him. He distributed a lot of money to build houses for the poor and other civil activities. The poor considered him a good man. He was a fierce football lover. He sponsored local football teams and built sports complexes, schools, hospitals, and churches.
What kind of villain was this, whose rise was rooted in violence? Still, he managed to get the love of the poor. It was the result of his Robinhood image that when he died in 1993, more than 25 thousand people reached his last journey.
Two Pablos are remembered in world history. Both are from South America. One played a bloody game in Colombia for decades, created immense wealth, became a government representative, and was then killed in a government operation. The second Pablo was born in Chile and became known for his pen all over the world.
If one wants, one can remember Pablo Escobar in this part of a poem by Pablo Neruda. Provided that where Spain is written, it should be read as Colombia.
fraudsters
look at my dead house
look at broken Spain
Burning iron flows from every house
instead of flowers
from all corners of Spain
Spain rises
And a rifle from every dead child that his eyes
And every crime produces bullets.