by David Fisher
The story told by the police was that Gacha’s seventeen-year-old son, Fredy, had been captured in a raid in September. The biggest charge against him was being the son of a man they wanted desperately. But the legal charge they made against him was for possessing illegal weapons. After two months they secretly released him, but from then on they followed him until he went to his father at a small ranch in Tolu, about an hour south of Cartagena. And then they sent an army against Gacha. The way the Mexican died is still a question. Was he killed by gunfire from the army or by his own hand? Did he die fighting or escaping? Also killed was his son and fifteen soldiers of his security force.
After Gacha was killed by the police, 15,000 ordinary people crowded the streets of Gacha’s town of Pacho to pay tribute to him as he was buried. They surrounded the cemetery to keep out the curious, and allowed the family to have its privacy from the media. Pablo was hurt by Gacha’s death. He had warned him that there was a snitch in the organization, but Gacha did not believe him. Pablo felt sure the informant was a friend and partner. There are stories that this was the real way the Mexican was found.
By this time Pablo had seen a lot of killing and so he accepted it without much emotion. Did he see in it his own fate? Pablo had always understood the penalties for his actions, and nothing he ever said or did made me believe he was afraid of his own death. I think if this battle did anything it made him positive that he had to continue inflicting such terrible damage on the government that they would agree to find a means to stop the violence. The government would have to change the constitution to prevent extradition, and Pablo would serve time in prison, pay a huge fine—and then be free. We had several lawyers and priests negotiating with the government for us. In this way the negotiations went on and on for several months.
The war was expanded on January 13, 1987. Pablo had built for himself and his family the most beautiful home in the richest and most secure area of Medellín. It was the five-story building that he had named Monaco. One floor was a dining room, one floor was the master bedroom, one floor was the penthouse. Inside were sculptures and paintings from Picasso, Botero, the Ecuadoran painter Guayasamín and other well-known artists worth many millions of dollars. The floors were of imported marble. Everything was made from the best materials.
Monaco was very secure. It was built from reinforced steel. It had the first security camera system in Colombia and there were monitors all over the building. We had told the architects and engineers to include some safe rooms for members of the family to hide in case killers got into the building. Pablo used to call Monaco his castle.
On this particular night Pablo had eaten dinner with his family. After putting his children to sleep he went secretly to a farm about ten miles away. At 5:30 in the morning a bomb was exploded, destroying Monaco. It was a huge bomb and woke up half the city. This was the first bomb of the war that was to shake Colombia. I was staying about two miles away. After the explosion awakened me I went immediately to the building in which my mother lived. The police there told me, “Nobody knows exactly what’s going on. Everything here is fine, but people are saying it’s a bomb.” We had all seen bombs on TV, but the experience for us was new. From there I went right to Monaco. A policeman stopped me a few blocks away and told me a bomb had exploded at Pablo Escobar’s building. I was stunned. A bomb? That was not the way the government worked.
When I got to the building it was destroyed. I started helping the police move broken doors and windows and debris. We found María and the two children, all of them safe, but crying and afraid. The ceiling had collapsed around the baby crib in which Manuela was sleeping, and it took rescuers some time to reach her. I called the bodyguards and they took the family to safety.
I went to see Pablo. “I’m going to tell you something,” I said. “But don’t worry, everything is fine.”
“I already know everything,” he said. How so quickly, I wondered. And then he told me, “And I already know who did it.”
He explained. Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela of the Cali cartel had called on a special phone number about a half hour after the explosion. “Pablo,” he said, “I just heard somebody put a bomb in your building.” This was the first news about the bombing that Pablo had received, but he didn’t give that away. I know, he said. Rodríguez said, “I already sent somebody to see if you’re okay and your family’s okay. Are you at the building?”
On the streets people were already saying this bomb was the work of the DAS, but Pablo knew the truth. Cali had planted this bomb. This bombing attack on his family was something that shook him. But all he said was that he was going to confirm what he believed.
It didn’t make sense to me. At times we would be doing business with Cali. We had even kept money in a bank they owned. Some people had worked without problems for the organizations in both Medellín and Cali. But Pablo felt certain about this.
Later he was able to confirm this claim. Knowing the country as well as he did, Pablo felt very definitely that it was impossible for the bomb to have been built in Colombia without him knowing about it. It had to have come from elsewhere. He remembered that a good friend of his that I will call Reuben had been in jail in Spain at the same time as Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela, one of the Cali leaders. So Pablo made contact with Reuben, who told him that a member of the Basque guerrillas, the ETA, this person I will call the Maker, was also in jail at the same time. “I remember Orejuela talking to him all the time,” Reuben said. “The Maker was well known for being part of the ETA and he was a specialist in bombs and weapons.”
Reuben said that “after I got out of jail I was in Cali to pray at the town of Buga. I was in Cali and I saw this guy in the dining room of the hotel and he didn’t even say hello.”
For Pablo, Reuben agreed to try to get in contact with him. It was discovered that the Maker was in Colombia trying to make contacts to buy cocaine to bring to Spain. Anybody who wanted to be in the cocaine business knew about Pablo Escobar. So when the Maker got invited to Napoles he was happy to come. Pablo started talking to him. Definitely the Maker was having a nice time in that wonderful place. Finally Pablo said to him, “I heard you were in jail with a friend of mine. I need you to do me a favor. I need you to train some of my crew.” In return, Pablo offered to give him good prices on cocaine, telling him, “I will put more merchandise in Spain very cheap, cheaper than anybody else, but please help me out training my people with the bombs.”
And then Pablo asked easily, “Do you have any experience working in Colombia? You ever work for anyone here?”
The Maker replied, “Yes, as a matter of fact I met somebody in jail a couple of years ago and he brought me to Colombia to train some guys. I told them all the materials that were needed, how to put it in cars, how to activate them.” Pablo asked the name of the man he had worked for. “I trained the Indian, some guy called the Indian, ordered from a guy in Cali. They said they were going to do it against somebody in the government.”
“All right, I’m going to tell you what,” Pablo answered. “I’m going to help you with the drugs. You’re going to train my people. Here is $200,000 in cash to pay your expenses in Colombia. I’ll give you more money, but that bomb was against me.” The Maker was shocked. His face went white seeing he was surrounded by so many armed men, and he thought it was his last day on earth. “Yeah, it was against me, but don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything to you because you didn’t know. What I need you to do is work for me.”
The Maker agreed to do this, because he saw that Pablo was a serious person, and he started training the bomb makers that Pablo was to use in this war. Later he went back to Spain with a different identity and did many deals with Pablo to put merchandise in Spain.
The Orejuela brothers, Gilberto and Miguel, found out that Pablo knew it was the Cali cartel that had moved against him. Gilberto called Pablo saying something like, “Please, patrón, I didn’t do anything.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Pablo told him. “Co
me on, it’s too obvious. You called me right away when you put down the bomb. Do you remember your friend”—he said the name—“when you were in jail? We spoke with each other in an honest way. You did it. You started the fight so now be ready to get hit!”
Cali continued the fight. A couple of months after Monaco they did another bombing, this one coming against our mother’s home. At 4 A.M. they detonated a car bomb. My mother was in bed on the third floor and from the impact a huge picture of the Baby Jesus came down from the wall behind her, protecting her face and stomach, but her feet were uncovered. Some glass came down and cut her. She was brought to the emergency room by her friend Guillermina, who was always with her.
My sister Marina lived on the fourth floor with her husband and kids. She was six months pregnant and was rushed to the hospital where she gave birth to a premature baby. The baby had to live in an incubator for many weeks, but survived. One of the people who worked for her was killed.
On the fifth floor my older sister, Gloria, was wounded with shrapnel and was taken to the hospital. It was fortunate that no one in our family was killed. They destroyed the building and everything our mother owned. All the windows from the surrounding buildings were blown out. Pablo denounced the attack to the media, but the government looked away. The government prohibited the newspapers from printing stories about anything done to Pablo or his family so the people of Colombia did not know what was really happening.
When the war with Cali was starting Gilberto Orejuela hired a gang of very ruthless people of Medellín called Los Briscos. These guys were more into killing for the drug traffickers than dealing with the drugs. The head of this group got in touch with Pablo and said to him, “We are from Medellín so we have nothing against you. But Mr. Orejuela told me he wants to pay me $5 million for your head.”
Pablo said okay, “But you’re going to work for me from now on.” He said he had to get together an army and wanted them to be part of it. Then he said, “Here is your $5 million. I’m going to prove to you how weak Orejuela is. Tell him you need $1 million for the guns to kill me and show him pictures of me getting in my car from a long distance. That way you can tell Orejuela you have tracked me and easily can kill me.” The man was nervous but Pablo told him to go ahead, don’t worry. So he met with Orejuela in Cali and showed him the pictures, and the Cali cartel offered him only $5,000. “See,” Pablo said, “if he promised you $5 million if you were to kill me he would pay you only $2 million or something.” That was when Los Briscos started working for Medellín. Los Briscos realized that Pablo didn’t care about saving money like Cali did. And that made them want to work for Pablo.
But for Pablo that was also the last evidence he needed that the Cali cartel wanted to kill him. The question that never was answered completely was why Cali started this war. There are many who believe it was simple business: Pablo was making so much money and Cali wanted more for themselves. The American DEA said Medellín controlled 80 percent of the cocaine going into America. But other people believe it was the opposite; Cali controlled New York and Chicago and Medellín had Miami and Los Angeles. Then Pablo decided to do business in New York. So he sent Champion, the Lion, and Jimmy Boy to open up New York for Medellín. Maybe that started it.
Or maybe the war was started because Jorge Ochoa was arrested going to Cali and in return Rafael Cardona from Cali was killed.
Or maybe it was because Gilberto Rodríguez Orejuela had made strong relationships with powerful government officials. The government never went after the Cali people; instead they were considered los caballeros, the gentlemen of the drugs, while we of Medellín were los hampones, the thugs, because we used weapons to protect our property. It was said that Pablo liked to fight but Gilberto liked to pay bribes. Even the head of the DEA in New York said to the newspapers, “Cali gangs will kill you if they have to, but they prefer to use a lawyer.”
For whatever the reasons the war started with the bombs. We stayed running, but by 1987 we were fighting against the government and the army of the Cali cartel. And we were winning because Pablo fought back tougher than anyone could have believed.
Seven
ONE OF THE TIMES I CAME CLOSEST TO BEING KILLED—until I was bombed six years later—was on a Sunday morning in 1987. My son José Roberto and I were in a modest car that would not attract any attention. We drove out of my farm at the head of a line of five cars, each of the others having a driver and a woman lookout. But each car had complete surveillance equipment and my car was equipped with gadgets that I had copied from James Bond. For example, I could press a button and release a cloud of fog so no one could follow me, or spray oil on the road, throw nails on the road or even release six tear gas bombs.
We were traveling on the road to Medellín when two big Nissan Patrols with eight officers in each one signaled for me to get over. When I stopped, these cars pulled in front of me and behind me. At the time this happened I had no problems with the justice system so I had not believed it necessary to use my gadgets. The police could not know that one of my bodyguards in the car behind me was recording the event. They asked me for identification and I handed them an ID that identified me as Hernán García Toro with the number 8.282.751. I wondered if they already had knowledge that I was Pablo Escobar’s brother. The impossible thing to know about the police was whether they were working honestly or in the kidnap business. Or worse, if they were people just pretending to be police. There was no way of knowing.
The police were confused. They told me politely that they were looking for someone else and handed me back the ID. But then another policeman suggested that they take me somewhere so I could be “identified by our friend.”
I was not showing any nervous signs. I have always been a tranquil person. When I got the García Toro ID back I handed it to my son to hide in his pants. Then I signaled him to go into one of the bodyguard’s cars. It was a crime to use false documents and that was enough to send me to prison. We were in the middle of the road, causing a large traffic jam. These police were distracted. Finally one of them came back to me and asked, “Sir, can you give me back the ID please?”
I said, “I don’t have it. I gave it to you and you didn’t give it back. May I have it back, please?”
“What do you mean?” he said. “I gave it back to you.”
I shook my head seriously. “No, you didn’t. You took it away. I haven’t moved. Please, I’m going to see my mother and I would like my ID back.”
It seemed likely that they knew who I was, but they weren’t certain. Finally they put me inside one of the Patrols and ordered everyone else to leave. I nodded, and they got in their cars and drove off.
The police could not know that my bodyguards had recorded all of the police so we could identify them. A bodyguard called Lorena got into the car I had been driving. Under the seat there was a walkie-talkie tuned in to Pablo’s frequency. Lorena called Pablo and informed him of what was happening. She gave him the police officers’ license plate numbers. “Don’t worry,” Pablo told her. “Try to follow him, but stay away.”
They drove me around for a few hours. When we stopped, two men with their faces covered like bank robbers came over to the car. One of them looked at me and said, “He is Roberto.” I was pulled out of the car and told to walk with them. I thought, This is the end.
They led me to a trail. It was about eleven o’clock at night. I remember looking into the sky and thinking, There is no moon tonight. I was resigned to my fate. It was freezing and they weren’t talking. Finally I asked, “What are you going to do with me?”
“We’re going to kill you,” one of them said.
“That would be the end for you too,” I said. I lied, “My brother already has your pictures and recordings. When we stopped, remember that red BMW? It took your pictures. By now my brother has all of your information.”
They couldn’t know if I was telling them the truth. They began speaking with others on their own walkie-talkies, trying to figure out what
to do. They decided, “We aren’t going to kill you. We just want $3 million.”
We negotiated. In the forest, on a cold moonless night, we negotiated the value of my life. I told them I could only give them $1 million, but later we settled for $2 million. “I need to make my call to my accountant,” I said. We returned to the police car and they drove me to a pay phone. I dialed a number that reached only Pablo wherever he was. “This is Roberto,” I said to him.
“Can you talk?” Pablo asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you kidnapped?” I told him the situation. He said he already had a lot of information from Lorena and they were learning more from the video. Phone calls were being made to the police working for us and within a short time we would know the identity of the kidnappers. He told me not to try anything, the money was nothing for my life. Then he told me to put the kidnappers on the phone.
The kidnappers thought they were going to speak to my accountant. I watched as the color drained completely from the face of the one on the phone. I knew that Pablo had told him, “This is Pablo Escobar. I have all your information. You are responsible for my brother.”
We drove on country roads while we waited for the ransom to be delivered. As the night passed some of the police left us supposedly to go to places where the money might be delivered. I wondered if some of them had decided that kidnapping Pablo Escobar’s brother wasn’t such a great idea. I finally spoke with Pablo and he told me Carlos Aguilar, El Mugre, would organize the delivery. Two more policemen waited at that place.
We drove off another time. I was in the back seat with three policemen. I had established trust with these police, because we had stopped to eat and they had allowed me to use the bathroom. I kept looking for a way to escape, but I couldn’t find one. I was still fearful that once the police had the money in their pockets they would kill me.