by Mark Bowden
With his election, Pablo became a popular public figure. To an increasingly admiring Bogotá press, he became the "paisa Robin Hood." In April 1983, the magazine Semana profiled him warmly, noting only that the sources of his wealth "never cease to be the object of speculation." Waving his diamond-and-gold Rolex, admitting to his ownership of a fleet of planes and helicopters and vast real estate holdings worldwide, in the article Pablo traced the origin of his estimated $5 billion fortune to a "bicycle rental business" he said he had started in Medellín when he was sixteen years old. "I dedicated some years to the lottery, then I got into the business of buying and selling cars, and, finally, I ended up in property." It was, of course, preposterous. He was infamous worldwide in law-enforcement circles as a cocaine trafficker, and in private he flaunted the origins of his fortune. But if the price of political success meant constructing a false, legitimate excuse for his wealth, Pablo was willing to wink and nod his way to power. By the end of that year, his prospects seemed ascendant and limitless.
Pablo was much more than a rich smuggler; he embodied the youthful spirit of the age. Throughout the civilized world, a new generation was coming of age, one that had strikingly different attitudes toward recreational drug use than its parents had. The illegality of these popular drugs was part of their appeal. Using them was an act of defiance, an assertion of hipness. Whether they thought about it or not, everyone who snorted cocaine was executing a small bow to their intrepid Colombian suppliers. Just as Pablo's billions were the sum total of every furtive transaction, his risk was the sum total of all his users' petty risks. At the end of the long chain of illicit commerce that delivered the numbing substance to their nasal membranes, Pablo ran the Big Risk and reaped the Big Reward. He and the other narco kingpins were, at least for this brief period, popular heroes, the embodiment of cool, as glamorous as they were dangerous in pop-culture portrayals such as the TV program Miami Vice. In real life, Pablo played his role with panache. He would proudly point out to visitors at Nápoles the small plane that had flown his first shipments of the drug, mounted over the entrance to his estate. He built small, remote-controlled submarines that could carry up to two thousand kilos of cocaine from the northern coast of Colombia to waters just off Puerto Rico, where divers would remove the shipment and transport it to Miami in speedboats. He would send fleets of planes north, each carrying one thousand kilos. There was no way customs and law enforcement would intercept more than a tiny fraction. Eventually he was buying used Boeing 727s, stripping out the passenger seats, and loading as much as ten thousand kilos per flight. There was nothing to stop him.
But here things began to turn. Pablo was, foremost, a creature of Colombia. No matter how successful he became or what his image was in the larger world, he was primarily concerned with his place at home. In Colombia, it was one thing to grow rich shipping contraband and to liberally spread that prosperity, but when Pablo sought respectability, polite Colombian society rebelled. When he applied for membership to an old- line country club in Medellín, Club Campestre, a social center for the city's traditional ruling class, he was rejected. When he tried to take his seat in El Congreso the following year, it provoked a political storm that dashed Pablo's dream of social status and political power. It triggered one of the bloodiest decades in Colombia's history.
3
Newly appointed justice minister Rodrigo Lara could not have known what a dangerous step he was taking when he went after political "hot money" in 1983. Lara was a handsome, ambitious former senator with long, straight hair and bangs that fell rakishly across his face. Charming, gregarious, and passionate, he was a rising star at age thirty-five in the dissident faction of the Liberal Party, the Liberal Renovation Front, which Pablo had helped bankroll in Medellín. They called themselves the "New Liberals" and were headed by the charismatic Luis Galán, whom many Colombians saw as heir to the progressive reform tradition of Gaitán.
Galán had been defeated in a three-way race for the presidency in 1982 by Belisario Betancur, who by law had to appoint members of the opposition to several cabinet posts. He had picked Lara for the justice post, and the young minister wasted little time going after the creeping narco influence, which had been a theme of Galán's campaign. It was an issue popular with the public and the press, but decidedly unpopular with the nation's political leadership; nearly everyone running for office in both the Liberal and Conservative Parties had taken money from the cocaine trade. Lara made the issue his own. His denunciations of hot money delighted the U.S. embassy and marked Lara as a man of principle, but his motives were not all selfless. The New Liberals saw the Medellín faction backed by Pablo—and on whose slate he had been elected—as a rival. So Lara's attack on hot money was a way of protecting his own political base. He did not receive much support from Betancur. The new president was notably silent on the subject. The attitude in Bogotá power circles was merely watchful. They would let Lara march down that path, and it would remain to be seen whether making an issue of hot money would prove politically wise.
In the summer of 1983, Pablo was infamous in law enforcement worldwide, but he was not yet that well known in Colombia outside of Medellín. He had taken great pains to whitewash his criminal record during his campaign as Ortega's alternate, and the fawning stories about him in Bogotá's press had done little to enlighten the populace. While his name and associations were known within the halls of power, his election as an alternate to El Congreso did not itself create a public stir. Lara knew who Pablo was, and knew there was no more blatant example of hot-money influence than his election. He did not begin by accusing Pablo of drug trafficking directly, but he made it clear that the Medellín ticket was tainted by such associations. It is unlikely that Lara fully comprehended how dangerous an enemy he was making, but by the end of that summer he would find out.
Ortega, the primary Envigado representative, spread the word that he intended to publicly answer Lara's accusations. And on the appointed date, August 16, 1983, Pablo Escobar came to the capitol for the first time. Seats in the observation area, usually empty, were full. There were packs of reporters and photographers. Among the crowd was Carlos Lehder, the flamboyant cocaine trafficker, with his own entourage of bodyguards and consorts. All the public seats to the chamber were filled, but because Lehder, like Pablo, published his own small newspaper, he was admitted to the balcony press gallery. The hallways outside the chamber were crowded, and there was a low buzz of excitement. No one knew for sure what to expect, only that the narcos' progress into Colombia's government and public life had been publicly challenged, and there was going to be some kind of showdown.
Pablo arrived with a platoon of bodyguards, a chubby man with long, uncombed hair wearing a cream-colored snit and a dress shirt open at the collar. He was at first barred by the doormen, who refused him entry to the chamber because he was not wearing a tie. So Pablo borrowed one with a bold floral print. There was an audible gasp when he swept into the hall with his bodyguards. All eyes were on him as he took his seat toward the back of the chamber. He seemed ill at ease at the center of so much attention, and when he was seated he began chewing nervously on his fingers.
The house president, César Gaviria, immediately stepped down from his place at the front rostrum and loudly called for the removal of all bodyguards from the chamber. Gaviria was tense. He knew exactly who Pablo was, and feared the man was capable of anything. He had images of gunfire erupting inside the chamber itself. But with a nod from Pablo, the gunmen left quietly.
On the desk of every delegate in the room had been placed a photocopy of a check for one million pesos (about $13,000) from someone named Evaristo Porras, made out to Rodrigo Lara.
After the normal preliminaries, Ortega rose and asked to address the chamber. With his notorious alternate seated silently beside him, the congressman announced that he intended to talk about hot money, and that he welcomed the chance. He had no personal axe to grind, he said, but he wanted to respond to certain allegations m
ade by the justice minister. Lara watched from a seat at the front of the room.
Ortega asked if Señor Justice Minister knew of this man named Porras. Across the room, Lara shook his head no.
Ortega went on to explain that Porras was a man from Leticia, a town on Colombia's southern border, who had done time in a Peruvian prison for trafficking drugs. The check—Ortega waved it in front of him—was a contribution to one of Lara's successful campaigns for the Senate. Ortega said that Lara had not only accepted the hot money, but had phoned Porras to thank him for the contribution. The congressman then produced a small machine and played what he said was a tape recording of that phone call. Few in the hall could make out a word of the recording.
"Let the Congress analyze the minister's conduct with this person who offered him a million pesos," said Ortega. "But far be it from me to try to detain the minister of justice's brilliant political career. I only want him to tell us what kind of morality he is going to require of the rest of us. Relax, Minister. Just let the country know that your morality can't be any different from that of Jairo Ortega and the rest of us."
Ortega's comments were met with wild cheering from Lehder and his entourage in the press gallery. When this breech of protocol drew loud reproaches from other reporters and editors, Lehder glared back at them. In his seat on the House floor below, Pablo just sat, picking his teeth with short, fat fingers, rocking in the high-backed swivel leather chair, listening and watching silently, sometimes with a small, pained smile.
When Ortega finished, Lara stood to reply. He did not recall Porras or his check, but he knew it was entirely possible that the man had once contributed to one of his campaigns. It was an outrageous accusation. Covered in mire, Ortega was pointing to a spot on the lapel of an honest man.
"My life is an open book," Lara said. He offered to resign his office the moment any suspicion "whatsoever" fell upon his honesty, adding that the same could not be said of "complacent ministers affected by the blackmail and the extortion being perpetrated against Colombia's political class.
"Morality is one thing, but there are levels: one thing are the checks that they use to throw mud…but it is another thing when somebody runs a campaign exclusively with these funds," said Lara, his voice now singing with sarcasm. He was clearly unafraid of contrasting his integrity with that of men like Ortega and Escobar. "[We have] a congressman who was born in a very poor area, himself very, very poor, and afterwards, through astute business deals in bicycles and other things, appears with a gigantic fortune, with nine planes, three hangars at the Medellín airport, and creates the movement ‘Death to Kidnappers,' while on the other hand, mounts charitable organizations with which he tries to bribe a needy and unprotected people. And there are investigations going on in the United States, of which I cannot inform you here tonight in the House, on the criminal conduct of Mr. Ortega's alternate."
Pablo had no shortage of defenders. Ortega's argument was not without appeal in the chamber. He had appealed to a fellowship of sinners. If even Lara had accepted a tainted check, which of them would survive scrutiny? Another congressman from Medellín, also on the slate financed by the cartel, rose to portray the attack on Pablo as meritless and entirely political.
"It was only when Representative Escobar joined our movement that all kinds of suspicion were thrown on the sources of his wealth," the congressman said. "I, as a politician, lack the ability to investigate the origin of any assets…. Representative Escobar has no need to rely on others to defend his personal conduct, which, on the other hand and as far as I know, has not been subjected to any action by the law or the government."
Pablo made no comment as he left the hall that day, departing as he arrived, inside a phalanx of bodyguards. Outside the chamber, he was besieged by reporters. Ducking away from one who pursued him with a tape recorder, Pablo approached two congressmen conversing in the corridor. He stood awkwardly and silently beside them. One of the men, Poncho Renteria, startled and frightened, tried to break the ice by introducing Pablo.
"Professor," he said to his colleague, "you who have lived history—this is one of the superheavies of Envigado, Pablo Escobar."
Renteria's colleague looked Pablo up and down and, Escobar being a somewhat common name in Colombia, jokingly asked, "Which of the Escobars are you?"
Pablo managed a polite smile but said nothing. Two congressmen from Medellín then walked up, and Pablo left with them.
He was furious. The following day, Lara was notified by lawyers that he had twenty-four hours to present evidence supporting his accusations, otherwise legal action would be taken against him.
Lara knew that there was no doubt in all of Colombia—or the world, for that matter—about Pablo's criminality. This attack by Ortega confirmed that Lara had a bigger fight on his hands than anyone had imagined. And he was up to the challenge. Lara understood immediately that he was engaged in nothing less than a struggle for the soul of Colombia. Either the nation was for sale or it was not. He denounced the corruption and violence caused by drug trafficking and called for "a frontal fight, clear, open, without fear or retreat, running all the necessary risks." He called the Porras check a "smoke screen."
"My accusers could not forgive the clarity of my denunciation of Pablo Escobar, who through clever business deals has manufactured an enormous fortune," Lara said. Citing the vast sums of money earned by drug trafficking, Lara noted, "This is an economic power concentrated in a few hands and in criminal minds. What they cannot obtain by blackmail, they get by murder."
Lara had powerful friends. Days after the confrontation, the newspaper El Espectador unearthed stories from its files of Pablo's 1976 arrest for drug trafficking. There were mug shots of Pablo and his cousin Gustavo. Any pretense of Pablo's innocence was blown. So damaging was the story that Pablo's men raced around Medellín in a pathetic attempt to buy up every copy of the newspaper. Their efforts, of course, only heightened interest in the story. It prompted a renewed criminal investigation into the deaths of the policemen who had arrested him, and a new warrant was issued for Pablo's arrest. Weeks later, the judge who issued the warrant was murdered in his car. Then ABC-TV aired a documentary that accused Pablo of being Colombia's premier drug trafficker, worth more than $2 billion. He denied the accusation in an on-air interview. Claiming that he had made his fortune in "construction," he nevertheless argued for the great benefits the drug trade had brought to Colombia, reducing unemployment and providing capital for broad economic growth and investment. In the full context of these new revelations, Pablo's denials and posturing seemed ridiculous and self-serving. His fall from grace was hard and fast.
Over the next few months, Pablo was publicly denounced by Galán and kicked out of the New Liberal Party. The Congress began proceedings to lift his parliamentary immunity, and the U.S. embassy revoked his diplomatic visa. Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo renounced church support for Pablo's social programs in Medellín. Lara signed an arrest and extradition order for Lehder, who went into hiding. It was the first time the government had moved to implement its 1979 extradition agreement.
"The more I learn, the more I know of the damage that the narcos are causing the country," said Lara. "I will never again refuse the extradition of one of these dogs."
Then the government, adding insult to injury, seized eighty-five of the exotic animals at Pablo's Nápoles estate, charging that they had been brought into the country illegally.
Pablo fought back. He announced that unless the government renounced the extradition treaty, he and Carlos Lehder would shut down fifteen hundred businesses and put tens of thousands of people out of work. He held a political rally in Medellín and denounced Lara as a hypocrite and a tool of the U.S. embassy. But the revelations of past arrests and new arrest warrants were too much to overcome. Pablo's political career was finished. He was never again able to shake his identification with drug trafficking. He angrily withdrew from politics in January 1984, issuing a petulant statement reflecting his beli
ef that he was more attuned to the masses of Colombians than were his new political adversaries.
"The attitude of politicians is very far from the people's opinions and aspirations," he said.
Pablo complained bitterly to his friends about his sudden shift in fortune. He could not fathom Lara's behavior because he did not believe that anyone acted out of principle. The world was divided between those who lived in a dream, believing in right and wrong, good and evil, and those who lived with their eyes open, who saw there was only power and its prerogatives, reward and punishment, plata o plomo. Lara was clearly no fool. If he was immune to greed and fear, if he rejected hot money and was willing to risk his life, then to Pablo there could be only one explanation. The justice minister must be on the payroll of his enemies, either the Cali cartel or the United States or both. He was convinced of it. In his public statements he began referring to Lara as the U.S. representative in the Betancur administration. This was not a struggle between right and wrong; it was a power struggle, pure and simple. And that was a fight Pablo was convinced he could win.