Connor Parrino

Mrs. Gene Coco

English 1001
15 November 2016
Audience: Students

The Don Pablo

Preface: I feel like my writing style and my interest for Pablo Escobars life is
working for me. I understand he was a criminal but in my research he is
turning out to be much more than just that. My quotes need work; I couldnt
find good examples on how to cite a long quote from the internet on Purdue
owl. My roadblocks I'm facing are that I might not have enough information
to make it six pages and I might need to broaden the topic a little. I want to
focus on how to find the most information on my topic and if I need to
broaden it a little bit. If I had two more weeks to write this paper I would
definitely spend more time finding quotes that fit into my paper and
improving my sentence structure throughout the paragraphs. An inquiry
paper is unlike any other research paper because it answers a question
through out extensive research.

Pablo Escobar, one of the most ruthless and powerful drug barons of
the 20th century, is a name that most people still talk about. Pablo died in the
1990s, he is definitely one of the most famous names brought up when
talking about cocaine or drug smuggling and there are even TV shows being
made about him to this day. Even though his life is very well documented,
the most occurring questions I ran into when researching him were how did
he become one of the powerful drug traffickers almost overnight and make
his kingpin nearly impenetrable.

Pablo Escobar came from a middle class family, his father was a farmer
and his mother was a school teacher, his life seemed very promising growing
up. In the 1960s Colombian teen agers started to revolt against government
just like teenagers in the United States at the same time. Pablo turned from a
straight A school student into a pot smoking teenager and eventually started
selling marijuana.
Pablo Escobar was the son of a farm manager and a rural school
teacher. His godfather and his fathers employer, Joaquin Vallejo
Arbalaez, was a highly respected intellectual. Pablo was influenced
by his godfather and was active in local civic action programs since his
early teens and an organizer and activist in student groups through out
his high school years. (Pablo Escobar, Drug Baron: His surrender,
imprisonment, and escape. David P. Thompson. Web)

Pablos criminal activity began with dealing marijuana but soon turned to
cocaine. The people of the United States in the 1970s were introduced to
cocaine when it started coming in from Colombia and Mexico and they went
crazy for it. He saw the market and began to traffic the cocaine to the United
States. This is where many people would get confused and ask how did he
monopolize the market and get away with smuggling with the new
government in affect. Pablo thought unlike the other criminals, instead of
avoiding conflict with authorities he took it as an opportunity. Escobar started
bribing anyone who stood in his way; judges, officials, police officers... if you

were in a position of power, Escobar had no problem trying to buy you onto
his team but if you would not accept his offer, there was only one other
outcome, death.
His brutal but effective practice was known as plata o plomo,
literally money or lead, which meant that if one did not accept a
bribe from Escobar, death by lead bullet was the outcome. (Pablo
Escobar, Richard D. Hartley. Web.)

As Pablos brutal and effective way grew, so did his bank account. He
became not only the richest man in Colombia but also one of the richest
people in the world.
At the height of his power, Escobar was said to be the seventh richest
man in the world. He owned twenty houses in and around the Medellin
area as well as scores of vehicles, boats, planes, and helicopters.
Escobar was a multibillionaire and used some of his money to help the
poor. (Pablo Escobar, Richard D. Hartley. Web)
Even though he became very rich, he did not let it change who he was and
the way he felt about his country. Pablo gave back to the poor by building
soccer fields, homes for the homeless and so much more. This put the people
of his home town on his side making it even harder for the authorities to get
a rat or informant. Also many were scared to be informants because that
meant certain death and excommunication from the community.

this gave Escobar a great deal of power from the people and even lead him
to try to run for office. This may seem sound like a horrible idea on his part
but Escobar thought unlike other criminals and had a master plan for this. If
he were elected into office, which seemed very possible due to the love the
people had for him, then he would have control of the government and would
have no one to stop his empire from growing and becoming one of the
biggest drug kingpins in the world. It also meant that he could back the
president candidate that did not support extradition, getting sent to prison in
another country for crimes committed in that country. With no extradition
Pablo could continue to run his operation in Colombia without any fear of
being sent to the United States for his cocaine trafficking. Pablo campaigned
heavily winning the common people all over Colombia, he would go to
villages and towns filled with the working people telling them he was on their
side and he would treat them like they should be treated and not how the
government had been neglecting them. The people already in office saw this
as a disaster coming. The already existing members of government did
everything they could to dis-credit his name and try to turn the people
against him but it seemed imminent that Escobar would win the spot in office
and he knew it too. Pablo won a seat in the nation congress and attended
many times. One day while Pablo was present in congress, he was called out
for his criminal lifestyle by another politician in front of everyone. Rodrigo
Lara Bonilla exposed Pablos way of making so much money, his previous
crimes, and the reason he supported getting rid of extradition so heavily. The

next day a newspaper printed his mug shot and the story of his criminal
ways and his reasons for not wanting extradition giving the public a view on
his secret lifestyle. After this Pablo did not return to congress, he blames this
incident for his downfall.
Pablo was also a mastermind at escaping, always one step ahead of
authorities and rival cartels. He is one of the most elusive drug lords in
history. Pablo had a lot of money and with that he built many houses all over
Colombia in strategic positions hidden from the public and guarded heavily. If
police were on their way to one house, the spotter a couple miles down the
road would warn them and Pablo and his family would flee through an escape
route to another one of his safe houses. Pablo also had a network of children
on his payroll, informing him every time a big group of police would leave the
station or when they would get close to his labs or his location. These
children spotters would also help him later on when traveling through
Medellin, not to get stopped by road blocks looking for drug smugglers or
anyone associated with cartels.
He didnt let money change him but the people he did business with
did. They became very greedy and thought that without Pablo they would
have all the money and power. Pablos close business associates and allied
cartels did not like the attention. He was being noticed by the government
and the United States so they became paranoid and began thinking into a
future without Pablo and how much more business they would have without
Pablos cartel. Other Cartels teamed up and formed alliances against Pablos

cartel and even began working with the DEA. This is ultimately where his
down fall began, other than being exposed by the government. Other Cartels
started working with Columbian authorities and DEA agents in return for
protection and to be left alone, they didnt realize that they would be dealt
with next after Pablo was out of the picture.
Pablo Escobar started off no different from any other teenager in his
country but he decided he would not let his government rule him how they
had been ruling his people and keep letting them be poor. He rose to power
through simple greed of authorities and judges, bribing them until there
mouths were full and killing anyone with a lead bullet who could not be
bribed or stood in his way. Pablo was one of the most elusive drug lords
because he always had a different safe house to run to hidden in the
mountains and heavily guarded. His intentions were not to be the most
powerful and feared drug lord in the world but to provide for his family so
they would never go hungry and to provide for his people who had been
neglected by the government. His ultimate downfall was greed of his
business partners who had all of his closest men killed by authorities or DEA,
the crack down of his government bringing in forces from the United States
and collaborating with anti-communist armies in Colombia, narrowing it down
to only him and making it very easy for authorities to find and kill him after
he had no more protection.

Works Cited
1. Hartley, Richard D. "Pablo Escobar." Salem Press Biographical
Encyclopedia (2016): Research
Starters. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.
2. "'The Money Was The Soft Spot': 'The Infiltrator' On Taking Down
Pablo Escobar." All Things Considered (2016): Literature Resource
Center. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.
3. "Medellin embraces Pablo Escobar biopic." Globe & Mail (Toronto,
Canada) 2015: Biography in Context. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.
4. Thompson, David P. "Pablo Escobar, Drug Baron: His Surrender,
Imprisonment, And Escape." Studies In Conflict & Terrorism 19.1
(1996): 55-91. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 11 Nov. 2016.
5. Pobutsky, Aldona Bialowas. "Peddling Pablo: Escobar's Cultural
Renaissance." Hispania 2013: 684. JSTOR Journals. Web. 11 Nov.
2016.
6. Martz, John D., Colombia: Democracy, Development, and Drugs.
Mar 1, 1994: 134. Proquest information and learning company. 11
Nov. 2016