Pablo Escobar is Wanted Posters - Death After Tribute Some Newspapers On December 2, 1993, Pablo Escobar, the wealthiest drug kingpin the world has ever seen, attempted to flee from a hideout in his home base of Medellín, Colombia, by scrambling across a neighboring rooftop.
Instead, he was cut down by gunfire, and the resulting image has been seared into the public memory — the bloody corpse of the world's most powerful drug lord splayed across a tile roof in the city that was once his safest redoubt.
escobar death
US Government Photo
The other men in that image, a group of Colombian troops, have long been regarded as the ones responsible for delivering to Escobar the justice he had so long avoided.
But accounts from rival traffickers and gang members, intelligence documents, and Escobar's own family indicate that those troops, soldiers backed by the legitimacy of the state, may not have been responsible for the demise of El Patron.
Bloque de Búsqueda
In late 1989, after a series of bloody humiliations dealt by Escobar to the forces and officials of the Colombian government, then-President Virgilio Barco created a special police unit to deal with the kingpin and his cartel.
Read more: Pablo Escobar's death cleared the way for a much more sinister kind of criminal in Colombia
While its initial encounters with the Medellín network left the Bloque de Búsqueda, or Search Bloc, dazed and weakened, it eventually became a hardened task force that hunted down Escobar and his associates.
Assisted by US special forces, US Army intelligence, and members of the CIA and Drug Enforcement Administration, the Search Bloc pursued Escobar throughout 1992 and 1993. According to official accounts, it was the Search Bloc that ultimately killed Escobar.
pablo escobar family
Pablo Escobar with his wife, Maria Victoria; son, Juan Pablo; and daughter, Manuela Escobar. Sins of my Father
On December 2, 1993, one day after Escobar's birthday — according to Mark Bowden's book "Killing Pablo," he celebrated with marijuana, a birthday cake, and wine — the Search Bloc tracked the drug baron to Los Olivos neighborhood in Medellín.
The Search Bloc was able to converge on the house where Escobar was speaking on the phone with his son.
In Bowden's account, despite all of the group's gadgets, a positive ID was made only when a member spotted Escobar through a second-story window.
Members of the Search Bloc surrounded the home while others stormed through the door. Alerted, Escobar and a bodyguard stumbled out a back window onto an orange-tiled roof. They were met with a hail of gunfire, and both fell from shots to their heads — Escobar with one that entered his right ear and killed him instantly.
Read more: What the Cali cartel learned from Pablo Escobar, according to a DEA agent who hunted both of them
Once the gun blasts had subsided, Col. Hugo Martinez, the Search Bloc leader who had pursued Escobar for three bloody years but was not on the scene, heard one of his men shouting into the radio. "Viva Colombia!" the soldier said. "We have just killed Pablo Escobar!"
Reports emerged afterward that Escobar had gone down firing his own weapon, and the confusion of the encounter has left the question of who fired the fatal shot open to speculation.
Los Pepes
In January 1993, according to Bowden, a new group had joined the hunt for Escobar. "Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar," or People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar — known as Los Pepes — was made up of rival drug traffickers, paramilitaries, and others scorned by the Medellín cartel boss.
Pablo Escobar soccer charity
"Sins of My Father"
Earlier, in mid-1992, Pablo's execution of two lieutenants had broken his cartel into warring factions.
And according to journalist Alma Guillermoprieto, who spoke with a former Los Pepes member, the group was most likely led by former members of the Medellín cartel who, seeking vengeance, had offered money to members of Escobar's crew, members of the Search Bloc, or anyone else who was willing to take on the kingpin.
Los Pepes were, in Bowden's words, "some extralegal muscle … who didn't mind crossing the lines of legality and morality that Pablo so blithely ignored." Many in the Colombian government were said to be open to their participation in the hunt.
According DEA documents cited by Bowden, the group probably received funding from the rival Cali cartel and likely got information from the Colombian National Police and, allegedly, American intelligence agents operating in the country.
A 2015 court ruling ordered the CIA to release more documents that could shed light on the suspected cooperation between the American government, Colombian security forces, and Los Pepes.
Hacienda Nápoles home of Pablo Escobar
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