49 Fun Facts About Pablo Escobar

Escobar co-founded and led which drug-trafficking organisation?

The Medellín Cartel turned a former street thief into one of the world's richest men, earning an estimated $420 million a week at its mid-1980s peak.

By what nickname was Escobar widely known?

The King of Cocaine earned the title: at its peak his cartel supplied an estimated 80% of the cocaine smuggled into the United States.

Where was Escobar shot dead as Colombian police closed in on him in December 1993?

On a rooftop: cornered at a hideout, he fled across the tiles with his last remaining bodyguard and was shot as he ran.

Which magazine listed Escobar among the world's billionaires for seven years running, from 1987 to 1993?

Forbes kept him on its billionaires list every year from 1987 until his death, and at his peak he was counted among the ten richest people on Earth.

What is the teenage Escobar said to have stolen, sandblasted and resold at the start of his criminal career?

Tombstones, reportedly; biographers also list fake diplomas and car theft among his early schemes.

Which Latin American strongman was convicted in a US court of letting Escobar's cartel run cocaine and cash through his country?

Manuel Noriega took a reported $100,000 per planeload; after the US invaded Panama he was tried in Miami and convicted on eight counts.

The Netflix series Narcos tells Escobar's story through the eyes of agents from which US agency?

The DEA's Steve Murphy and Javier Peña were real agents who worked the Escobar case in Colombia, and both were hired as consultants on the series.

When the DAS arrested Escobar in May 1976, where did agents find his hidden cocaine?

In his car's spare tyre, though some accounts make it a truck. He had one judge replaced, bribed the next and walked free, and the arresting agent was later murdered.

Escobar's policy of bribing officials or killing those who refused was known by what phrase?

'Silver or lead' is 'plata o plomo' in Spanish, and the lead was no bluff: his gunmen went on to kill dozens of judges.

Which cartel co-founder turned Norman's Cay in the Bahamas into a private hub for cocaine flights?

Carlos Lehder bought land on the island and flew cocaine in on small planes that refuelled there; a US court later jailed him for life plus 135 years.

What was the name of Escobar's estate in Antioquia, complete with a zoo and private bullring?

Hacienda Nápoles had its own airstrip and a zoo with giraffes and elephants, and he had concrete dinosaurs built in the grounds for his son.

In 1982 Escobar was elected as an alternate member of Congress under which political banner?

The Liberals took him on as an alternate for Envigado, but the party expelled him and he was driven out of Congress within two years.

Because of his housing projects and football pitches for the poor, Escobar was nicknamed what?

'Paisa Robin Hood' fitted the image he paid for: he built an entire barrio to rehouse families living on a rubbish dump, and paisa is the word for people from his region.

Which justice minister accused Escobar of criminality in Congress and was murdered in 1984?

Rodrigo Lara Bonilla was shot by gunmen on a motorcycle in April 1984; the killing ended official tolerance of the traffickers and sent the cartel's bosses into hiding abroad.

Which politician, who had publicly denounced Escobar, was assassinated on his orders while running for president in 1989?

Luis Carlos Galán was far ahead in the polls when gunmen shot him on stage at a campaign rally outside Bogotá, and the state answered with all-out war on the cartel.

Which airline's Flight 203 did Escobar bomb in 1989, killing all 107 aboard?

Avianca lost everyone aboard the Boeing 727 and three people on the ground, yet the politician the bomb was reportedly meant for had cancelled his plans and never boarded.

Which future Colombian president, the reported target of a 1989 airliner bombing, later negotiated Escobar's surrender?

César Gaviria skipped the doomed flight for security reasons, won the presidency months later, and offered traffickers reduced sentences for giving themselves up.

What was the name of the luxurious prison Escobar built for himself after surrendering in 1991?

La Catedral, nicknamed 'Hotel Escobar', had a football pitch, a jacuzzi and a waterfall, and he was even allowed to choose the guards who watched him.

What did the new national Constitution of 1991 prohibit, shortly before Escobar gave himself up?

Extradition of Colombian citizens was banned by a 51-13 vote of the constitutional assembly on 19 June 1991, and Escobar turned himself in that same day.

What did the vigilantes who killed Escobar's allies and torched his properties in 1993 call themselves?

Los Pepes, short for 'People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar', were bankrolled by his rivals and killed his lawyers and lieutenants while feeding tips to the police.

Which guerrilla group carried out the 1985 Palace of Justice siege that Escobar is said to have financed?

M-19, rebels who had once stolen Simón Bolívar's sword from a museum, seized the building; about half the Supreme Court's justices died and the traffickers' case files burned.

Escobar was killed on 2 December 1993, one day after what personal occasion?

His birthday: he had turned 44 the day before, and his son has long maintained that Escobar fired the final shot himself rather than be taken alive.

How did the police locate Escobar on the day he died?

Tracing a phone call to his family gave him away: he stayed on the line with his son just long enough for a police tracking team to fix the street he was hiding in.

Which rival organisation dominated the cocaine market after Escobar's death?

The Cali Cartel had helped fund the vigilantes hunting him and inherited the trade, only for its own leaders to be arrested by the mid-1990s.

What was the name of the elite Colombian police unit created to hunt down Escobar?

Search Bloc officers, about 600 police backed by US intelligence and training, chased him for over a year after his jailbreak and led the raid in which he died.

How did Escobar and María Victoria Henao get married in 1976?

They eloped because her family disapproved of him; she was just 15, eleven years his junior, and the marriage lasted until his death.

In which country did Escobar's widow and children eventually settle under assumed names?

Argentina took them in under new identities, and years later the widow and son were investigated there over alleged money laundering.

Which anchorwoman, Escobar's lover in the 1980s, wrote Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar?

Virginia Vallejo sought asylum in the United States in 2006 so she could testify about politicians' ties to the traffickers, and her memoir became a 2017 film.

Which animals from Escobar's private zoo went wild and became the biggest herd of their kind outside Africa?

Hippos: the few he smuggled in were judged too dangerous to move when his animals were rehomed, and more than 150 were roaming the Magdalena basin by 2023.

By what nickname was Jhon Jairo Velásquez, one of Escobar's chief hitmen, known?

Popeye confessed to hundreds of killings and spent more than two decades in prison; freed in 2014, he reinvented himself as a popular YouTube personality before his death in 2020.

Which Escobar apartment block, car-bombed by rivals in 1988, did his home city demolish in 2019?

Edificio Mónaco: his family was living there when the bomb went off, and the city cleared the ruin to build a park and memorial to the cartels' victims.

In which US city did Escobar own a pink waterfront mansion in his own name, seized in the 1980s?

Miami Beach: the pink house on Biscayne Bay was razed in 2016 by a later owner, whose treasure hunters found odd holes in the floors and a safe that was stolen before it could be opened.

Which actor played Escobar in the Netflix series Narcos?

Wagner Moura is Brazilian and spoke no Spanish when he was cast; he moved to Escobar's home city months before filming to learn the language from scratch.

Which Spanish actor played Escobar in the 2017 film Loving Pablo?

Javier Bardem starred opposite his real-life wife, Penélope Cruz, who played the television presenter whose memoir of the affair the film adapts.

What does the title of the hit 2012 Colombian series about Escobar, El Patrón del Mal, mean in English?

The Boss of Evil: its two creators were relatives of his victims, one of them the son of a newspaper publisher he had murdered, and the series sold around the world.

Who wrote the 2001 book Killing Pablo, about the hunt for Escobar?

Mark Bowden was a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter who had already written Black Hawk Down; like that book, this one first ran as a serial in his newspaper.

Which Nobel laureate wrote News of a Kidnapping (1996), a non-fiction account of Escobar-era abductions?

Gabriel García Márquez earned his living as a newspaper reporter before his novels made him famous, and he went back to the trade for this chronicle of kidnappings in his native Colombia.

The Two Escobars pairs Pablo with footballer Andrés Escobar, shot dead in 1994 days after doing what at the World Cup?

Scoring an own goal against the United States helped send Colombia home, and he was shot outside a nightclub ten days later; the two men were not related, and Pablo had died seven months before.

Kanye West said The Life of Pablo honoured three Pablos: Escobar, the apostle Paul and who else?

Picasso: West called Escobar 'the biggest mover of product' and Picasso 'the biggest mover of art', with Paul as the great influencer of Christianity.

In the 2022 parody Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, Escobar kidnaps which singer to make Weird Al play at his party?

Madonna, played by Evan Rachel Wood, is the film's villain; Weird Al storms the compound and kills the drug lord, and she takes over his cartel.

In which 2001 film does Johnny Depp play George Jung, an American who smuggled cocaine for Escobar's cartel?

Blow: the studio drew fire for promoting the film by handing out pocket mirrors at screenings, the kind used for cutting lines of cocaine.

The 2021 documentary Killing Escobar follows a failed 1989 hit by mercenaries led by a veteran of which unit?

The SAS: Scottish veteran Peter McAleese led a dozen British mercenaries, but the raid ended when his helicopter flew into a cloud-covered mountain on the way to the target.

In 2007, the luxury prison Escobar had built for himself was handed over to become what?

A monastery: the government loaned the ruin to Benedictine monks, who added a chapel, a library, a home for the elderly and a memorial to the cartel's victims.

According to his son, why did Escobar once burn about $2 million in cash while in hiding?

To keep his daughter warm: the family was holed up in a freezing mountain hideout and the girl was becoming hypothermic, his son told a Colombian magazine in 2009.

Barry Seal, the informant whose evidence got Escobar indicted in the United States, had worked for the cartel as what?

A pilot: the former airline captain flew cocaine for the cartel before turning informant, and gunmen it had hired shot him dead in Baton Rouge in 1986; Tom Cruise played him in American Made.

What did Escobar's vast country estate, zoo and all, become after the state seized it?

A theme park: the confiscated ranch lay neglected and overgrown for years before reopening as a family attraction with a zoo and water slides.

Which brothers co-founded Escobar's cartel with him?

The Ochoas (Jorge Luis, Juan David and Fabio) all gave themselves up in the months before Escobar did, and all three were out of prison again by the end of 1996.

Which Colombia goalkeeper caused a scandal by visiting Escobar in prison?

René Higuita, famed for his 'scorpion kick', was later jailed for seven months over his part in a kidnap ransom and missed the 1994 World Cup; he has said the real reason was the visit.

In which 2009 documentary does Sebastián Marroquín meet the families of Escobar's victims?

Sins of My Father follows the drug lord's only son as he asks forgiveness from the sons of a justice minister and a presidential candidate his father had murdered.