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[narcopedia1]

The Fugitive

With Escobar in hiding, the country could only speculate what his next moves would be. Semana magazine wrote an entire piece wondering whether Pablo would choose terrorism or a new path.

To read the full article (in Spanish) click here.

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[narcopedia1]

The Word Is Out

President Cesar Gaviria did not want to withhold the news of Escobar's prison escape from the public. His transparency allowed every news outlet to report that Escobar was a fugitive with the hope that he would be found quickly. In a news conference, he claimed that the army had not found a tunnel and did not explain how Escobar evaded the 400 soldiers surrounding the prison. The people of Colombia immediately questioned how this could happen. Escobar's former hitman, Popeye, later claimed the escape was nothing special. He says they didn't have to bribe or shoot anyone or even leave in a getaway car. He said Pablo built the wall around the prison with concrete, but four of those structures were made with plaster. They pushed them down with both feet and just walked right out. The escape, along with the kidnapping of the Vice Minister, humiliated the Colombian government on a global scale.

[narcopedia1]

Walking Out

So there you have it. The man who was allowed to build his own prison decided to escape it. Surprise, surprise… On July 22, 1992, Pablo Escobar escaped from his resort-like prison. There probably isn’t another incident that feeds into the magical realism of Escobar's life more than this one. The fact that he could just ask some guards to step aside so he could walk right out of jail seems like the stuff of legends, but we couldn't make this up. Escobar handpicked the guards at La Catedral. They were former bandits handed blue INPEC prison service uniforms so, when the army came to raid it, he just took the guards’ weapons and armed himself for war. The prison staff's complicity shows the depth of corruption and fear.

To read a NY Times article about the escape click here.

You will be redirected to an outside site. By providing links to other sites, Narcopedia does not guarantee, approve, or endorse the information or products available on these sites nor does it have an affiliation with or endorsement from such third party site.