Pablo Escobar Trivia: 53 interesting facts about the drug lord!

Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord and trafficker, often called “The King of Cocaine”. Let’s see some amazing fact and trivia about him!

1.His full name was Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria.

2. He was born on December 1, 1949 and died at December 2, 1993.

3. His cartel, at the height of his career, supplied an estimated 80% of the cocaine smuggled into the United States, turning over 60 million dollars a day, or 21.9 billion dollars a year, in personal income.

4. He was the wealthiest criminal in history, with an estimated known net worth of US $30 billion by the early 1990s.

5. He was also one of the 10 richest men in the world at his prime and lived in his self-built Hacienda Nápoles.

6. Pablo Escobar was born in Rionegro, in the Antioquia Department of Colombia.

7. He was third of seven children to Abel de Jesús Dari Escobar, a farmer, and Hermilda Gaviria, an elementary school teacher.

8. As a teenager on the streets of Medellín, it is thought that he began his criminal career by allegedly stealing gravestones and sanding them down for resale to smugglers.

9. His brother and accountant, Roberto Escobar, denies this, claiming that the gravestones came from cemetery owners whose clients had stopped paying for site care and that they had a relative who had a monuments business.

10. Pablo Escobar studied for a short time at the Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana of Medellín, but left the University without obtaining a degree.

11. Pablo Escobar eventually became involved in many criminal activities with Oscar Benel Aguirre — running petty street scams, selling contraband cigarettes and fake lottery tickets, and stealing cars.

12. In the early 1970s, he was a thief and bodyguard, and allegedly made $100,000 by kidnapping and ransoming a Medellín executive before entering the drug trade.

13. His next step on the ladder was to become a millionaire by working for contraband smuggler Alvaro Prieto.

14. Pablo Escobar’s childhood ambition was to have a million pesos by the time he was 22.

15. By the age of 26, Pablo Escobar deposited 100 million pesos (more than US$3 million) into a Colombian bank.

16 In March 1976 at the age of 27, Pablo Escobar married Maria Victoria, who was that time 15 years old.

17. Despite the fact that Maria’s older brother worked with Escobar in small-scale criminal enterprises, the relationship was discouraged by the Henoa family who considered Escobar socially inferior.

18. Together they had two children: Juan Pablo (now Juan Sebastián Marroquín Santos) and Manuela.

19. Virginia Vallejo published the memoir Amando a Pablo, odiando a Escobar (2007; Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar), in which she describes, among other topics, her romantic relationship with Escobar.

20. It is rumored that Griselda Blanco conducted a clandestine, but passionate relationship with Escobar. Several items in her later-found diary linked him with the nicknames “Coque de Mi Rey” and “Polla Blanca”.

21. In 1975, Pablo started developing his cocaine operation. He even flew a plane himself several times, mainly between Colombia and Panama, along smuggling routes into the United States.

22. When he later bought 15 new and bigger airplanes, including a Learjet and six helicopters, according to his son, a dear friend of Pablo’s died during the landing of an airplane, and the plane was destroyed.

23. Pablo Escobar reconstructed the airplane from the scrap parts that were left and later hung it above the gate to his ranch at Hacienda Napoles.

24. Soon, the demand for cocaine was skyrocketing in the United States, and Escobar organized more smuggling shipments, routes, and distribution networks in South Florida, California, and other parts of the country. He and cartel co-founder Carlos Lehder worked together to develop a new trans-shipment point in the Bahamas, an island called Norman’s Cay about 220 miles (350 km) southeast of the Florida coast.

25. Escobar was soon able to purchase 7.7 square miles (20 km2) of land in Antioquia for several million dollars, on which he built his home, Hacienda Napoles.

26. He created a zoo, a lake, a sculpture garden, a private bullring, and other diversions for his family and organization.

27. At one point, it was estimated that 70 to 80 tons of cocaine were being shipped from Colombia to the United States every month.

28. In the mid-1980s, at the height of its power, Escobar’s Medellín Cartel was shipping as much as 11 tons per flight in jetliners to the United States (the biggest load shipped by Escobar was 23,000 kilograms (51,000 lb) mixed with fish paste and shipped via boat, as confirmed by his brother in the book Escobar).

29. Roberto Escobar also claimed that, in addition to using planes, his brother employed two small submarines to transport the massive loads.

30. In 1982, Escobar was elected as an alternate member of the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia, as part of the Colombian Liberal Party.

31. Escobar quickly became known internationally as his drug network gained notoriety; the Medellín Cartel controlled a large portion of the drugs that entered the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Spain.

32. The cocaine was produced with coca from Bolivia and Peru through other drug dealers, such as Roberto Suárez Goméz, since Colombian coca was initially of substandard quality, and demand for more and better cocaine increased. Escobar’s cocaine reached many other countries in the Americas, and in Europe through Spain.

33. It was even rumored his network reached as far as Asia.

34. He had an effective, inescapable policy for dealing with law enforcement and the government, referred to as “plata o plomo” (literally “silver or lead”, colloquially “[accept] money or [face] bullets”).

35. Its execution resulted in the deaths of hundreds of individuals, including civilians, policemen, and state officials.

36. He was allegedly responsible for the 1989 murder of Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán, one of three assassinated candidates in the 1990 election.

37. Also he was responsible for the bombing of Avianca Flight 203 and the 1989 DAS Building bombing in Bogotá.

38. Pablo Escobar said that the essence of the cocaine business was “Simple: you bribe someone here, you bribe someone there, and you pay a friendly banker to help you bring the money back.”

39. In 1989, Forbes magazine estimated Escobar to be one of 227 billionaires in the world with a personal net worth of close to US$3 billion.

40. Meanwhile his Medellín Cartel controlled 80% of the global cocaine market.

41. It is commonly believed that Escobar was the principal financier behind Medellín’s Atlético Nacional, which won South America’s most prestigious football tournament, the Copa Libertadores, in 1989.

42. While seen as an enemy of the United States and Colombian governments, Escobar was a hero to many in Medellín (especially the poor people); he was a natural at public relations, and he worked to create goodwill among the poor people of Colombia.

43. Pablo Escobar was also responsible for the construction of many hospitals, schools, and churches in western Colombia, which gained him popularity inside the local Roman Catholic Church.

44. He worked hard to cultivate his Robin Hood image, and frequently distributed money through housing projects and other civic activities, which gained him notable popularity among the poor.

45. After the assassination of Luis Carlos Galán, the administration of César Gaviria moved against Escobar and the drug cartels. Eventually, the government negotiated with Escobar, convincing him to surrender and cease all criminal activity in exchange for a reduced sentence and preferential treatment during his captivity.

46. The war against Pablo Escobar ended on 2 December 1993, amid another of Escobar’s attempts to elude the Search Bloc.

47. Using radio triangulation technology, a Colombian electronic surveillance team, led by Brigadier Hugo Martínez,found him hiding in a middle-class barrio in Medellín.

48. It has never been proven who actually fired the final shot into his head, or determined whether this shot was made during the gunfight or as part of a possible execution, and there is wide speculation about the subject.

49. Some of Escobar’s relatives believe that he could have committed suicide.

50. Soon after Escobar’s death and the subsequent fragmentation of the Medellín Cartel, the cocaine market became dominated by the rival Cali Cartel until the mid-1990s when its leaders, too, were either killed or captured by the Colombian government.

51. Many people mourned his death, especially many of the city’s poor whom Escobar had aided while he was alive. About 25,000 were present for his funeral.

52. Two major feature films on the Colombian drug lord, Escobar (2009) and Killing Pablo (2011), were announced in 2007,around the same time.

53. Read here some interesting facts about “Narcos” the Netflix tv series about Pablo Escobar’s life!