Cartel Corner #15: Growing up in Pablo Escobar’s Columbia

I grew up in Pablo Escobar’s Colombia. Here’s what it was really like.

by Bernardo Aparicio García

 

The night of the car bomb, my dad called home from his cell phone as he finished his rounds of the family’s bakeries. It was a nightly ritual, braving rush hour in his little silver Mazda to collect the day’s cash from each location. In early ‘90s Colombia, cash did not sit in registers a minute longer than it had to.

“Almost done here,” he told my mom. “I’m stopping by the store at Imbanaco next, and then heading home. If you want any food, call the store now so they can bring it out to the car when I arrive.” As on every other evening, my mom called the bakery and ordered some bread and milk for breakfast. She began preparing a light dinner, knowing my dad would be home in half an hour.

When nearly an hour had passed and he had not arrived, my mom called, not without a twinge of annoyance, to find out the cause of the holdup. There was no answer. Our phone rang a few minutes later, but it was my uncle Chalo at the other end.

Read the Remainder at Vox

Netflix Pix: Narcos

 

Netflix has really been on the international rise the last couple of years. Their worldwide popularity and millions of subscribers have allowed them to invest in several Original Series projects. I have discussed some of those series here before; Marco Polo, Peaky Blinders and their newest addition, Sense8.

Netflix latest international venture, Narcos is no different. In a nutshell, Narcos is the story of the rise of the famous Columbian Drug czar and kingpin, Pablo Escobar. Now what makes this series unique is it is not only a one-sided glamorization of the drug lord, God knows there has been plenty of those, no, where this series is different is that it also shows the Federal Law Enforcement side to shut down Escobar and his criminal empire. To say LE had to cut corners to get ahead would be an understatement; but in a country where Escobar owned everyone, including the local police and politicians, corners had to be cut to get things done.

The series also touches on how the famous Columbian “death squads” were formed. In Episode 2, M-19 (A Communist Guerilla Group similar to FARC, but much smaller in scale) kidnap the sister of one of the Medellin cartel’s founding members, the Ochoa Brothers. Escobar decided to combat these communist guerillas and the increased number of kidnappings of cartel members and their families by forming his own right-wing paramilitary organization, the MAS or Death to Kidnappers group. This group was formed with help from the Columbian Military the Cali Cartel and large financial donations from Texas Petroleum (Texaco)  By 1983, it was estimated the MAS death squads had killed over 240 people; mostly elected and community officials.

On that same note, this series goes out of its way in being HISTORICALLY accurate, for example in Episode 3 it talks about how the cartels stopped targeting DEA agents for assassination after the Kiki Camarena incident in Mexico in 1985. Camarena was an undercover DEA agent working to take down the Guadalajara Cartel. He was abducted, tortured and later murdered. The DEA in return dropped the hammer down on the Mexican cartels, opening the largest homicide investigation in its history. After it was all said and done, most of the Guadalajara cartel was in prison or dead. Drug Cartels the world over got the message: Don’t mess with the DEA.

In an era where there is a extremely violent and volatile criminal insurgency going on at the Texas/Mexican Border between US Law Enforcement and Mexican drug cartels, Narco’s  is a good historical study for the martial civilian operator. The U.S. government has proven they are not interested in securing the border and keeping Americans Safe from these animals, so it is up to the small remnant of Civilian Operators to take the responsibility.

Check out Narco’s, you won’t be disappointed!

Stay Alert, Stay Armed and Stay Dangerous!