Cartel Corner #74: How Pablo Escobar, The Medellin Cartel and Jeb Bush Became “Associates”

In the late 1980s, Pablo Escobar’s Medellin cartel was the most powerful drug-trafficking organization in the world.

As such, Escobar and his associates had attracted the attention of Colombian authorities.

Violence in Colombia had increased throughout the decade, and by 1988, Escobar and the Colombian government had entered into “indirect” negotiations, during which the cartel leaders proposed a deal to preserve their wealth and end the government’s efforts to hunt them down.

In their effort to secure the deal and protect their business, Escobar and his associates tried to contact some of the highest-ranking members of the US political class, including a former secretary of state as well as a Florida power-player and presidential scion: Jeb Bush. Bush would later become governor of Florida and ran for president in 2016 before dropping out.

Escobar “and the traffickers of Medellín … offered to abandon drugs trafficking in return for — no more, no less — an end to extradition, a judicial pardon and a tax amnesty,” wrote Simon Strong in his 1995 book, “Whitewash: Pablo Escobar and the Cocaine Wars.”

At the suggestion of Germán Montoya, the head of then-Colombian President Virigilio Barco’s staff, the drug lords looked for a way to get US officials onboard with the deal, particularly the part about ending extradition. Montoya and others considered US approval essential to any agreement.

“In 1988, the drug lords reportedly attempted to hire the services of the New York firm Kissinger and Associates to mount a public relations campaign on behalf of the proposed trafficker-government accord,” Patrick Clawson and Rensselaer Lee wrote in their 1996 book, “The Andean Cocaine Industry.”

“No agreement was reached with the firm, however,” Clawson and Lee added.

The drug barons were not deterred. They waited until then-US President Ronald Reagan, a dedicated anti-drug warrior, was out of office.

The following year, through intermediary Joaquin Vallejo, a former Colombian senator and Escobar’s godfather, they turned their efforts to someone even closer to the White House than the firm of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Read the Remainder at Business Insider

 

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!