Pablo Escobar Born: Colombia's Drug Lord Rises

Pablo Escobar built the Medellin cartel into the largest cocaine trafficking operation in history, controlling an estimated 80 percent of the cocaine shipped to the United States during the 1980s. At his peak, his personal fortune was estimated at $30 billion, making him one of the wealthiest criminals who ever lived. Born in Rionegro, Antioquia, Colombia on December 1, 1949, Escobar grew up in Envigado, a suburb of Medellin. He began his criminal career in his teens, smuggling stereo equipment, stealing cars, and selling fake lottery tickets. He entered the cocaine trade in the mid-1970s, developing smuggling routes from Colombia through Central America and the Caribbean to Florida. He invested in processing labs, bribed or killed government officials, and built a vertical monopoly that controlled production, transport, and distribution. His wealth was so vast that he buried it. Literally. The cartel stored cash in walls, fields, and warehouses, and by Escobar's own estimate, they wrote off about 10 percent annually to water damage, rats, and other losses. He offered to pay off Colombia's $10 billion national debt in exchange for immunity from prosecution. He waged open war against the Colombian state to prevent extradition to the United States. His campaign of narcoterrorism included the bombing of Avianca Flight 203 in November 1989, which killed 107 people, and a car bomb at the DAS (Colombian security service) headquarters that killed over 50. He ordered the assassination of three presidential candidates and dozens of judges, journalists, and police officers. He was briefly a member of the Colombian Congress and built housing for the poor in Medellin, creating a Robin Hood image that persists in parts of the city. He surrendered to Colombian authorities in 1991 on the condition that he could build his own prison, La Catedral, which he essentially ran as a luxury estate until he escaped in 1992. He was killed on December 2, 1993, in a rooftop shootout with Colombian National Police in the Los Olivos neighborhood of Medellin. He was 44. Whether he was shot by police or killed himself has been debated.