El Patrón: The Rise and Ruin of Pablo Escobar

El Patrón: The Rise and Ruin of Pablo Escobar

Step into the opulent and bloody world of Pablo Escobar, the infamous "King of Cocaine," in this riveting podcast. From the jungles of Medellín to the halls of power, we explore:

• From hustler to kingpin: Witness Escobar's meteoric rise, crafting a cocaine empire that flooded America and fueled chaos.
• Terror under the Medellín Cartel: Experience the reign of violence and corruption that gripped Colombia in the 1980s.
• Billion-dollar playgrounds and Robin Hood myths: Unravel the contradictions of a man feared for brutality yet celebrated for Robin Hood-esque largesse.
• The hunt for El Patrón: Join the DEA agents and Colombian forces on the relentless pursuit to bring him down.
• A fiery demise and enduring legacy: Learn about his dramatic last stand and the ongoing impact of his cartel on Colombia and the global drug trade.

This immersive narrative exposes the truth behind the myths of Pablo Escobar.Subscribe now and dive into the captivating saga of El Patrón.

This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was born onDecember first, nineteen forty nine, in
Rionegro, Columbia. He grew upin a lower middle class family. His
father worked as a farmer and hismother was a school teacher. From a
young age, Escobar was ambitious andattracted to the idea of easy money.
As a teenager, he began committingpetty crimes like selling fake lottery tickets and

(00:24):
stealing tombstones to resell them. Escobar'scriminal activities expanded as he got involved with
smuggling contraband goods across the Columbia Ecuadorborder. In the nineteen seventies, he
got into the lucrative cocaine smuggling business. At first, he acted as a
middleman, buying coca paste in Boliviaand Peru, processing it into cocaine in

(00:47):
Colombia, and selling it to Mexicanand American drug dealers. Over time,
Escobar cultivated relationships with big cocaine buyerslike the Medalin cartel and militant Marxist guerrillas
like M nineteen. These connections allowedhim to cut out the middleman and sell
large quantities of cocaine directly. Todistributors in the US, his illegal business

(01:11):
boomed, making him immensely rich ina short period. By the early nineteen
eighties, demand for cocaine was skyrocketingin the US, and Escabar met this
demand, flooding the streets with thewhite powder. At the height of his
career, he was shipping up tofifteen tons per day and supplying eighty percent

(01:33):
of the cocaine sold in the lucrativeUS market. Escobar's personal wealth swored,
with Forbes Magazine estimating his net worthat three billion by the late nineteen eighties.
Escobar used this vast wealth to buyinfluence and goodwill among the poor in
Columbia. He funded the building ofhouses, soccer fields, hospitals, and

(01:57):
schools. This cultivated his image asa Robin Hood figure among Medeleine's poor slum
dwellers. At the same time,Escobar ruthlessly killed anyone who interfered with his
criminal empire, using bribes, intimidation, and horrific violence to exert control.
As his illegal activities grew, Escobarwanted to launder his dirty cocaine money,

(02:23):
so in nineteen eighty two he waselected to Columbia's Congress, which gave him
legal immunity from extradition and prosecutation.His political career was short lived. Escobar
was forced to resign in nineteen eightyfour after the Colombian Minister of Justice was
found murdered. The Medealine Cartel wasthe prime suspect. In nineteen eighty nine,

(02:46):
at the height of Escobar's power,he made Forbes list of World Billionaires.
But later that year, violence inColombia escalated as Escobar declared total war
against the government and caused destructive carbombings After the assassination of a prominent liberal
politician. Escobar also targeted police,politicians, and civilians using his network of

(03:12):
Sekarios hit men. The horrific violenceled to the nineteen ninety one Constitution,
which banned extradition, a major objectiveof Escobar's war. A special team of
national police started hunting down Escobar,tapping his phones and conducting raids to arrest
his associates. Escobar struck back byhaving dozens of police reporters and government officials

(03:37):
killed. These bloody reprisals turned publicopinion against Escobar. Fearing for their lives,
his associates gave away information, includinghis location on December two, nineteen
ninety three, a police raid onone of Escobar's safe houses in Medeleine resulted
in a fatal gunshot to Escobar's leg. At forty four, Pablo Escobar,

(04:01):
one of the world's most notorious criminalsand at one time the seventh richest man
in the world, was dead.Pablo Escobar left behind a gruesome legacy of
terror, violence, corruption in Colombia'shistory. While he is remembered by some
in Medealine slums as a benefactor,he was responsible for the killings of thousands

(04:26):
of people, politicians, journalists,policemen, as well as innocent civilians.
At the height of his power inthe nineteen eighties and early nineteen nineties,
Escobar brought Columbia to the brink ofbecoming a narco state entirely controlled by drug
lords. The immense terror and chaostriggered by Pablo Escobar and the Medeline cartel

(04:51):
led Columbia into one of the darkestchapters of its history.