Medellín cartel
This essay will discuss the Medellín cartel. I will go over their methods for smuggling and distributing drugs, followed by a discussion of how they avoided the law for so long, and finally I will end by discussing how they were eventually dismantled and brought to justice. The Medellín cartel was a highly organized, hierarchical organization that was so successful in the drug trafficking business that at its peak it was bringing in more than $70 million dollars per day (26 billion per year) adjusted for inflation. The Medellín cartel was led and controlled by the drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. During the 1980’s it is estimated that over 80% of the global cocaine market was connected in some form to this organization. (Macias, 2015)
The Medellín cartel was heavily based in Columbia but had strong international ties all around the world. The cartel would source its cocaine from Chile and Peru, smuggle it through the Caribbean and into Florida and from there it would distribute the cocaine all over the United States. While called a cartel, Escobar and his partners chose not to control the supply and price of cocaine, instead preferring to pump as much of the drug into markets in the united states and Europe and let market forces naturally set its price. As they were bringing in billions of dollars Escobar used two main techniques to evade law enforcement: bribery and violence.
Escobar used his enormous wealth to buy the loyalty of Columbia’s poorest citizens. This was not bribery of the ordinary sort, he built schools and poured money into the tugurios (slums made up of houses built from cardboard and wood) building hundreds of homes where previously there had been a vast garbage dump (Green, n.d). He made significant changes to the livelihoods of Colombia’s most destitute and built an image around himself of being this Robin Hood figure. Where buying loyalty didn’t work Escobar turned to violence. He maintained a legion of sicarios, hired guns, who would kill anyone for him. Many of these hired guns were as young as 14 and came from straight the hellish slums of the city of Medellín. He would pay them anywhere from 100-3000 dollars to kill members of Colombian law enforcement and anyone else Escobar felt had crossed him. The cartel became so powerful that they had British and Israeli mercenaries train what was by all accounts an army of men.
Escobar, who at this point had been elected into Colombia’s congress because of his very public “philanthropic” work, was outed as a drug baron by Lara Bonilla and forced out of the Columbian government. Escobar retaliated by assassinating Bonilla publicly. What ensued was a decade of violence in Colombia after president Belisario Betancur declared war on the Medellín cartel. The United States government wanted Escobar and worked very closely with the Columbian government to bring Escobar to justice in an American court. Escobar famously vowed never to surrender, stating that he would rather have a grave in Columbia than a jail cell in the U.S.
The cartel came to an end on December 2, 1993, when Pablo Escobar was killed in a shootout as he attempted to flee a hideout in the city of Medellín. (Janos, 2018) Over 20,000 people mourned at his funeral after his death. Escobar showed the world the enormous power and influence a single person could acquire with enough wealth, resources, and willingness to use violence.
Bibliography
Macias, A. (2015, September 21). 10 facts reveal the absurdity of Pablo Escobar's wealth. Retrieved November 09, 2020, from https://www.businessinsider.com/10-facts-that-prove-the-absurdity-of-pablo-escobars-wealth-2015-9
Green, P. S. (n.d.). Cocainenomics. Retrieved November 09, 2020, from https://www.wsj.com/ad/cocainenomics
Janos, A. (2018, October 18). Who Really Killed Pablo Escobar? Retrieved November 09, 2020, from https://www.aetv.com/real-crime/pablo-escobar-death-murder-or-suicide