Pablo Escobar Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
49 free Pablo Escobar trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Pablo Escobar trivia covers a man who was, at once, a tombstone thief, an alternate congressman, a Robin Hood to Medellín's poor, the owner of a private zoo and bullring, and a narcoterrorist who blew up an airliner and put bounties on police. At his death he was worth an estimated $30 billion, and 25,000 people came to his funeral. This quiz follows the whole arc: Rionegro and the forged diploma, the 1976 arrest with 39 kilos in a spare tyre, the founding of the Medellín Cartel, Carlos Lehder and Norman's Cay, 'plata o plomo', the 1982 seat in Congress and the expulsion by Luis Carlos Galán, the Lara Bonilla and Galán assassinations, Avianca 203, Los Extraditables and the Palace of Justice, the surrender deal with César Gaviria and the jacuzzi prison La Catedral, the 1992 escape, the Search Bloc and the rooftop shootout on 2 December 1993. It also covers Virginia Vallejo, María Victoria Henao's exile in Argentina, the Miami Beach mansion, the cocaine hippos, the 2019 demolition of the Edificio Mónaco, and Wagner Moura, Javier Bardem and Narcos. Easy questions suit anyone who has watched the series; the expert tier is for people who know the ransom paid for Diego Echavarría. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's article on Escobar, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Escobar co-founded and led which drug-trafficking organisation?
The Medellín Cartel
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.
Q 02By what nickname was Escobar widely known?
The King of Cocaine
The King of Cocaine earned the title: at its peak his cartel supplied an estimated 80% of the cocaine smuggled into the United States.
Q 03Where was Escobar shot dead as Colombian police closed in on him in December 1993?
On a rooftop
On a rooftop: cornered at a hideout, he fled across the tiles with his last remaining bodyguard and was shot as he ran.
Q 04Which magazine listed Escobar among the world's billionaires for seven years running, from 1987 to 1993?
Forbes
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.
Q 05What is the teenage Escobar said to have stolen, sandblasted and resold at the start of his criminal career?
Tombstones
Tombstones, reportedly; biographers also list fake diplomas and car theft among his early schemes.
Q 06Which Latin American strongman was convicted in a US court of letting Escobar's cartel run cocaine and cash through his country?
Manuel Noriega
Manuel Noriega took a reported $100,000 per planeload; after the US invaded Panama he was tried in Miami and convicted on eight counts.
Q 07The Netflix series Narcos tells Escobar's story through the eyes of agents from which US agency?
The DEA
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.
Q 08When the DAS arrested Escobar in May 1976, where did agents find his hidden cocaine?
In his car's spare tyre
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.
Q 09Escobar's policy of bribing officials or killing those who refused was known by what phrase?
'Silver or lead'
'Silver or lead' is 'plata o plomo' in Spanish, and the lead was no bluff: his gunmen went on to kill dozens of judges.
Q 10Which cartel co-founder turned Norman's Cay in the Bahamas into a private hub for cocaine flights?
Carlos Lehder
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.
Q 11What was the name of Escobar's estate in Antioquia, complete with a zoo and private bullring?
Hacienda Nápoles
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.
Q 12In 1982 Escobar was elected as an alternate member of Congress under which political banner?
The Liberals
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.
Q 13Because of his housing projects and football pitches for the poor, Escobar was nicknamed what?
'Paisa Robin Hood'
Q 21Which guerrilla group carried out the 1985 Palace of Justice siege that Escobar is said to have financed?
M-19
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.
Q 22Escobar was killed on 2 December 1993, one day after what personal occasion?
His birthday
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.
Q 23How did the police locate Escobar on the day he died?
Tracing a phone call to his family
'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.
Q 14Which justice minister accused Escobar of criminality in Congress and was murdered in 1984?
Rodrigo Lara Bonilla
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.
Q 15Which politician, who had publicly denounced Escobar, was assassinated on his orders while running for president in 1989?
Luis Carlos Galán
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.
Q 16Which airline's Flight 203 did Escobar bomb in 1989, killing all 107 aboard?
Avianca
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.
Q 17Which future Colombian president, the reported target of a 1989 airliner bombing, later negotiated Escobar's surrender?
César Gaviria
César Gaviria skipped the doomed flight for security reasons, won the presidency months later, and offered traffickers reduced sentences for giving themselves up.
Q 18What was the name of the luxurious prison Escobar built for himself after surrendering in 1991?
La Catedral
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.
Q 19What did the new national Constitution of 1991 prohibit, shortly before Escobar gave himself up?
Extradition of Colombian citizens
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.
Q 20What did the vigilantes who killed Escobar's allies and torched his properties in 1993 call themselves?
Los Pepes
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.
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.
Q 24Which rival organisation dominated the cocaine market after Escobar's death?
The Cali Cartel
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.
Q 25What was the name of the elite Colombian police unit created to hunt down Escobar?
Search Bloc
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.
Q 26How did Escobar and María Victoria Henao get married in 1976?
They eloped
They eloped because her family disapproved of him; she was just 15, eleven years his junior, and the marriage lasted until his death.
Q 27In which country did Escobar's widow and children eventually settle under assumed names?
Argentina
Argentina took them in under new identities, and years later the widow and son were investigated there over alleged money laundering.
Q 28Which anchorwoman, Escobar's lover in the 1980s, wrote Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar?
Virginia Vallejo
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.
Q 29Which animals from Escobar's private zoo went wild and became the biggest herd of their kind outside Africa?
Hippos
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.
Q 30By what nickname was Jhon Jairo Velásquez, one of Escobar's chief hitmen, known?
Popeye
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.