Pablo Escobar: Countdown to Death (2017) - full transcript
I consider myself a happy man.
Always been happy. Always been optimistic.
Always had faith in life.
Pablo Escobar had an
impact on the whole city.
What I saw was a father who
was deeply loved by the people.
Do you consider yourself the
Robin Hood of Antioquia?
The dark and criminal power
of drug trafficking
has reached our country.
We have to create enormous chaos!
Then they'll beg for peace.
Escobar was killing magistrates,
journalists, policemen.
I'll kill each and every one of them
from the jungle.
In the long run, they'll lose.
Colombian society's number
one public enemy
is terrorist Pablo Escobar, who
mercilessly and without contemplation
kills innocent children, women, and men.
I thought he was immortal.
This is Pablo Escobar from Medellín.
My national ID number is 8.345.766
from Envigado, write it down if you want.
Record my voice if you want.
Otherwise they'll say
any clown could have called.
This way there'll be no doubt I called.
He used to say that if he didn't have
one million pesos by the age of 30,
he would commit suicide because
it wouldn't be worth existing
in this world without money.
My dad started
smuggling home appliances.
But he soon realized that cocaine
was much more profitable,
occupied less space,
and his business was more profitable
when he exported to the US.
In those days, drug trafficking
was not a sin in Colombia.
Everybody was complicit
with drug trafficking.
Magazines even ran articles
about how glamorous
cocaine consumption was
at big parties in the US.
My dad took advantage of that moment.
It allowed him to succeed
and amass a fortune very quickly.
Pablo Escobar had an
impact on the whole city.
He was my god.
When I met him face to face,
I thought he was going to be an arrogant,
proud, and indifferent man.
But instead I met a great human being.
I remember that day he was
eating roasted chicken.
He grabbed a piece with his
hand and offered it to me.
I began to think drug trafficking
was a bad thing
when 4 or 5 people
began to say it was bad.
The press also started to dig,
and they started to chase us.
I frankly thought it was a good thing.
I really did. Really.
It was in June of 1976
when they started associating
his name to the drug trade
and he became known to the public.
He was captured with 19 kilos of cocaine.
He had...
...brought a few kilos of cocaine
or coca paste from Ecuador.
He was freed a few months later.
People knew he was
a mobster, a drug dealer,
but they viewed it in a positive way.
The violence hadn't even begun yet.
A magazine estimates
your fortune at 5000 million dollars.
That would seem like a figure...
...like the ones you hear
in the Arabian Nights.
How large is your fortune?
There's a popular saying that goes:
"In wealth and saintliness,
only a half of a half."
His greatest extravagance was the
Hacienda Nápoles. It was insane.
The Hacienda Nápoles was astounding.
It was truly enormous.
He built 70 kms of roads to travel
around the entire place.
Lakes, he built 20 big lakes, huge ones.
He built a landing strip to get around...
...more easily, with his family.
It was, let's say,
a signed blank check for everyone.
Whatever you wanted, you had it.
One time we traveled
to the United States.
A tourist trip with Sebas, the family.
We visited several zoos in Dallas.
When I least expected it,
he said he was going to buy
a couple of rhinos, zebras, etc.
And I don't know
what else, and I was like...
He built a zoo.
He smuggled it.
When we least expected it,
we had 12,000 people
visiting it every weekend.
Pablo enjoyed it greatly...
to see the people from
the working class coming
to see something they would never see
in their lives, not even on television.
It was a life of opulence, of splurging.
The Hacienda Nápoles
was a paradise of evil.
You could feel the presence
of adventure and evil.
A lot of cocaine came out of there
to the United States of America.
Many deaths occurred in the
Hacienda Nápoles.
A lot of torturing took place there.
But the Boss never allowed us
to bury the bodies there.
We were in the middle of a conversation
when they brought a man
who I believe worked for him.
Apparently he had stolen
3 to 4 million pesos, I don't know.
He had his hands cuffed behind his back.
Escobar had his feet tied together.
When he was all tied up,
he pushed him into the pool.
And the guy drowned.
As he pushed him into the pool,
he yelled at him and told him:
"This happens to those
who steal from Escobar."
As a young boy,
I went with him to many places.
To car races, soccer field inaugurations
in poor neighborhoods,
to health center openings.
What I saw was a father who
was deeply loved by the people.
In the neighborhood
Las Flores in Envigado,
the lighting for field 12
was inaugurated.
Works donated by Civismo en Marcha
and Pablo Escobar Gaviria.
In the year of 1983 we started
a replanting of trees program for every
neighborhood in the municipality.
A very special greeting,
to all athletes and the youth
from the whole neighborhood.
And my gratitude
to everyone
who cooperated with the actual
construction work of this field.
Thanks a lot.
He gave the bleachers
and gave the lighting.
There were about 7,000 people.
The soccer field was dark.
Escobar comes in, waves,
and 7,000 people chant: "Pablo, Pablo!"
The voice of the Americas and the new
Radio Ritmo.
Pablo Escobar Gaviria
gives the honor kick!
What a wonderful kick!
A huge round of applause
for Mr. Pablo Escobar Gaviria,
after that wonderful honor kick.
Fabulous.
He was featured in an
issue of Semana magazine,
labeling him as the new Robin Hood.
And that was the first
sign of existence of that character.
Do you consider yourself the
Robin Hood of Antioquia?
That's a very
interesting description because...
...people know
that he fought for,
and defended the humble masses.
I remember that one time
he came to my house and said
that he had been at the Moravia landfill.
He said: "I'm going to build a
neighborhood for those people,
I'll get them out of the slums."
I have very good
friends in the Church.
Bishops, priests,
doctors, lawyers,
in humble neighborhoods.
But my best friends are
in the slum community
of the municipal dump.
We have started the
construction of a neighborhood
to solve the slum problem
in the city of Medellín.
He brought all the people from the
dump here and gave them houses.
Who does that? I ask you, as journalists.
Who does that? Nobody.
Him. Only him.
A neighborhood he only promoted;
he neither
created it nor sponsored it.
He called 150 or 200 people
and forced them
to donate money so he
could take all the credit.
He helped because he felt the
pleasure of giving, of sharing.
HE BUILDS MORE THAN 1000 HOUSES
IN THE CITY TO HELP ERADICATE THE SLUMS
I think those who venture to say
that he did it out of political
clout and power
are wrong because they
didn't truly know his heart.
One of his dreams was to do
what politicians weren't doing.
And to dedicate his fortune in doing so.
One day he called me and said:
"Can you help me campaign?
I'm getting into politics."
I liked the idea of him
getting into politics
when he told me that he wanted
to fulfill his duty to society.
What is your political ideology?
Well, our movement...
the main ideology of our movement is...
...civic character,
nationalism, social programs,
ecological, and sports programs.
Through our program
we want to call on all citizens
to practice their civic duty.
Really, the plazas...
were full of people.
I didn't understand.
I wondered, how this did happen?
How will this play politically?
It was quite impressive. That man…
moved masses.
My father learned about the
existence of Pablo Escobar
in the campaign of 1982,
when he was running for President,
He found out that Jairo Ortega,
who was a politician from Antioquia,
who wanted to participate
in the New Liberalism,
was inviting him to run on the
New Liberalism ballot as the alternate
to Pablo Escobar.
And the coordinator
of the New Liberalism
calls my father and tells him
that Mr. Escobar was an strange man,
because he was a man
who had a lot of money,
who gave gifts to the peasants,
and that no one knew where
all the money came from.
Then my father,
during a campaign trip to Medellín,
decides to make a public speech
in which he states that
Pablo Escobar and Jairo Ortega are not
on the New Liberalism
ballots for Congress.
Thus, he expels them
publicly from the party.
I want to tell you that Galán's political
movement and the aristocracy will tremble.
With your support
we will crush the puppets
and the political rag dolls
created by the Colombian oligarchy.
Thank you very much.
A very important political leader
came up to him and said
the following words:
"Pablo, with all the power you have,
and the amount of money you have,
and your capacity, you could be
the president of this country."
Pablo wanted to be president.
What do they decide?
To get on the official ballots
of the Liberal Party.
And it's through those official ballots,
that Pablo Escobar lands
in Congress.
Long live comrade Pablo Escobar!
Long live!
Long live the renovation
of the Liberal Party!
Long live!
The people who voted for us,
and chose us to represent
them in the nation's Congress.
Pablo Escobar was an ambitious man.
Real power is neither in guns
nor money, but in politics.
Obviously, he enjoyed a
quick ascent in politics.
He had a lot of money.
Justice Minister,
Rodrigo Lara Bonilla.
After the appointment of Rodrigo Lara
as Justice Minister
in the presidency of
Belisario Betancur,
Rodrigo Lara initiated
heated debates,
over what was known during
that period as "hot money."
A national debate is taking
shape around the so-called
funds of dubious origin, "hot money."
Your name has been linked to that debate.
I wouldn't call it "hot money."
I'd call it "amnestied money."
The country must know the truth
about certain powerful fortunes,
whose owners believe that
the asset amnesty law meant
a pardon for crimes committed
in order to achieve
their fantastic fortunes.
Can you
assure that your money
has never had a connection
to drug trafficking?
I've always assured that my money has no
connection to drug trafficking.
Rodrigo Lara...
...initiates a confrontation with Pablo
Emilio Escobar Gaviria
in Congress.
Because having a drug lord like
Pablo Escobar in Congress
was a delicate matter for the
Colombian democracy.
The chamber
session is underway,
debating over funds of dubious origin
that have entered Colombian politics,
generating enormous scandal.
Representative Ortega,
whose alternate is Pablo Escobar
took part in the session.
I have a quite respectful question
for the Justice Minister.
The hardest part is when
he starts to point fingers.
And suddenly, they set him up,
accusing Lara of receiving one million
pesos to finance his campaign.
It was one million pesos
in a check in the name of Rodrigo Lara.
I will release the information about
how this check was deposited,
and the reach it had.
The Justice Minister was trapped
by the evidence presented
by my chamber colleague,
Jairo Ortega Ramírez.
Rodrigo Lara Bonilla's reaction
to that act, that debate,
was to intensify
his attack on drug traffickers.
I was the president of the chamber,
and unexpectedly, during the debate,
several of Pablo Escobar's
armed body guards
had infiltrated the chamber.
It was a very hard and tense day.
There are investigations...
...in the United States...
...that I cannot release here,
tonight in the chamber...
...concerning...
...illegal activities...
...by Ortega's alternate.
By Ortega's alternate.
At that moment he adopted
a suicidal behavior attitude.
That clearly was a declaration of war.
The Justice Minister
accused me, unfairly.
He lied to the country when he said
that Pablo Escobar had a
criminal background with the US.
Right now, I will show
you my official passport
that proves how the US government
granted me a visa to visit that country.
Besides, I am a frequent
visitor of that country.
In the chambers of Congress, Pablo Escobar
wasn't a great public speaker,
so Justice Minister Lara Bonilla
and his party
crushed him verbally in congress.
And they revoked
his parliamentary immunity.
My hopes are that there there will not be
a confrontation among
the Colombian people.
I search for peace.
I've always preached peace.
I've longed for peace.
One day Escobar told me,
commenting on his time in politics,
he said: "Man,
I ended up inside the real mafia,
those people are the real mafia."
Lara is not convinced,
and he keeps digging,
and digging, and digging.
Until, at last,
he discovers Tranquilandia.
They find 13.8 metric tons of coca.
More than 6 labs.
Who knows how many landing strips.
All those planes, propeller planes.
It had become an industry.
I interviewed Rodrigo Lara
for my television show,
and we talked about death.
I will remain protected in any case,
because somehow
they will try to get even
for what I've done to put
criminals in their place.
We'll see what happens
in the next few days.
In the evening of
April 30th, 1984, at 7:30
a gunman pulled the trigger
of an Ingram machine gun
and assassinated
the Justice Minister, Rodrigo Lara.
I knew that something bad had happened.
And I kept asking,
"Where is my dad?"
"You'll see him soon."
We got to Neiva.
There was a large crowd, lots of people.
And my question was:
"Who's inside the coffin? Who?"
I didn't understand.
Until a cousin, finally…
...he took me, he lifted me up.
That's when the crying began.
Endless crying…
Colombia will hand over felons
requested by the commission
of criminal acts in other countries
so that they can be punished
in an exemplary way
as part of this universal operation
against an attack that is also universal.
Belisario Betancur,
the president at the time,
at Rodrigo Lara's funeral, at the wake,
announced that he was going
to apply the extradition treaty.
But the mobsters traveled to Panama,
and had the support and
protection of General Noriega,
who was in power.
I was living with my husband,
and all of the sudden...
they told me:
"You must leave the country now."
I knew that a Minister had died,
a Justice Minister,
that it was a complex situation, but...
Why did I have to go?
What was my situation?
I was just 15 days away
from giving birth to Manuela.
On May 6th, 1984,
the army went in, for the first time,
to what was known as
Pablo Escobar's fortress:
the Hacienda Nápoles at Doradal.
Fine, brother, what's new?
-11 trucks have entered Nápoles.
-Okay...
They've been ordered to stay.
Even better.
Let them pay the huge payroll I owe,
it's quite huge, that motherfucker.
On May 6th, 1984,
Pablo Escobar, Jorge Luis Ochoa,
and Rodriguez Gacha
tried to meet in Panama
with former president,
Alfonso Lopez Michelsen,
who was there as an observer
of the Panamanian general elections.
The drug lords wanted
to send a message
that they had nothing to do with the
assassination of the Justice Minister.
The drug lords admitted
that they have control over
70 to 80 percent of cocaine
production in Colombia,
and proposed amnesty with the government.
In that opportunity,
the cartel offered the
government of Belisario Betancur
the break down of their laboratories,
their withdrawal
from the cocaine market,
repatriate their capitals and help
pay the country's foreign debt.
They were willing to turn themselves in.
I told him that none of that could happen
without the collaboration,
acceptance, or acquiescence,
of the US government and the DEA.
And he agreed that it was necessary
for the U.S. to be aware of the
existence of the agreement.
Betancur's government rejected the offer,
and publicly refused
to conduct any transactions
with the drug lords.
There are incredible stories,
like 50 Colombian mobsters
jogging in lycra suits
in the morning hours,
through the avenues of Panama
with 50 Mercedes Benz driving behind them.
So at some point...
this all became a crazy mess,
the DEA was there, the CIA.
And then Noriega tells them: "Please,
no more races in the
avenues of Panama,
no more footing. Go away."
So Escobar goes to Nicaragua.
He proposes to the Nicaraguans,
to the Sandinistas,
to build a cocaine lab in Nicaragua.
Escobar listens to what Ortega,
the president of Nicaragua, has to say.
And through his words,
between the lines he interprets that
Ortega is going to turn him in
to the U.S. authorities.
Escobar didn't even finish listening
to the interview with Ortega.
Instead he gets into a car
and drives quickly to the airport...
and flies back to
Colombia in his plane.
When the Sandinistas come to
capture him, he's already gone.
It is evident that the news continues
and will continue for a long time.
The siege of the Palace of Justice.
Escobar helped finance the siege
of the Palace of Justice.
What is he asking for?
Why does he fund it?
To burn the files of
all the cases against the extraditables.
And to kill as many supreme court
magistrates as possible
so he wouldn't have to
kill them on the streets.
The Minister of Defense released today
the victim count
and the war material seized.
Twelve Magistrates assassinated,
including one assistant.
Six dead cops.
Two officers, one noncommissioned officer,
and three agents.
The Army lost one officer.
For your children's sake,
for you, for Colombia,
denounce drug dealers.
Wanted: Pablo Escobar Gaviria.
Cooperate, denounce, inform.
He started to
appear on "Wanted" signs,
as the head of the
world's most powerful drug cartel.
He became the most wanted criminal,
but despite all the operations,
intelligence actions, and hellish pursuits
they always end up with
"We nearly caught him."
"How did he know, how did he find out,"
is all a mystery.
On many occasions
there were operations
against Escobar.
We knew where he was
and at the last minute, he...
...managed to escape.
Put together a group of four to five guys,
we'll give them some money if they
call with misleading information.
Those phone numbers on the TV.
That way we keep them real busy.
Yesterday we called and said
we were at certain hotel,
and they almost tore it down.
We will drive them crazy with that.
At the time, Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria,
was a friend of the Medellín police.
-Hello. What's up?
-Maza Márquez...
Yes.
...has sent 350, 400 men
here to Medellín.
Yes.
They're ready for a
large operation tomorrow
or the day after.
Have the pilots let us know.
They'll tell us immediately.
They won't shoot.
They say that they won't shoot.
We will shoot.
But we shouldn't shoot them.
They'll turn their guns the other way.
That's their promise.
Colonel Valdemar Franklin Quintero arrived
in Medellín. An incorruptible man.
An honest policeman.
I remember one time,
when we were coming back
from Nápoles, we were being chased,
That's when we got arrested.
I was seven years old.
My sister was practically a newborn.
They refused to feed my little sister.
The police commander in charge was
Valdemar Franklin Quintero.
That event prompted a
terrible rage from my father,
who finally ordered his assassination.
He would say,
"Let them chase me, I am the bandit,
but don't come near my family.
They're decent people,
they don't have anything
to do with what I do."
The Boss gives us the order
to target Colonel Quintero
with a car bomb.
We gave it to a kid
to detonate it at 50 meters.
The kid sees a Mercedes 230 approaching,
sees the police escort,
arms the device and detonates the bomb.
And we go to check in with the Boss.
We say: "Done, Boss.
Colonel Franklin Quintero is dead."
And the Boss says:
"Watch the news, hear the news, you just
killed the Governor of Antioquia,
Antonio Roldán Betancur."
The Boss wasn't a guy who used to get mad.
The governor was a friend of the Boss.
He was politically close to Pablo Escobar,
and with a good amount of money
he could have become the president.
At that point nothing could be done,
the governor was dead.
Pablo, at the time, thought of himself
as the chief of all the criminal
structures in Colombia.
We were friends and partners
in the fight against extradition
with the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers.
Escobar calls the
Rodríguez Orejuela brothers
because we had run some
errands for them here in Medellín.
What's up, bro? What's new?
All good?
I'm listening.
Negro has been
telling me for a long time:
"Watch out, they're trying
to get you out of there.
Because you're invading the
New York squares,
and that those have been
theirs for a long time."
Can you imagine, the owners of the city?
Let's see who are the smart ones and
who are the handsome ones.
That is what we're going
to demonstrate here.
Pablo tells him: "Sir, if you're
not with me, you're my enemy.
You have 24 hours
to think it through and to
come up with a decision."
And he hangs up.
Violence in Colombia
claimed more victims last night.
The massacre occurred in a luxurious
estate in Candelaria, near Cali.
Nineteen people were killed,
and ten more injured.
That was the beginning of the war
between the Cali and Medellín cartels.
We were no longer fighting
against one enemy, but two.
The State and another cartel.
Anyone from Cali who dared
to come here had to die.
The same thing for anyone from Medellín
who went there had to get killed.
The Cali cartel leaders
say that they won't accept such threats,
and within the 24 hours deadline
they hire these people from Medellín
to plant a bomb aimed at Escobar in his
residence, the Monaco building.
The first car bomb
in the history of Colombia
exploded in January 13th, 1988,
in the Monaco building in Medellín.
My little sister was…
She was born in 1984.
She was 4 years old.
I was born in 1977.
I was 11 years old.
Seven hundred kilos of dynamite
shattered the glass of the surrounding
buildings 1 km around the city.
An explosion intended to erase us from
the map. It's a miracle that we're here.
The bomb was supposed
to get to the building's garage,
knock the door over and
get inside the building to...
...to knock it down completely.
From that moment on, my dad…
I think that...
any excuses he might have
needed to use violence,
he already had them.
A single bomb attack
directed to his family...
unleashed over 200 terrorist attacks.
Violence was mainly
carried out by the Medellín cartel,
under the title of "the Extraditables,"
which was a group of drug traffickers,
financed by all the cartels.
They generated corruption within the State
and terrorism.
They only thing they feared
was being extradited.
The thing goes like this, bro.
I've just decided that every cent we get
will be used to burn the houses of the
rich people, to affect politicians,
to the military and the cops
who abuses us,
to the judges that bother us,
to the journalists.
And this turns up protesting, saying:
"We are the Extraditables,
and we denounce this
society for excluding us,
for persecuting us,
for treating us unfairly,
for stigmatizing us, for not accepting
our children into schools."
It's not only an issue of...
of police or judicial persecution,
but they're also protesting
because they don't have space in society,
despite being as rich as they are.
These motherfuckers chase us
because we're alleged delinquents.
They think I am a fool because I've been
calm, cause I'm not fighting right now.
Those sons of bitches are confusing
nobleness with weakness.
Those fools.
I'll show those sons of bitches.
As soon as I start a full blown war.
Escobar was a pretty violent person.
And, as he became more powerful,
he thought he could defy the State.
This infamous character accomplished
what no one ever could accomplish before:
to soak the drug trafficking
business in so much blood
that he turned it into narco-terrorism.
Escobar was killing judges,
he was killing magistrates,
journalists, police.
They turned this business into
a business full of corpses,
revenge, abuse,
and the eccentricity that power brings.
In the assassination of
Attorney General Carlos Hoyos,
Escobar is singled out as the mastermind,
but he was never subpoenaed
even though a recording was found
where he allegedly orders
the murder of Hoyos Jimenez.
Specialized judge
Óscar Hernández
didn't consider the evidence.
Before killing him, the Boss tells me
to tell him why are we executing him.
So I tell him: "Dr. Hoyos,
we are going to kill you
for the crime of betraying the country."
He yells and says,
"Who the hell did I betray?"
I said, "You betrayed yourself when
you received money from the DEA
and from the mafia."
"And also for authorizing the
extradition of Colombians to the U.S."
Then we killed him right away.
Anyone who got in his way,
if they refused to accept the money, well,
they would get bullets.
And they would get murdered.
Anyone who got in his way,
if they refused to accept the money,
well, they would get bullets.
The only enemies are those who use
terror and violence
to silence the people of Colombia.
To intimidate or to assassinate
its most important protagonists.
Dr. Luis Carlos Galán
gets great visibility because he
stands against
Pablo Escobar and the drug traffickers,
and he is in favor of the extradition.
The dark and criminal power
of drug trafficking
has reached our homeland.
And, since 1982,
a year before Rodrigo Lara
took office as Justice Minister,
the New Liberalism has been
the only political force
in Colombia to stand up against
this terrible adversary
of society, of the institutional order.
Back then, politics were activities
held in public squares,
out in the streets,
with the excitement of the people,
and campaigning.
People would stay at the public square,
five, six, seven hours,
waiting for my dad.
They shot him!
They shot him!
We heard that they had
taken him to the Kennedy hospital.
We got there and...
the doctor asked if we
wanted to see my dad,
who was there laying down in a stretcher.
My mom and my siblings went in.
I didn't feel capable of going in...
at that moment.
I couldn't do it.
And, after that, everybody...
Many people arrived at the hospital later.
We couldn't breath.
If we dedicate to kill politicians,
to burn down their houses
and wage a civil war, they'll have
to call us for a peace dialogue,
and all our problems will be solved.
I don't see any other option.
But we must fight.
We must put our hearts into this.
And if we all have to die,
then so be it.
I wanted to give a speech at the funeral,
and so I did.
And at the end I changed the final phrase
I originally had which was:
"Always forward, not a step back, and
whatever needs to be done, we'll do."
Which was the phrase...
I would like to ask Dr. César Gaviria,
in whose hands we
entrust my father's mission..
...to be the president
that Colombia wanted and needed.
Please save Colombia.
Always forward,
not a step back,
and whatever needs to be done,
we'll do.
We faced a quite difficult
campaign because...
it was so threatening.
We had to run a campaign in
the middle of terrorist attacks.
The campaign was horrible, because,
for starters, whoever replaced Galán,
if that person kept his
position against drug trafficking,
which Gaviria did,
became Escobar's main enemy and for
the group known as the Extraditables.
They blew up a plane from Avianca
with campaign staff onboard.
We had a campaign tour in Cali,
and they canceled events that were taking
place in the morning, and the tour manager
made the decision to change
the tickets for a later flight.
And the 7:00 flight was
blown up by Escobar.
They're talking about the airplane.
You told me that you've
paid for that already.
I have the order of
10 pesos in my power,
I will give it to you later.
In half an hour he'll have it.
The bomb was onboard.
It was a contact bomb.
It had to blow.
And it was convenient
for the Medellín cartel
to blow up a plane in flight.
It was terrorism. All with the purpose of
cornering the country of Colombia.
Back in the day, the bombing
of the DAS security agency
was the largest terrorist
strike in the world.
The bus didn't get inside the DAS.
If that were the case,
it would have wiped it off the planet.
The bomb on board a bus
drove around this street a 7:15.
Three men left it here.
And three minutes later
this is what was left.
For the time... It was 1989.
It was the most grueling year
for Colombia, and the
most beneficial for the mafia.
We were practically living
in a permanent crisis.
Public order was a colossal problem.
This morning at 6:30
a car loaded with dynamite
blew up in front of the
El Espectador newspaper's building.
The newspaper El Espectador
has become, over the past 10 years,
a symbol of the crusade against
drug trafficking in the country.
Today's attack further shows
the audacity of the cartel heads.
Pablo Escobar understood...
He understood media pretty well.
What he didn't understand...
he thought he could defeat them.
Let the El Tiempo people know
that we have a surprise, a very huge one.
That they can't even imagine.
I'll talk to them. You'll see
whether they change their attitude.
If they don't, then the decision is yours.
There's nothing else I can do,
I do not own the newspaper.
At the newspaper El Tiempo,
where I used to work,
there was an anti-aircraft
machine gun on the roof,
as there was intelligence
information reports
that they were going to crash a plane
loaded with explosives.
In a climate of war,
in which many have died,
but no one was captured,
president Gaviria took office.
A group of some of the most important
journalists in the country were kidnapped,
with the purpose of repealing
the possibility of extradition to the
United States.
We started to develop what,
at that moment,
was considered a controversial policy,
and we called it
"submission to justice" policy.
This policy, which is practiced in
other countries of the world
such as the United States and Italy,
involves the reduction of sentences
for confessed crimes,
for those that submit
themselves voluntarily to justice,
and it contemplates the guarantee
that they will be tried in the country.
Back in those days the longest
prison sentence was 30 years.
Sentences were reduced like this:
seven for submission,
seven for confessing,
so after mandatory work and study,
we could end up doing only seven years.
It worked for a good number of them,
but it didn't work for Escobar.
But Pablo Escobar didn't
want to submit to justice
until extradition was revoked
in the constituent assembly.
I knew we were gambling
with the country's future.
So, my editorial columns
were quite aggressive
against Pablo Escobar
and the drug traffickers.
I put myself in the eye of the storm.
Last night a group of six men
with police badges
kidnapped the El Tiempo
Editor-in-Chief Francisco Santos.
Right away, I asked the guy:
"In whose hands am I in?
The guerrilla's or Pablo Escobar's?"
The guy had a Medellín accent and
I said: "I'm in Escobar's hands?"
He said: "Yes, your in Escobar's hands."
And I said... "I'm done, that's it."
This flame represents
Colombia's hope for peace.
It will remain lit here in Plaza de
Bolivar in the country's capital,
until the kidnapped return.
However, many expect it will be
a long wait.
I never thought I was getting
out of there alive. Never.
I received a
handwritten letter from him saying
he regretted the situation I was in.
That his guys were
told to treat me well.
But that I had to understand
that this was a war,
and that in any war there
were casualties, and that...
he hoped I wasn't one of them.
The only message they allowed me to send
was quite clear, telling the president...
And I repeated it twice.
"Do whatever you can to save our lives,
but do not forget that law comes first."
"And the Constitution comes first."
It was a real battle to
preserve the democracy.
When he saw that he had the
votes in the constituent assembly...
I think he bought a couple.
The Colombian people
were sick of violence.
He let us go.
-Are you happy to be back home?
-Yes, of course.
-Are you happy to be home?
-You have no idea.
One of the guys who talked to me,
not one of the guys who were taking
care of me, but one that came,
told me that Pablo Escobar
was going to turn himself in.
All the candidates, with a few exceptions,
were in favor of banning extradition.
The extradition of Colombians
by birth has been banned.
The constituent's decision
was something that
Escobar was waiting for.
The voting result.
Total voters...
sixty nine.
In favor: 51.
Not in favor: 13.
Five abstentions.
Attention. Pablo Escobar Gaviria
surrendered today to the authorities
a few hours after
extradition was abolished
in the National Constituent Assembly.
Mr. President, how do you feel?
What does this mean for Colombia
and for the government?
A deep satisfaction
to see how we are leaving behind
the narco-terrorism path,
how Pablo Escobar has
surrendered to Colombian justice.
As a result of the peace
policy and the justice strength
by the president and his
governmental cabinet,
I will do as many years
in jail as necessary
to contribute to the
strengthening of democracy
of my beloved Colombian nation.
A helicopter is moving Escobar
to a special jail:
The Cathedral.
Escobar's helicopter has landed.
Obviously, the security
scheme was ruined.
Because, right away, all eyes
were on Mr. Pablo Escobar.
No?
In the middle of all the...
fantasy he had
inspired, of all that evil,
he didn't stop being a
legendary character.
With my surrender
and submission to justice,
I will also like to pay a
tribute to my parents,
to my irreplaceable and unmatchable wife,
to my pacifist 14 year old son,
my little seven year old
toothless ballerina,
and to all my family, who I love so much.
Pablo Escobar Gaviria.
Envigado, Colombia,
June 19th, 1991.
He looked pale.
You could see the fright, the fear.
He swore by the love he had for us
that he wasn't going to fail us this time.
Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria
turned himself in
so his family could have peace,
because the Boss couldn't handle the
idea of his family being pressured.
I really think that the Cathedral
idea was a true intention
on my father's behalf,
after listening to the many
demands from us, his family,
to find a negotiated way out
of all the issues we were having.
What is the order of the President
to show that the
man will now submit
to all the legal process he must face?
The conditions set by the lawyer
who represented Pablo Escobar in this case
were conditions concerning his
security, exclusively.
Of no other nature.
What is Pablo Escobar doing?
He is the one who built the Cathedral.
He built the wall that
surrounded the Cathedral jail.
And the electric fence...
The electricity power
switch was in his cell.
At that point, the Cathedral
ended up being a place of luxury.
A place of excess.
A place of parties.
It was like an estate,
which, in reality, it always was..
...ours.
Not a prison.
And his personal guards...
were a joke. It wasn't...
When you went to visit
the Cathedral
you saw my father's lifelong employees,
now wearing prison uniforms.
It was a joke.
It was an effort to
find a legal solution.
And, obviously, having accepted
some of those security conditions,
represented a challenge for the State,
that at some point
we were unable to handle.
Escobar was no longer a drug trafficker,
he had become a great extortionist...
of his partners.
And with Escobar in jail,
his partners took certain liberties.
And then they rise up, so he
calls them to answer for their actions.
And then he murders them.
And that created a great
divide within the mafia.
They were no longer our friends.
They didn't fund us anymore.
They were closer to the
Cali cartel than to us.
And the Boss considered that situation.
The Boss was a warrior,
and warriors live off of war.
He made that tough decision
because he always lived on the edge.
But there in the Cathedral prison,
Galeano died of a gunshot.
Otto killed him.
I killed Kiko Moncada.
We made a huge bonfire,
and we burned all the bodies
throughout the night.
And the next day the bones were left,
they're hard to burn.
We crushed them with a pot,
with a hammer, and we threw acid.
That's how Kiko and Galeano disappeared.
When the Boss gave
me the order to kill...
Kiko...
I followed through,
but I couldn't sleep that night.
That day I killed my second father.
The only favor I was able to grant Kiko,
was that he wouldn't suffer,
so I shot him in the head.
The government decides to transfer
Escobar to a different jail.
And to transfer him from that cell in
Medellín to a garrison in Bogota.
The government
sent five trucks full of men
from the IV Brigade to occupy the prison.
When they said that the Army was
taking over the jail, they told me:
"We must go to Medellín."
We arrived to Medellín, to Envigado,
to the Cathedral, around 8:00
at night, perhaps.
It was fairly dark by then.
The prison guards greeted me.They told me
that everything was under control.
They lined up.
And there was Escobar. He greeted me.
And he stood in front of me.
And said: "You can't leave.
From now on you're my hostage."
"If the Army comes in or
if you try to escape, I'll kill you."
If you get me out of here,
it's because you're going to kill me.
I rather die fighting, than die
locked up in undignified conditions.
My father feared something
bigger than a simple transfer.
And when they take you to Bogotá,
you're one step away
to being put on a plane
to the United States.
They became entrenched,
they kidnaped the Deputy Justice Minister
and the prison chief.
They called a radio network in Colombia.
Escobar describing
how he was entrenched
inside the tunnel he
himself built inside the jail.
And he was explaining that he
was running out of air. All of this...
broadcasted live.
Later it was discovered
that when he made that call,
Escobar had already escaped
three hours before.
He calmly left through the door,
the window or wherever.
And that unties a huge
political controversy
because, evidently, it's a State failure.
Nobody can hide it.
The government,
after Pablo Escobar's escape,
realizes that it is the
world's laughing stock.
It is uniquely and solely at fault.
They don't want to capture
Pablo alive again.
They want to kill him.
We need our public force
to search for Escobar, to capture him,
and to place him before our legal system.
When Escobar escaped,
we created a Search Bloc,
commanded by an Army general
and a Police general.
I contacted the U.S. Ambassador,
and I said:
"Look, we need your support in this,
we need intelligence,
technical assistance, and training."
That's how the Search Bloc was created.
They used their most advanced equipment
to help us with Escobar's persecution.
During the first weeks that the
Search Bloc was working,
while I was in charge,
he detonated two car bombs
that killed 34 policemen.
Two officers.
That motherfucker that was
compromised for half million dollars
is the one in charge of the operations.
He thinks that because he is a cop,
I'm afraid of that son of a bitch.
I wish that asshole was
listening to this conversation
so he could hear how
I am planning to kill him.
We would listen to his
conversations all the time.
But, of course, coming from
Pablo Escobar, it was frightening.
In that time, generally,
a threat was always fulfilled.
When Pablo escaped from the Cathedral,
he once again became enemy of the public.
People that were linked to
Escobar at certain a point
said: "Enough, we are going
to fight against this man."
The Pepes,
or Persecuted by Pablo Escobar,
through a public statement,
informed Escobar
that they would strike back
to any future attacks in the city.
Someone said that,
from the president down,
we were all Pepes.
The Pepes took credit
for the car bomb explosions
where a sister, a brother-in-law,
and Escobar's mother lived.
The Cali cartel grew.
They set the police, the army, the DEA,
and the DAS against us.
And the Cali cartel cornered us.
Pablo Escobar
had an Army Major
in his security. And they started
to find out all of our hideouts.
So the Boss was strategic about it.
"They found this hideout this day.
The only person who knows
about this is the Major."
The Boss give us the order to
kidnap the Major. We find him,
we torture him and he confesses
that he has been snitching
for the Medellín IV Brigade.
And the Major always brought his
wife with him to the hideouts.
And the Major, through torture,
says that there is going to be
an operation the next day,
and that the woman is going
to show one of the hideouts.
We told the Boss that there was
this woman who was always there,
pregnant, always showing the hideouts.
I got the phone number from
the Major, I call the woman,
she goes to a gas station.
We see her there,
and we kill her right away.
And out of humanity we shot
the baby so he wouldn't suffer.
It was quite a harsh situation.
The problem when you
militarize the subjects of...
delinquent hunts
is that it becomes something
terribly cruel and savage.
And you end up with
massacres and insane acts.
To the extent that they
were getting rid of
his army forces and his financial means,
he started to lose power.
And he understood that his
family was way more vulnerable.
When I found out, through an intervention
of the Attorney General,
Germany is going to provide asylum for..
Escobar's family
we started bidding with
the German government.
We told them that was a
complex problem for Colombia.
Because if terrorism increased
we would have to hold
Germany responsible.
This is Pablo Escobar,
calling from Medellín,
be advised that if the German government
rejects my innocent family,
I will retaliate
against citizens,
tourists,
businesses,
and the interests that
Germany has in Colombia.
Escobar was in a desperate situation,
and he obviously could threaten
Germany's interests, but...
But that blew over quickly.
He simply continued
with his activities of...
creating terrorist acts
where he could.
Not where he wanted, just where he could.
And, obviously,
we brought Escobar's family
to a place where
we could offer security.
Army and security operations
have been increased
here in Bogotá's downtown
where the Tequendama
Residencies are located.
And where the wife and two children
of the former Medellín
cartel leader are staying.
The State claims that they were
protecting us at that moment.
Really, they were
performing intelligence.
We were part of a trap
to hunt down my father.
There was no protection.
You can't be protected by someone
that, while doing so,
the people around you
start magically disappearing.
Your teachers, maids,
friends, everything.
I'm sorry, but...
This is one of Pablo's brothers.
Pablo is quite offended because
you're bothering his family.
Don't mess with his family.
Whoever touches them or bothers them
is going to be in trouble, brother.
All of us who where
living in that house...
They were offering a reward for us.
At that time, they were offering
four million dollars for my head.
Him...
maybe, to help out his family
thought about surrender, and requested
protection by the United Nations.
And he uses some well known journalists
to try to establish certain conditions
for his surrender.
The journalists called me.
But the surrender had certain
conditions, that implicate, again...
give him certain privileges for his
security, and that was unthinkable.
If he had turned himself in, we would have
to accept him, but it was clear
that he never thought about turning
himself in, and that he always thought
about destroying the State.
Never in my fucking life
will they capture me,
and from the jungle I will give orders
to kill each and every one of them.
In the long run, they are the
ones who will end up loosing.
But, evidently, we were
dealing with a combat situation.
The instructions were pretty clear:
to capture or to kill.
Obviously, one day Escobar made the
mistake and called his family directly.
And at that moment,
due to the duration of the call,
the data triangulation was able
to locate where he was.
How did you manage for the district's
attorney's office to protect you?
There's a question here
that asks how you achieved that.
Yes, calm down.
Did they talk to someone
at the Attorney's general office
for your relocation abroad?
Okay, let's leave it here.
He says that he will call me back.
He didn't call me back.
And five or ten minutes later
a journalist called me
to tell me: "Pablo Escobar is dead."
Of course I reacted
violently and I said...
We don't want to talk right now.
But one thing I'll say,
whoever killed him, I'm going to
kill those sons of bitches.
I will kill those motherfuckers myself.
I took back my threats exactly
ten minutes after I said them.
I started thinking, my God,
I am on the way
to experience everything
I criticized my father for,
and how wrong it was.
My proposal to continue with the
violence and to turn into Escobar 2.0
was not going to bring him back.
I want to personally clarify
that I won't avenge,
I won't avenge my father's death,
because the only thing that worries me now
is the future of my family
who have suffered a lot.
Pablo Escobar was a man
who loved his family.
His daughter Manuela, his son
Juan Pablo, and Mrs. Tata.
He died for them.
I thought he was immortal.
When I realized it was him,
on the roof of that house,
all chubby, with a beard...
That was him.
My soul cried.
HOLY FATHER AND JESUS,
HAVE MERCY ON PABLITO
Goodbye, Pablo.
HOW GREAT IS TO LIVE IN MEDELLÍN
WITHOUT PABLO'S BOMBS