The Hunt for Pablo Escobar
10-26-1993
^Noose Tightens Around Escobar as Allies Captured or Killed AP Photo available
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) _ The helicopter, carrying men in combat fatigues and cradling automatic rifles, rushed over the verdant landscape toward a mountain where a shack was perched midway up its flank.
Word was that Pablo Escobar - drug kingpin, suspected mass murderer and one of the most wanted men in the world - was hiding inside.
The men leapt out as the chopper landed at the base of the mountain just outside Medellin. Another squad jumped from a helicopter at the summit.
As the two units converged, two women ran out of the shack and were quickly captured. Inside, the men - members of an elite force who've been hunting Escobar since his prison escape 15 months ago - found two assault rifles, the drug lord's personal papers and two-way radios.
But no Escobar.
He apparently had slipped into the woods just as the assault began.
"We were so close," said Gustavo de Greiff, the nation's prosecutor- general, who described the Oct. 11 operation in an interview.
Escobar, who has an $8.7 million reward out for him offered by Colombia and the United States, had eluded capture once again.
But lawmen say the noose is tightening. Of the nine Medellin cocaine cartel members who escaped with Escobar from a luxury prison in July 1992, all have surrendered or been killed. The last was his bodyguard, Alfonso Puerta, nicknamed "the Little Angel," who was shot dead by security forces Oct. 6.
"Every day he has less and less friends and people on his side," said a top law enforcment official. "Little by little, he's running out of room and out of time."
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Escobar is still wealthy - with land holdings and cuts on cocaine shipments - but has trouble getting fast cash.
Although Escobar's cartel has been splintered and surpassed by the Cali cartel as the world's main supplier of cocaine, he is still dangerous.
Escobar allegedly ordered bombings that have killed 62 people since his escape. He is blamed for the slayings of hundreds of people, including government ministers, presidential candidates, judges and police officers, during the height of the drug war in the 1980s.
De Greiff, who is responsible for bringing Escobar to justice, said he himself has received death threats. But he's cavalier about his own safety. Windows run the length of his office which overlooks a highway. The glass is not bulletproof, making him an easy target.
"I'm told that to install bulletproof glass would be expensive," de Greiff said. "I can't see spending that money to protect myself when other prosecutors who work for me are doing their jobs without protection."
Enrique Parejo knows about the deadliness of the Medellin cartel.
The former justice minister should be dead. Instead, he recently sat in his living room, next to a vase of red and white carnations, and calmly described how a cartel hit man tried to kill him in January 1987 in Budapest, Hungary, where he was ambassador.
"He asked me 'Are you Enrique Parejo?' I said, 'Yes.' He pointed a pistol at my head and began shooting."
One bullet smashed through his right cheekbone and lodged near his spine. Another went through his mouth and exited through his left upper jaw. Two more hit his arms.
"He tried to give a coup de grace, with one last bullet into the head, but it didn't penetrate my skull. It just passed between my skull and my scalp," Parejo said, running his finger along the bullet's path.
Parejo, now fully recovered from the attack, had earned the enmity of the cartel as justice minister from 1984 to 1986, by extraditing a dozen traffickers to the United States.
Escobar surrendered in June 1991 after the Colombian government barred extraditions and promised him leniency. He and his lieutenants were allowed to stay in a luxury prison where he continued trafficking and even ordered the executions of rivals. He escaped as the government tried to transfer him to a real prison.
Many residents of poor neighborhoods of Medellin help shelter the 43-year- old Escobar, who grew up there and rose from poverty to become one of the richest men in the world and who financed urban renewal projects.
Parejo, a candidate for the May 1994 presidential elections, said the government's previous kid-glove treatment of Escobar "is their great shame."
"They're offering a reward now for a man who fled because of the negligence of the government," Parejo said. "The state should have acted with firmness from the beginning."
^Noose Tightens Around Escobar as Allies Captured or Killed AP Photo available
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) _ The helicopter, carrying men in combat fatigues and cradling automatic rifles, rushed over the verdant landscape toward a mountain where a shack was perched midway up its flank.
Word was that Pablo Escobar - drug kingpin, suspected mass murderer and one of the most wanted men in the world - was hiding inside.
The men leapt out as the chopper landed at the base of the mountain just outside Medellin. Another squad jumped from a helicopter at the summit.
As the two units converged, two women ran out of the shack and were quickly captured. Inside, the men - members of an elite force who've been hunting Escobar since his prison escape 15 months ago - found two assault rifles, the drug lord's personal papers and two-way radios.
But no Escobar.
He apparently had slipped into the woods just as the assault began.
"We were so close," said Gustavo de Greiff, the nation's prosecutor- general, who described the Oct. 11 operation in an interview.
Escobar, who has an $8.7 million reward out for him offered by Colombia and the United States, had eluded capture once again.
But lawmen say the noose is tightening. Of the nine Medellin cocaine cartel members who escaped with Escobar from a luxury prison in July 1992, all have surrendered or been killed. The last was his bodyguard, Alfonso Puerta, nicknamed "the Little Angel," who was shot dead by security forces Oct. 6.
"Every day he has less and less friends and people on his side," said a top law enforcment official. "Little by little, he's running out of room and out of time."
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Escobar is still wealthy - with land holdings and cuts on cocaine shipments - but has trouble getting fast cash.
Although Escobar's cartel has been splintered and surpassed by the Cali cartel as the world's main supplier of cocaine, he is still dangerous.
Escobar allegedly ordered bombings that have killed 62 people since his escape. He is blamed for the slayings of hundreds of people, including government ministers, presidential candidates, judges and police officers, during the height of the drug war in the 1980s.
De Greiff, who is responsible for bringing Escobar to justice, said he himself has received death threats. But he's cavalier about his own safety. Windows run the length of his office which overlooks a highway. The glass is not bulletproof, making him an easy target.
"I'm told that to install bulletproof glass would be expensive," de Greiff said. "I can't see spending that money to protect myself when other prosecutors who work for me are doing their jobs without protection."
Enrique Parejo knows about the deadliness of the Medellin cartel.
The former justice minister should be dead. Instead, he recently sat in his living room, next to a vase of red and white carnations, and calmly described how a cartel hit man tried to kill him in January 1987 in Budapest, Hungary, where he was ambassador.
"He asked me 'Are you Enrique Parejo?' I said, 'Yes.' He pointed a pistol at my head and began shooting."
One bullet smashed through his right cheekbone and lodged near his spine. Another went through his mouth and exited through his left upper jaw. Two more hit his arms.
"He tried to give a coup de grace, with one last bullet into the head, but it didn't penetrate my skull. It just passed between my skull and my scalp," Parejo said, running his finger along the bullet's path.
Parejo, now fully recovered from the attack, had earned the enmity of the cartel as justice minister from 1984 to 1986, by extraditing a dozen traffickers to the United States.
Escobar surrendered in June 1991 after the Colombian government barred extraditions and promised him leniency. He and his lieutenants were allowed to stay in a luxury prison where he continued trafficking and even ordered the executions of rivals. He escaped as the government tried to transfer him to a real prison.
Many residents of poor neighborhoods of Medellin help shelter the 43-year- old Escobar, who grew up there and rose from poverty to become one of the richest men in the world and who financed urban renewal projects.
Parejo, a candidate for the May 1994 presidential elections, said the government's previous kid-glove treatment of Escobar "is their great shame."
"They're offering a reward now for a man who fled because of the negligence of the government," Parejo said. "The state should have acted with firmness from the beginning."
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