Drug cartel biography summary

Top 10 drug lords

We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. He earned popularity by sponsoring charity projects and soccer clubs, but later, terror campaigns that resulted in the murder of thousands turned public opinion against him. After surrendering to the Colombian authorities in , Escobar escaped detainment in and was a fugitive until his dramatic death in December His family later moved to the suburb of Envigado.

He was the third of seven children born in poverty to a schoolteacher mother and a peasant farmer father. From an early age, Escobar packed a unique ambition to raise himself up from his humble beginnings and dreamed of becoming the president of Colombia one day. Escobar reportedly began his life of crime early, stealing tombstones and selling phony diplomas.

This episode proved to be a valuable training ground for the future narcotics kingpin. Beginning in the early s, the country became a prime smuggling ground for marijuana. Situated at the northern tip of South America between the thriving coca cultivation epicenters of Peru and Bolivia, the country came to dominate the global cocaine trade with the United States, the biggest market for the drug and just a short trip to the north.

Escobar, who had already been involved in organized crime for a decade at this point, moved quickly to grab control of the cocaine trade. Also around this time, Escobar started a family with his marriage to Maria Victoria Henao, who was 11 years his junior and still a teenager at the time of their wedding. They went on to have two children.

Authorities found 39 kilograms of cocaine hidden in the spare tire of his truck. Escobar escaped the charges by bribing a judge, and the two DAS agents responsible for his arrest were killed the next year, according to Mark Bowden book Killing Pablo. It contained a sculpture garden, lake, private bullring, and other amenities for his family and members of the cartel.

It also featured a collection of luxury cars and bikes, as well as a zoo with antelope, elephants, giraffes, hippos, ponies, ostriches, and exotic birds.