The true life of Pablo Escobar: Blood, betrayal and death

testimony.

Chapter I

The Beginning

He looked me straight in the eyes in a piercing sort of way. It was like he was reading my whole past. In one thousandth of a second, his pupils covered every inch of my face. I saw him record my features. I knew he was taking note of my haircut. When I answered his questions, he stared at the movement of my lips, as if he had mastered a secret code with which he could detect truth from lies. He stared at my hands. It felt like he was staring for an eternity. I don’t know if what I felt at that moment was fear or deep respect. What I do know is that it was one of the best days of my life. Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, the gangster of all gangsters, Colombia’s most feared, most powerful, and richest man, had noticed me.

And who are you? he asked me.

I am Popeye, Don Pablo. I am Miss Elsy Sofia’s driver, I answered.

The miss part must have seemed ironic because his lips revealed a subtle smile at the sound of the word. He tapped his fingers softly on the frame of my truck’s window. He placed his thumbs inside his pants, like he was holding his belly against the buckle of his leather belt. He slowly turned and walked inside his beautiful house, on a hill in the prestigious El Poblado District in Medellín. For a cartel boss, he was quite peaceful and radiant.

The woman I had just brought him was really beautiful—none other than Miss Medellín herself. She was a blonde from paisa ¹ high society. She had refined and elegant features; her skin was white and soft, and her legs were so long and graceful that they seemed to reach all the way to her neck. She was wearing a delicate red dress that matched her elegant shoes, little shoes showing her heels. She had a very elegant Cartier wristwatch and an expensive diamond necklace. Like many other luxuries, Pablo had given them to her on previous dates. Her perfume was rather exquisite. From the moment I picked her up at her house, I could tell that she wasn’t wearing underwear—nothing but a very small black lace bodice that held her beautiful, vivacious breasts. This woman was a true fantasy for any man; she could rival any Hollywood movie star. Pablo sure knew how to pick his women.

The first time I was born—I have died many times in the course of my life—was in Yarumal, a small, cold village about a hundred and forty miles from the city of Medellín. It was April 15, 1962.

My father was a small livestock farmer and businessman of the region. My mother was a housewife, a saint with solid principles, and a believer and practitioner of her faith. Always holding onto faith, she prayed with rosary beads every day in the company of her children. When we left church she would reward us with an ice cream. It was our privilege to choose between two flavors, vanilla or strawberry.

One of the things I enjoyed most at that age was visiting my father’s grandmother because she always offered me delicious, sweet milk. But that pleasure had its price: in order to visit her, I had to cross a graveyard. In that very graveyard rests the remains of two of my little brothers who, according to my mother, where born dead. The graveyard at night was ghostly white and colder than the rest of the town. Crossing it was my greatest nightmare.

Before I knew it, I was five years old. One day my father decided to move us to Itagüí, ² a town scarcely eighteen miles from the city of Medellín. There, in Itagüí, the world opened up to me in a dramatic and frantic way. Happiness came without warning or preparation, and I welcomed it. Children were everywhere: playing, riding bicycles, coming and going from school, and lining up to see the movies. Life was vibrant and all around, stores were full of candies, and streets were filled with thousands of cars and motorcycles, bar music, pool halls, and dancing parlors. My mother still insisted that we go to church every Sunday, but that boredom became bearable because it preceded the fantastic time when the tedious mass finally ended and we could go out and play with the other children and, of course, collect the grand prize: a delicious ice cream cone better than that of my former home. In this new city we could choose between chocolate, blackberry, rum and raisins, coconut, guava, tamarind, guanabana, and many other flavors, in addition to vanilla and strawberry of course. Ice creams in Itagüí were truly cold. In fact, I was sure that the ice cream of my first home was not really ice cream at all. The ice cream in Itagüí was sold at a little business six houses down from mine. It was the place of my dreams, my personal sanctuary.

Soon it came time for me to go to school. I felt important. My father even gave me some pocket money with which I discovered freedom. I could buy all the ice cream I wanted. But happiness never comes without misfortune. The offender: a horrible teacher who intimidated the whole class and gave us hell. Her presence alone instilled fear. It was there, at school, where I faced my first great problem in my beloved Itagüí. It happened when, as punishment for one of my many mischievous pursuits, I had to clean up the classroom. I was carrying out the chore when my heavy mop slipped on the wooden base that held the school’s emblem, a statue named The Baby Jesus of Prague. The plaster statue fell to the ground, shattering into a thousand pieces.

I had never seen such hatred in the eyes of any person. The teacher struck me, cruelly, and prophesied my dark future, insisting she knew what would happen to me someday. She told me the devil would come for me. From that day on I was afraid. New nightmares haunted my dreams. Nevertheless, something childish inside me knew it was impossible for that prophesy to really be fulfilled, because in my house we prayed everyday, and every Sunday without fail I went to church. I was technically God’s friend, and supposedly, as a consequence, on his team. I knew many prayers by heart. These thoughts calmed me. But still, the words of that awful teacher continued to torture me. At church I often felt that the saints placed at the building’s lateral wings, those with a fixed and intrusive stare, constantly condemned me with their looks. It got to the point where, for fear, I hid during the Holy Week processions when the statues were taken out and marched around town. I don’t know why, but at that point in my life I concluded that if I was not God’s friend, then maybe He was a friend to no one. But I knew one thing: it was impossible that God could be on that teacher’s side. As soon as I finished the school year, I left that damn school.

And then the inevitable happened: I ran into the devil. I looked death in the eyes. A terrible fight took place between two men with machetes around the corner from my house. The sound of metal against metal echoed in my brain. Blood was splattered everywhere. My heart pounded like mad. I felt a mixture of fear and pleasure: fear of the future and the pleasure of morbid curiosity. Ultimately, the fight reached the only place it never should have—my sanctuary, the ice cream parlor. One of the men tripped and fell to the ground, and there he was murdered by the other, his jugular cut. Blood gushed out. Surprisingly I didn’t run; everything happened in slow motion. The blood fascinated me and I was hypnotized. My senses seemed to sharpen. Its red color was beautiful, brilliant, clean. It was life. It was God. It was the devil. I waited until the victim died and the killer ran away, and then I came out to look at the dead man. I knew I would never fear death again. At that point, I knew that I could pass through the graveyard of my childhood without fear of its ghostly shadows.

I slowly walked home. I was not the same. I had undergone a new baptism at my ice cream parlor sanctuary and I had lost my innocence. I was born again to a new world, unimagined, unsuspected. From that day on, I unconsciously sought out violence. I wanted to find it in front of me and jump at it. I became a rebel, a fighter. I was quarrelsome and aggressive. I wanted to be bad, a true bandit. I began to carry a little dagger, and I stole things from shops and from my own home. Nothing mattered anymore; after all, God wouldn’t help me, even if I prayed with the rosary for every single prayer I knew. He wouldn’t help me. Just as my evil teacher had foreseen, I was headed for hell.

Time went by until one day I realized that my future was with the military. I decided the most important person in Itagüí, a national army colonel, fell in battle against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the nearby mountains. When he died, his body was taken into town, and his wake took place in his own living room. I was one of the privileged few allowed into the residence.

In the living room, four candles framed an imposing yet beautiful brown coffin. It was covered with my country’s tricolor flag, and above it a saber was placed with the officer’s laureate hat. There I learned that to be a military man in this country was to be somebody important. Some ugly old ladies were weeping. Other women prayed with reverential respect, as if in the presence of a saint. All recounted the innumerable military achievements of the deceased colonel. The place smelled of glory and greatness. Afterwards, the funeral procession solemnly passed through the streets to the local cemetery. Mourners, gossipers, important towns-people, and many military men joined the procession. At his open grave, an army trumpeter played a beautiful tune to say a final farewell to the colonel. It sounded like the trumpet was crying. At that moment, my fascination for military life was born. I felt the same spiritual attraction as I did the day I saw my first dead body.

The violence generated by political clashes increased in my town, and, naturally, I become more aggressive. At the age of twelve I witnessed my second violent encounter: on my way to school, two men aboard a Lambretta motorcycle shot at a police officer transporting money from El Ley, a local department store. The officer died and one of the attackers was wounded, but in the end the bandits made away with the cash. Only later did I realize that I had witnessed my destiny. Later when I joined the Medellín Cartel as Pablo Escobar’s lieutenant, he told me of his early days in crime, specifically of a time he was accompanied by a man named Pabón.Together they assaulted a policeman for a day’s worth of sales money from El Ley department store in my hometown. That day Pablo had the wounded attacker. I, an innocent child, had unknowingly watched my future master. However, Pablo Escobar had few good memories of the region, because there he had also been captured with a heavy cocaine cargo.

The mafia continually upset daily life in Itagüí, but at the same time it gave birth to dreams of adventure and risk in many youngsters. Soon the machete and knife fights were history; firearms entered the scene and further captivated our young minds. We would talk and dream of one day having our own guns. Around that time I began to hear street talk of kidnappers in our midst. They were desperately sought by the authorities. One day, at a pawnshop around the corner from where I lived, a civil security organization known as the CAES (Anti Extortion and Kidnapping Command) machine-gunned everyone in the shop. Five were killed. The men claimed they had been after a band of kidnappers, but the victims were allowed no testimony, only a big pool of blood. I had witnessed my first massacre by the State.

I was studying at the Rosary School in my area when businessman and benefactor Diego Echavarria Misas, the wealthiest man in the region, was kidnapped. He had helped my school with supplies, donated Itagüí’s public library, and also had a charity famous for its generosity at church. Teachers pounded his kindness into our lessons with such vehemence that it bordered on idolatry.

And suddenly my school’s spirit darkened: once more death had plucked the protagonist from our midst. The kidnappers had murdered the town’s benefactor. We all went to the burial feeling deeply moved. Some of my schoolmates wept. The school band solemnly played music resonating with sorrow.

Meanwhile, my father prospered in his business and bought a house in downtown Medellín. This took us out of Itagüí and to a new district settled by upper-middle class citizens held up as Colombia’s Success. I moved again into another world, this time surrounded by people that were calm and reserved. I began to study at the Ferrini School near the district. It was a nice time, free of violent influences. But I still deeply admired the military life. Without any difficulty I entered the Naval Academy in Barranquilla. In the promotional brochures the school looked very beautiful, but in reality the grounds were anything but; nowhere in sight were the large boats or cruise ships by the Atlantic. The school felt like a stifling oven and I struggled to find something to identify with. Apathetic, I finally requested dismissal, which cost me the mockery of my neighbors and a nickname that hasn’t left me since. It was given to me by Diana, the daughter of a lumberjack. As soon as she saw me back from the academy, she looked up and said, Popeye the sailor is back.

I tried again to fight for my military ideal, and applied to the National Police Academy. I entered as an aspiring cadet at the General Santander School. I dreamt of one day receiving the same honors as the colonel of my childhood; however, my happiness there was shortlived. Even in the green uniform, which I wore with pride, enthusiasm, and innocent illusions of greatness, an ensign named Hernan Dario Gallo revealed to me the institution’s corruption . The police who defended their regimes often received gifts from the mafia and the politicians.

Jhon Jairo Velásquez Vásquez in uniform from the Naval School in Baranquilla

I came to a conclusion—if the military was all about money, I’d better go look somewhere else for my ideals. I wanted so badly to be good, but destiny seemed determined not to let me. That two-faced institution deeply discouraged me. With my lesson well learned, I left the National Police Academy disillusioned. I knew that even policemen had a price; oddly enough, this bit of knowledge would later save my life on numerous occasions. Destiny later brought me back to Ensign Gallo, who was promoted to captain, in a restaurant in the Laureles District in Medellín. During a skirmish there, one of his men died and another was wounded, but he was unharmed. I received a scratch on my right wrist from one of the captain’s flying bullets. I saw it as a whimsical fairy playing with my life, to receive only a scratch from a bullet. When I returned to my district, having failed in my attempts to be good, I faced the cruel judgment of my peers: You, Popeye, are good for nothing.

A man named Nandito, an easy living man that worked for Pablo Escobar in administrative tasks, once asked me to go with him to check out a mechanical bull at a farm that belonged to the famous mobster. I met with the engineer in the Magdalena Medio Antioqueño. ³ We arrived at a beautiful farm with a small plane decorating the entrance. It was the famous Nápoles Hacienda of Pablo Escobar Gaviria and Gustavo de Jesus Gaviria Riveros. We headed towards the pool area, where we found the mechanical bull. While the engineer checked the machine, I looked around in awe. I felt dazzled by the wealth and power that could be breathed in the very air of that place. I passed tools to Nandito while looking around in anticipation, hoping to see the famous Pablo Escobar. Some armed men, sitting in chairs around the pool, confirmed his presence at the hacienda.

Finally, just as we were leaving, Pablo appeared on the second floor balcony. There he was, staring out at the horizon. He was pensive and distracted, as if trying to solve a problem. We left the house satisfied with his brief appearance. We drove back the whole way in silence, pleased and impressed with the imposing and captivating power that one man could inspire.

In my district, there were four beautiful women. They drove all the boys crazy with the flair and rhythm in their walk. I would have died for one of them in particular. Her name was Ángela María Morales Velásquez. She was the most beautiful—but, considering my lowly position, I knew it was impossible to even think of having her. She dated Roberto Striedinger, one of Pablo Escobar’s pilots. In the afternoons, driving his fancy cars, he would look for her while she was still in her school uniform. Destiny marked her to one day be my wife and to give me my only child, Mateo. With time I discovered that Ángela was a woman without principles. What she had in legs and body, she lacked in decency. She was nothing but a doll at the service of the mob. But she was worth it for my little boy Mateo. One of the other dolls was Claudia Zapata; she committed suicide because of troubles stemming from the mafia. The other two dolls, also marked by the laws of mafia, were named Sandra and Mónica. Ambition for money and greed destroyed everything those women touched.

My life in my district went by monotonously; I lived somewhere between the innocent craziness of youth and my sighs of platonic love for Ángela María. I left my job with the engineer and was unemployed for a full year. One afternoon, I was sitting around the corner from my house with my friends Hugo Franco and Juan Diego Morales. We were just in the street having a beer and listening to tango music when Ángela María’s brother came by disguised as an employment opportunity. What he really offered was destiny. The three of us were offered jobs as drivers/bodyguards for a beautiful woman.

Hugo, the son of a medical doctor, was offended and rejected the offer. Juan Diego, the son of a retiree, did the same. I accepted immediately. In fact, I took my new job with seriousness and enthusiasm. My new employer, Elsy Sofia, was Pablo’s lover. I could hardly believe it. I, a boy from Yarumal, ⁴ unafraid of death, who desperately wanted colonel’s honors, now knew the secret places where the chief of the most powerful mafia in the world enjoyed his woman. My job was to take her to the exclusive stores of El Poblado and Oviedo, to the hairdresser, to the gym, and to the plastic surgeons where she would get beautiful for El Jefe. I would wait for her until daybreak, when their lustful and lascivious nights of love concluded. Working this position, making friends little by little with Pablo Escobar’s personal bodyguards, I finally obtained their appreciation and confidence, amidst the smiles we would exchange in response to the audible screams and whimpers of the woman during her orgasms. Without a doubt El Patrón was fortunate: Miss Medellín was clearly a good lover.

Once when returning by helicopter to Medellín from a vacation, Pablo, Elsy Sofia, and bodyguard Ruben Londoño (known as La Yuca) had an accident over Envigado, in the hills of El Chocho. The rear engine of the helicopter failed and the machine began to plummet to the ground only to land in a leafy tree. Pablo, Elsy, and La Yuca fell out of the helicopter, but, luckily, a cushion of leaves broke their fall. Pablo quickly got to his feet, up to his ears in mud. Elsy broke her left hand, La Yuca complained of pain in his broken right leg, and the pilot, unharmed, was trapped inside the helicopter, which was still up in the tree. The second helicopter that always accompanied Pablo witnessed the accident, and, losing no time, zoomed toward the group. Upon landing it picked up Pablo, Elsy, and La Yuca, and took them to the Envigado hospital. After this, Elsy Sofia went, with a cast on her hand, anywhere Pablo wanted her to go.

But Pablo Escobar was hardly a one-woman man; there was always a new one, prettier, younger, more lustful, or more refined. However, the latter was hardly a requirement—many of the most beautiful women in his collection came from the comunas ⁵ or modest municipalities. Some mothers offered their daughters to Pablo, teaching them first how to best please him in bed.

As time went on, I became more and more familiar with the organization. It came to the point that my loyalty was so appreciated that one day Pablo Escobar, after he had ended his relationship with my Patrona ⁶ , asked, Popeye, do you want to die with me? I answered with a good dose of optimism, Patron, you’re never going to die.

From then on, there wouldn’t be a more important day in my life. I had entered the world of the mafia. And there I was born again. In my district the news spread like wildfire. Everyone murmured, but with no amount of jealousy: Popeye is getting killed this year. Those that made the most predictions about my death were my friends Hugo Franco and Juan Diego Morales. Alas, paradoxes of destiny: I’m still alive and they are both dead. Hugo was killed, shot defending a woman. Juan Diego’s death also involved a woman.

A few years later, I returned to Yarumal. My hometown was the same as before. I visited the main square. At the foot of a cold, antique statue was a sign proclaiming: Wanted: Jhon Jairo Velásquez Vásquez, alias Popeye, Dead or Alive. Reward: $50,000 U.S. I felt nothing. I left, silent and thoughtful. The sign had replaced the colonel’s honors that I once dreamed of—from then on, I was just a thug.

Chapter II

The Forging of a Gangster

Pablo Escobar never forgot his humble origins. He had a simple personality, free of pretension or a superiority complex. He ate any kind of food without complaint. In fact, he enjoyed a simple plate of rice and scrambled eggs as much as lobster with caviar. He swore he would never trade in his tennis shoes, his blue jeans, and short sleeve shirts for designer clothes or especially those bought at El Éxito. ⁷ He was 5’5", with black curly hair, a robust build, and a penetrating stare. Pablo was almost always in a good mood. He had a decent vocabulary, and treated his security and work personnel in a friendly way. This was partly why those who knew him intimately loved him.

Although he loved to party and stay up all night, he never got drunk or used cocaine. He only drank beer, which he always drank with three puffs of marijuana. He got high when he was very happy, usually as a reward for the success of some delicate operation. He preferred family reunions over social gatherings with friends or business get-togethers. But, just as he could be the best of friends, he could also be the most ruthless and bloodthirsty of enemies. He never forgave betrayal, and as far as Pablo was concerned, to violate a pact was the worst offense you could ever commit. He was a warrior in every sense.

Son of Doña Hermilda, a schoolteacher, and Don Abel, a humble district watchman, Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was born on December 1, 1949, in Rionegro, Antioquia, a chilly town forty-five miles from Medellín. In his youth he lived in the La Paz District, in the municipality of Envigado, twenty miles from the Antioquian capital.

The teenage Pablo was raised in the semi-low class society, strongly influenced by the drug culture. Growing drugs ranging from marijuana to cocaine generated the economy, easily making those willing to dedicate themselves to the secrecy and risk of the business rich. As a young student influenced by his teachers who were involved in social movements and promoted the class struggle, Pablo Escobar led leftist demonstrations. He also participated in rallies where stones were thrown at the police. It was at those heated political demonstrations where he met his future wife, Maria Victoria Henao, La Tata, with whom he fell profoundly in love and whom he never stopped loving until the day he died.

I learned a lot about him on one of those long nights we spent together, hiding out; after preparing and serving each of us his favorite meal of rice mixed with eggs, I dared to ask, El Patron, how was it that you started this life?

"Popeye, these questions you ask me . . . come here, I’ll tell you. Everything started when, still a boy, I started a bike repair shop and bike rental in my district. With what this small business produced, I bought myself a Lambretta motorcycle. But I was not willing to use the bike to become a simple messenger; that just wasn’t for me. Instead I used it to rob different commercial establishments. This easy way of making money excited me, and soon my cousin Gustavo Gaviria Riveros and my future brother-in-law, Mario Henao, joined me. Anyway, I planned every one of the little jobs very carefully, paying attention to every detail. I did a lot of preparation work, noting times in the routines of our chosen targets, studying escape routes, and making plans. Above all, we worked with discipline. That way, things turned out well and we undertook the least risk possible. Over time I began to specialize in auto theft. We found someone who worked at a Renault car dealership that would not only make us copies of the car keys, but also give us the buyers’ addresses. Those thefts were easy and we hardly ever faced any danger.

"Then I worked for some time with a smuggler named Alberto Prieto, who taught me the ways of illegal commerce. Afterwards I was caught redhanded stealing a car and was sent to La Ladera Jail in Medellín. I was there for a little while, but it served me well because, as you know Popeye, to be a good bandit it is essential to spend a little time in the school of prison.

When I got out of jail, I did my first important job with Gustavo and Mario. We kidnapped old Diego Echavarria Misas, a rich businessman.

Really, Pablo? You kidnapped him? I interrupted, He was my school’s benefactor.

Yes, Popeye. And we had to kill him.

I remember it was very hard for the whole town. He had a very grand funeral.

"Please, Popeye, don’t interrupt me. After this we started some modest drug trafficking, selling only small doses of cocaine. Then I traveled by myself across the country and to Ecuador in a Renault 4 to buy five kilos of Peruvian cocaine paste to process in Medellín. Of course, there were lots of police and military checkpoints. To avoid them, I had a brilliant idea. I hired a cheap truck, explaining at the police stops that the car’s engine had broken down. We put the merchandise inside cables and toolboxes, and things went on quite nicely!

"Looking at the pile of money that this business left us, we started bringing great quantities of cocaine in from Peru to send on to the gringos. It was then that I made my first mistake. On June 16, 1976, in Itagüí, I was caught by DAS ⁸ agents when they discovered I had hidden cocaine inside the spare tire of a truck. A retired police major, DAS Chief Carlos Gustavo Monroy Arenas had ordered the operation at the Ecuadorian border. The man had information that some paisas ⁹ were taking not only cocaine paste, but also pure cocaine into the country. The detectives Luis Fernando Vasco Urquijo and Jesus Hernández Patiño had found us out. Even though we offered them a large sum of money to let us go, they turned down the bribe and seized our twenty-nine kilos of cocaine. We were imprisoned along with Gustavo Gaviria and the other three men who had accompanied us. Because we were bringing drugs in from Ecuador and the seizure was ordered by an attorney in Pasto, ¹⁰ we were transferred there and detained.

"Almost three months later, on September 10, 1976, after giving our judge a tidy sum of money, he revoked the detention order. We returned to Medellín fully convinced that our life’s calling had to be drug trafficking. I started to see the big picture. No more small cargos—instead, we began using small