Nicholas Escobar, the grandson of the drug lord, recounts the unspoken words of his uncle. Who was his great wealth and who “sold” it to the police before he was executed
He was not only the king, because remaining so, everywhere in the eternal memory – collective images, murals, prayers, family intimacy – was also “El Patrón”. Chief.
Unique, indisputable. Don Pablo Escobar, a man of hyperbolic ambition, hierarch of Evil, drug lord, instigator and author of countless deaths, cause and conductor of a Colombian civil war, wanted to have more than he had.
Despite everything. For the Colombian, one of the richest in the history of the world over the centuries, “Hacienda los N mbetetpoles” will remain iconic and illustrative, which is described in detail by Nicolas Escobar, Roberto’s son (master’s brother).
Nicholas is the great grandson of Don Pablo, and even in South America, the term “Don”, as occurs in southern Italy, is not only a prefix reserved for priests, but also for the wise, the elderly, the respected and mafia leaders.
Water skiing, helicopter and private zoo
Hacienda los Nápoles, a summer residence built in 1979, was located near Puerto Triunfo, 130 kilometers from his hometown of Medellín.
Escobar, who spent $ 70 million to buy land inside a 350-square-kilometer farm, wanted to have an airport and a helipad, swimming pools and artificial lakes, in which he and his friends would practice water skiing. . He bought lions, camels, ostriches, giraffes, hippopotamuses, and bison from every continent.
His nephew Nicholas, 50, the keeper of his uncle’s history secrets, has a lot to say: “My best memories of Uncle Pablo relate to that zoo. A magnificent reality, with all those rare, often exotic species, impossible for us children to see. “It was a park of wonders, a public place open to anyone without distinction.”
“Hacienda los Nápoles” organized football matches with professional champions and parties, where they often turned into orgies in front of him, the great master of ceremonies. Escobar loved the public, adored photographs, girlfriends and prostitutes, especially when he was very young. In the reinterpretation of the master through his nephew, Nicholas, wealth is essential for two coordinates.
Experience in the “branch” of the Campaign
“It took its name from the Italian city, Naples. Uncle had set up an important branch of drug trafficking. The money made from the sale of narcotics in Campania (the well-known region in southern Italy), was invested in the creation of “Hacienda”.
The second coordinate takes us back to the beginning, namely to the eternal legacy of a criminal career, holding on the one hand the worst of human nature and on the other hand, honored by the people for that strategy of the bosses to give what is not given by the state, to provide opportunities, to facilitate social redemption, taking advantage of indignation and ignorance to build consensus.
However, Nicholas swears by his uncle’s genuine interest: “In October, the project began to gather information from all the children, who lived in an area of about thirty kilometers around Hacienda. There was not a single child who on December 24 did not receive gifts to celebrate Christmas. And this, because Pablo Escobar was born very poor… “, – says the nephew.
Here he even intervenes to refute Colombian and American journalists about the patron’s miserable origins, on the contrary, belonging to a middle-class family with a trouble-free childhood.
In the neighborhood, two museums dedicated to the boss
In Colombia, the nephew takes care of two museums dedicated to his uncle, one in Medellín and the other in Guatapé, a city of five thousand in the department of Antioquia, whose capital is Medellín itself.
In the city, “El patron” financed the creation of a popular neighborhood, which, of course, is called “Pablo Escobar barrio”. A place surrounded by a mythological atmosphere: “There are 6,250 houses to be exact. Going to the neighborhood, walking her streets, being with her people… well, it makes me shiver and they are thrills. In general, the same thing happens when I go out on the streets of Medellin… My uncle’s Medellin.
The beauty and drama of Medellìn
Medellíni thus, a long ungovernable city in a nation just as difficult to tame and with unlimited beauty. Above all, according to legend, in the design of Colombia, God surpassed himself and was in a way an inevitable epilogue, wanting to quell the envy of other peoples, giving birth to a wicked and troubled gender, as a revenge (“We must look to the future, compared to that bloody era, today Colombia is a well-organized country”).
Obviously these lines cannot contain the suffering and blood of a land and its children nor do they further trace the genesis and development of drug cartels.
“It has been said on many occasions that with the death of Pablo Escobar, drug trafficking would cease, but he was the first to reiterate that trafficking will never stop as long as there are drug users. I believe that the process must be reversed: we must not fight drug traffickers but, on the contrary, educate the people who are the direct source of consumption, the youth and children who do not receive educational tools from the government to avoid falling into the abyss of drugs, which poses a immeasurable disaster for society. “Taking drugs is very simple, finding drugs is very simple: it is difficult to get out of the drug world,” Nicholas notes.
Netflix and Mamma Hermilda series
Narcos, the Netflix television series inspired by Killing Pablo by American investigative journalist Mark Bowden of good quality, was, in the opinion of some experts, “too pro-American,” based on contrast. simple among American investigators, called to fight Colombian traffickers, the good guys who save the planet from bad people.
Beyond the content, Nicholas’s father had demanded a mega-compensation from the producers, reiterating that he owns the rights to the products bearing the words “Pablo Escobar”. In every family, rivalries and clashes, poison like a snake.
The master’s son, if so, argued that it was Roberto, a drug trafficker, who betrayed Don Pablo, who was surrounded, as he was, obese and without soldiers on his side, tired and sleepless, in 1993 .
To this question, Nicholas does not answer. Or rather he answers with a lapidary phrase: “… La mama de Pablo lo entregó a la justicia para que lo mataran”. “(Pablo’s mother brought him to justice to kill him!”).
In short, according to other family members, after being the master’s loving mother, the elementary school teacher, Hermilda Gaviria, a woman described as smart and ambitious, who sold Escobar.
It was the chief, shortly before he was executed by Colombian-American special forces, who handed over to Nicolas antique parts of his treasury: last year he, the nephew, discovered in one of the palaces belonging to Pablos, $ 18 million hidden behind a wall…
Diaries, secrets and accusations against the government
There are rumors about diaries full of secret names, about arsenals bought by foreign powers, about other bags of money, in that inexhaustible oasis of drug trafficking that starts from the plantations of the villagers. Or maybe not.
“Farmers make their land available to produce cocaine and they are the ones who end up facing the war against the police. They are the ones who end up losing their lives to protect what is their only source of food.” . “The government does not offer the possibility of modifying the harvest, perhaps planting other types of crops, nor does it allow the heads of households to have the opportunity to harvest and sell the grown crops to extract another source of income.”
Power divided by Colombians and Mexicans
But who is in charge of traffic today? Nicholas? “If we talk about strength in drug trafficking, 99.99% of the world drug trafficking is managed by Colombians and Mexicans. Previously, there were two major cartels, that of Medellín and that of the Horse. After the deaths of Pablo Escobar and Chepe Santacruz, the place was taken by the curse and I say from the point of view that I had to live: when they died, the city of Medellín had to surrender to our greatest enemies… Since then, things have changed radically and today there are hundreds of small groups, not even visible to the authorities, – says Escobar’s nephew. – They manage the traffic, not like the old cartels did, according to a real, solid, articulated organization. None of this: now they manage the drug trade as if it were a shop. ”(Si newspaper)