Medellin cartel

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Pablo Escobar's body
Photo of Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha shot dead in 1989
Family photo of the Ochoa brothers
Medellin skyline
View of a Barrio Popular in Medellin
Slum in Colombia
Coca plant
Powdered cocaine
Cocaine producing countries and transport routes

The Medellín cartel was, alongside the Cali cartel , the largest cocaine exporter worldwide from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s . It was led by Pablo Escobar , among others , and concentrated its activities from the Colombian city ​​of Medellín to the sales markets in the USA, with a focus on Miami and Florida .

The emergence of the cartel, which had the character of individual illegal companies operating side by side rather than a tightly managed criminal organization such as the Sicilian Mafia , was closely linked to the rapidly increasing demand for cocaine in the USA at the end of the 1970s.

The term "Medellín Cartel" was created in 1986 by two journalists from the Miami Herald , although such an organization, according to cocaine smuggler Carlos Lehder Rivas, did not even exist. The Miami Herald described the Medellin cartel as "the most dangerous criminal organization in the world". The DEA claimed that the organized crime of the Medellín cartel supplied 80 percent of the US market, according to Time magazine as much as 80 percent of world trade. Carlos Lehder Rivas, Pablo Escobar, Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha and the Ochoa family were at the head of independent organizations that cooperated with each other. There were also other activities in Medellín, Bogotá , Cali , Pereira and Barranquilla . The organizations from Medellín consisted de facto of 200 individual groups, which shared among each other in mutual profits, but were not controlled by a single person. The organization contributed significantly to the industrial production and worldwide distribution of the drug.

historical development

The rise of the Medellín cartel was partly due to the strong social tensions, great class differences and the ongoing civil war in the country. In the 1970s, 20 percent of the oligarchic upper class owned 70 percent of Colombia's raw materials.

“Colombia is a country that stopped in the 19th century. And after Brazil it has the most inequitable society in Latin America, the most elitist, most hierarchical society with the sharpest class differences. Only in the Arab monarchy is there such a fantastic concentration of power. Colombia is a country where there is no social mobility. The drug trade is perhaps something of a morbid answer to an overly rigid structure, because it gives people the opportunity to skip the stages of social advancement. "

- Jorge Gaitán : October 24, 1989 in Paris

The roots of the Medellin cartel can be seen before a longstanding violent conflict in Colombia. In 1948 the uprising of “El Bogotazo” gave rise to the period of “Violencia”, which lasted until 1958 and was justified by the civil war-like power struggle of oligarchic families on the side of the conservatives and liberals.

“The blood flowed in rivers, like the reddish floods of mud that shot down from the mountains. In Colombia it is said that God endowed the country with such beauty and all imaginable riches that it was unjust to the rest of the world; to compensate, he populated it with the worst kind of people. "

- Mark Bowden : Killing Pablo. Berlin-Verlag, Berlin 2001, p. 27. ISBN 3-8270-0164-1

In the 1960s, Colombia did not yet play a significant role in the global cocaine market, which was dominated by Argentina , Brazil and Chile . It was not until 1973 that the market moved to the north of Colombia and began jointly smuggling marijuana and cocaine. In 1975 the country exported about 4,000 kilograms annually to the USA. The transport routes from Medellín via Norman's Cay to Miami / FL have been continuously expanded by Carlos Lehder since 1978. The heyday of the Medellin cartel was the 1980s. After the death of Pablo Escobar and the collapse of the cartel, the routes of transport also changed. From Medellín and Cali, the cocaine was shipped via La Ceiba in Honduras to Tampico or to Brownsville in Texas . In the late 1980s, 80% of the cocaine sold in the US crossed the Mexican border, starting the rise of Mexican cartels such as the Sinaloa cartel .

Bonanza marimbera

The Medellín cartel was preceded by marijuana smugglers from the Colombian province of La Guajira , the “Sicily of Colombia”, who traditionally exported marijuana to the USA as early as the 1960s and 1970s . The Native American caciques (Kogui, Arhuaco ) levied a tax on transit through their territory. Cannabis was grown on the inaccessible slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta . The local planters received instructions on the production, selection of seeds , soil examinations and plant protection for the cultivation of the cannabis plant, which occurs locally in numerous wild forms. Agricultural engineers from the USA monitored the cultivation.

The Colombians were responsible for the cultivation, picking, baling, packing, transportation with mules, etc., and Vietnam veterans flew the finished marijuana to the USA. It was paid in US dollars, which brought the province of Guajira prosperity to the “Bonanza Marimbera”. Don Cipriano and Donald Steinberg were some of the first great marijuana dealers in the marimba. Riohacha and Santa Marta became centers of wealth, luxury villas were built, people drank Chivas Regal and had a fleet of several cars.

In 1981 Colombian dealers had a market share of 80 percent of the marijuana supply in the United States.

In 1987 the marimba was terminated by attack helicopters in Operation Fulminante . Marijuana production became insignificant in Colombia after the US increased acreage. Coca, on the other hand, only grows on slopes of the Andes and can not be cultivated north of Panama .

Main activity time

In 1972 the first coca plantings were made in the emerald zone of Colombia, Gacha and his patron Gilberto Molina founded the first major criminal cocaine trade organization.

When the cocaine smuggler Carlos Lehder bought the Bahamas island of Norman's Cay in 1978 to organize drug smuggling from there to the USA, Escobar, the Ochoa brothers Jorge and Juan, Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha (also known as "the Mexican") formed and Lehder himself established a network in and around Medellín that served as infrastructure for the profitable manufacture and trade of cocaine. The media coined the name “Medellín Cartel” for this network.

“Our goal is anti-imperialist and anti-oligarchic. Thanks to coca, the Latin American revolution would be possible because I believe that coca is the atomic bomb of Latin America. The Yankees are taking our riches away. Gold, emeralds, petroleum, coffee, bananas. We're just getting back the dollars that belong to us Colombians. And it's up to us what we do with it. "

- Carlos Lehder

The members of the cartel organized the purchase and transport of coca paste from Bolivia and Peru , set up laboratories for cocaine processing and runways in the jungle , which often had cloaking devices and technology for tracking down anti-drug authorities' radar planes. Escobar in particular bought the loyalty of the brutal gangs and paramilitaries on which the violent nature of the Medellín cartel was based. In the 1980s over 30 journalists, 50 Colombian judges and prosecutors as well as more than 3,000 soldiers and police officers were allegedly murdered on behalf of the cartel or Escobar. The murder rate skyrocketed in Medellín, in 1985 1,698 murders were registered, in 1986 there were already over 3,500.

Criminal groups outside the cartel also used its infrastructure and paid a kind of tax for it, so that Escobar and other leading figures probably increasingly withdrew from the active cocaine business.

Miami, previously ruled by the Cosa Nostra and Cuban criminals, has become the most important transshipment point for Colombian cocaine due to its geographical location. From 1978 the Medellín cartel took over the distribution and killed 250 competitors in the distribution battles from 1979 to 1981.

“Colombian gangsters are different from American ones. The American public cannot understand the mentality of Colombian criminals. For example, when the Colombians carry out a contract killing, they kill everything that is alive. They kill the maid, pets, children, and wife of the victim. And they force the man to watch. You kill him in the end. "

- Jack Hook, DEA agent

The cartel's revenues were estimated at $ 25 to 35 billion annually at the end of the 1980s, and most of the profits were reinvested in Colombia. In Colombia, this led to an upswing that was rare in Latin America, and the cocaine bosses therefore enjoyed a great reputation among the civilian population. Since they also bribed many politicians, the cartel was able to operate relatively unmolested in the country for years. However, the US steadily increased pressure on the Colombian government to take action against Escobar and the network.

In November 1983 the Hawkins-Gilman Amendment (Public Law 98-164) was passed, which coupled development aid with willingness to cooperate in the fight against drugs.

After several large laboratories such as Vila Coca and Tranquilandia in the Colombian rainforest, 160 miles south of San José del Guaviare, were destroyed with the help of the American anti-drug authorities in 1984 , Escobar tried terrorist means, the prison, the confiscation of his property and an extradition to the USA escape.

In the USA, the persistent excess supply led to a glut of cocaine.

"The cocaine cartel doesn't start in Medellín, but on the streets of New York, Miami and Los Angeles."

- Nancy Reagan : At the United Nations General Assembly, El Espectador, October 26, 1988

The Upper Huallaga Valley in Peru was the largest contiguous cocaine producing area in the world and was controlled by Demetrio Chavez Peña-Herrera ("El Vaticano"). In 1989 the first meeting took place at the Hacienda Napoles. Peña-Herrera had a deal with the corrupt DEA agent, Vladimiro Montesinos . Montesinos and the Peruvian Army guaranteed the safety of the drug transport from Peru to the Colombian border for a certain monthly amount. Pablo Escobar's brother, Roberto Escobar, was briefly imprisoned in Peru in 1983 and sought help from Montesino. With the help of the narcodollars, which came into the country through the alliance between the Medellín cartel and the Peruvian cocaine mafia, Alberto Fujimori was able to win his election as president.

After the Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan was murdered by the Medellín cartel on August 18, 1989, open war broke out between the cartel on the one hand and the government of Colombia and the USA on the other. For the first time, the Colombian authorities targeted the cocaine bosses, within a few days 12,000 cartel members were arrested and extensive property of the cartel was confiscated, including villas, exotic animals, armored cars, airplanes and cash in the millions. It was the phase of narcoterrorismo , as the organization responded with massive counter- attacks .

In the period that followed, leading figures in the cartel were killed (including Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha in 1989) or arrested and extradited to the United States. The war ended when Pablo Escobar and the Ochoas negotiated their task with the state in 1991. Escobar was taken to a luxurious special prison built just for him and his bodyguards, called La Catedral ( Spanish for cathedral ). He continued his business from there and enjoyed many freedoms such as visiting high-class prostitutes and material luxury. He was largely "guarded" by his own people. The situation escalated when he had the brothers Moncada and Galeano, leaders of two drug trafficking families in the Medellín cartel who are jailed for money disputes, killed and their bodies burned there. This act led to the break-up of the Medellín cartel. As a result, Escobar had to escape from prison.

As a result, former members of the cartel (especially the Moncada and Galeano families, led by Galeano's security chief Diego Murillo Bejarano ) and paramilitaries (Fidel and Carlos Castano ) founded Los Pepes . They waged a merciless war against the Escobars organization. The government and anti-drug authorities also intensified the search, with the establishment of the Bloque de Busqueda special unit . He finally found and killed Pablo Escobar on December 2, 1993. This was the final end of the Medellín cartel. It did not take very long, however, before the Cali cartel, and later other organizations, took its place. While the Medellín cartel traditionally conquered Miami and Florida as sales markets by force of arms ( Griselda Blanco ), the Cali cartel concentrated on the high-turnover New York area.

The army operated in conjunction with the Medellín cartel and the Colombian police were controlled by the Cali cartel.

End of the cartel

After the death of Escobar and other leaders in 1993, the Medellín cartel dissolved as a result of increased pressure from the state and the police. Some of the survivors formed factions. Fidel Castaño, Salvatore Mancuso and Diego Fernando Murillo Bejerano took on leadership positions in the paramilitary groups. Immediate war profiteers were initially the competitors from the Cali cartel . A short time later, the forces were reorganized and the Mexican El Chapo and his Sinaloa cartel took over a large part of the sales in the USA, heralding a new era of the cocaine business. El Chapo was still working for the Guadalajara cartel at that time and was a kind of middleman for the Medellin and Cali cartel. Gradually, the role of the Mexicans changed. El Chapo and his business partner and pilot Miguel Angel Martínez changed the rules of the game. From now on they were no longer middlemen in logistics, but after the power vacuum they were directly involved in sales themselves. The Colombians were largely pushed out of the market and forced to sell directly to the Mexicans. In 1989, the leader of the Guadalajara cartel was arrested and the organization split into the splinter groups Tijuana, Juárez and Sinaloa cartel. In 1990, the Sinaloa cartel's transport volume increased to three tons of cocaine per month, which are shipped to Los Angeles by truck . The profit margins are still extremely high. The purchase price per kilogram of cocaine in Colombia or Peru is around 2,000 US dollars, when crossing the Mexican border it is already 10,000 US dollars and in the USA it achieves a wholesale price of 30,000 US dollars. The Sinaloa cartel is believed to have a market share of 40 to 60 percent and gross revenues of $ 6.6 billion a year.

aftermath

After the Medellín cartel was broken up, the city remained the place with the highest murder rate in the world for many years. The unemployed Sicarios (contract killers) from Escobar and Gacha from the Barrios Populares in northeast Medellín (Comuna Noriental), such as the notorious Comuna 13 and Santo Domingo, joined the paramilitary AUC and fought the communist urban guerrilla in long-term and extremely loss-making wars.

Motorcycling contract killers were already available in Medellín for ten US dollars during the Escobar era. The Sicarios stood in line at some street corners and were mediated by 45 Medellín agencies for orders. A real service industry for contract killing emerged in the Comuna Noriental of Medellín. Sentences like “Kill, God will forgive you”, “Money, gun, motorcycle. And then life. ”,“ Killing as a sport ”,“ Shoot someone to see how he falls over ”and“ Live well as long as you live ”characterized the times of the Sicarios , of whom hardly any were older than 20 years.

Structure and leaders

Medellín Cartel organization chart

The leaders of the cartel included Pablo Escobar (head of the organization), George Jung (North American ally, largest cocaine trafficker in the USA), Griselda Blanco (business partner in Miami), José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha El Méxicano ("Minister of War", commander of the paramilitary units) , Carlos Lehder El Loco , Jorge Luis Ochoa Vázquez, Fabio Ochoa Vázquez , José Abello Silva El Mono Abello (from Santa Marta , head of the Atlantic coast, seventh place in the hierarchy of the cartel), Gilberto Molina ("Emerald King" from Boyacá), Gustavo de Jesús Gaviria Rivero León (Escobar's cousin and his right hand), Mario Henao Vallejo “Paco” (Escobar's brother-in-law), Juan Matta-Ballesteros El Negro (Escobar's friend), Luis Fernando Gaviria Gómez Abraham (Escobar's cousin), Dandeny “La Quica “Muñoz Mosquera (commander of the hit men), José Duarte Acero (another hit man), Gustavo Gaviria Rivero (Escobar's cousin) and Gerardo Kiko and William Moncada Cuartas (G eld wash).

Escobar and the Ochoa family formed the core of the cartel and had the typical values ​​of the paisas from the province of Antioquia : Catholic, conservative, large number of children, bold, daring, extremely enterprising and with a strong propensity for money and profit . The Paisas see themselves as descendants of the Basques and Sephardi of Spain, whose proverbial hard work contributed significantly to the rise of the industrial metropolis Medellín. They also involved industrialists from the textile and ceramics industry with the so-called "apuntame", i. H. Business people participated proportionally in the deliveries. The "Antioquia Syndicate" was created as a loose association of around 150 companies that controlled the purchase of coca paste and the sale of cocaine. The coca industry came into being through the supply of finance capital to make the labor of the productive forces profitable. In 1979 the DEA issued a worrying investigation that found that in some areas of Colombia drug traffickers were much more powerful than the central government in Bogotá . The Medellín cartel directly employed about 4,000 people and one million Colombians lived indirectly from the coca industry.

In addition, were Max Mermelstein , Jon Roberts and Mickey Munday involved in the transactions of the Medellin cartel in Miami. Along with Fabio Ochoa, Rafael Cardona Salazar was the highest-ranking member of the cartel in the United States.

Fidel Castaño Gil “Rambo”, Carlos Castaño Gil and Henry de Jesús Pérez (leaders of the paramilitary units under the command of Gacho) and Gilberto Rendón Hurtado (seventh in the cartel hierarchy, subordinate of the paramilitary units) were important liaisons from the region Medio Magdalena. By the late 1980s, well over 2,000 men were working only for the organization's paramilitary apparatus in Medellín. Known "soldiers" were: Popeye , Hernán Darío Henao HH , Alfonso Leon Puerta Muñoz El Angelito , Mario Castaño Molina El Chopo , Roberto Escobar Gaviria El Osito , Eduardo Avendaño Arango El Tato , brances Alexánder Muñoz Mosquera Tyson , Álvaro de Jesús Agudelo El Limón , Luis Carlos Alzate Urquijo El Arete , Fabián Tamayo Chiruza , Johny Rivera Acosta El Palomo , Juan Carlos Ospina Álvarez El Enchufe , Leo , Luis Carlos Aguilar Gallego El Mugre , Jhon Jairo Posada Valencia El Tití , Otoniel de Jesús González Franco Otto , Alfonso Puerto Muñoz La Cuca , Leon , Temblor , Conavi , Turquía , El Japonés , Tavo , El Duro , Jhoncito , Abraham and John Jairo Arias Tascón alias Pinina .

"Pinina", "El Mugre" and "Tyson" commanded the network of young sicarios from the slums of Medellín. The Sicarios sometimes took shooting and motorcycle lessons in order to quickly kill their victims in an attack and then to be able to disappear again in the heavy traffic. Many innocent people were killed during these "exercises". The method of using minors for drug trafficking and contract killing was later copied in many other Latin American countries . Even after the end of the Medellin cartel, the system of sicarios continued to establish itself in the society of Colombian slums. In 1990 there was another wave of violence in Medellín, which already claimed around 3,000 victims in the first half of the year.

“To be young, male and poor, to stand around on a corner or to drink a beer in a pub is enough for a death sentence in Medellín,” complains one slum dweller. "Hired killers, sicarios, have made killing their profession."

- DER SPIEGEL, go to bed early. August 27, 1990

"Popeye" (* 1962), security chief and lieutenant of the cartel, has committed around 300 murders by his own account. Jhon Jairo Velásquez Vásque was considered one of the most loyal vassals of Escobar. He even killed his own girlfriend for being ordered to. In an interview with SPIEGEL, he confessed that in the 1980s he kidnapped, raped and murdered a number of women and then threw them in the trash. He mostly dismembered the corpses of his opponents and then threw the remains into the Río Medellín. He turned himself in to the police in 1992 and is considered one of the last survivors of the Medellin cartel. When he was released after 15 years in prison, he said that given the many enemies he still had, his chance of survival was 80%.

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria

At the beginning of his criminal career, Escobar officially ran a bicycle repair shop in Medellín, where he sold auto parts as stolen goods and later bought coca base paste from Perú , which was processed into a marketable product in simple backyard laboratories . Don Cipriano imported acetone and ether for Escobar's drug labs in Medellín. In 1975 Pablo Escobar made the acquaintance of "Rubín", a pilot who, on behalf of the Ochoa brothers, transported cocaine to the United States on a small scale. The annual deliveries were currently 40 to 60 kilograms. From this connection a company emerged which initially limited itself to a “tax” on the transport routes and, thanks to the enormous profits, soon grew into a large organization. The bank balances of the four major cities in Colombia doubled between 1976 and 1980. In 1975, an airplane was confiscated in Cali that had over 600 kilograms of cocaine on board. A lot that far exceeded the police's previous assumptions. The removal of the goods triggered a war between rival drug gangs that lasted several days, and 40 people died. In 1978, Escobar bought its first sport airplane to transport drugs to Florida. His association with Carlos Lehder led to the organization's rapid rise. The business volume grew steadily and the drug market in the USA demanded steadily increasing deliveries. As early as 1976, after a short prison stay, Pablo Escobar was considered the unofficial “drug king of Medellín”, and an era of previously unknown luxury and wealth began. In 1979 he bought the "Hacienda Los Nápoles" near Puerto Triunfo on the Río Magdalena, which at that time became a synonym for immense opulence. Pablo Escobar, together with the Ochoa brothers, was the undisputed head of the organization. At the height of his power, he averaged $ 420 million in weekly earnings and was named the seventh richest man in the world by Forbes magazine in 1989. Pablo Escobar owed his rise in large part to the power of arms and his own ruthlessness and brutality. For him, the motto was: Plata o plomo (literal translation: "silver or lead") - bribery or the bullet. In the “Catédral” prison, for example, Pablo Escobar had his two old companions and brothers in arms Gerardo “Kiko” Moncada and Fernando Galeano, two subordinates of independent families who had been there from the beginning and whose children had Pablo as their godfather, killed in a cruel manner , because they had fallen out of favor because of an unpaid "war tax". Escobars Sicarios later killed other family members of the two murdered subordinates.

Ochoa brothers

Jorge, Juan David, Fabio Junior and Angela Maria Ochoa specialized in the cocaine trade early on. Jorge Ochoa operated the business through his import-export company Sea-8 Trading Corp. Jorge was head of the export department from Medellín and Fabio was sales manager in Florida . The Ochoa family was a long-established, conservative and wealthy family from Medellín under the patriarchate of Don Fabio Ochoa Restrepo (* 1923, † 2002), who ran a very successful horse breeding business. The Ochoas were a respected family in Antioch who often held their conferences in the family's Las Margaritas restaurant.

Carlos Lehder

Carlos Lehder was born in Armenia , Quindío Province in 1949 and later immigrated to the United States with his family. Even in his youth he developed a great antipathy for the USA . In his opinion, immigrants from Latin America were discriminated against and badly treated there. He did business with Robert Vesco early on and built cocaine smuggling into a very successful multinational. In 1977 he was deported to Colombia after serving several prison terms. He bought the Bahamas island of Norman's Cay and expanded it into his private fortress and as a stopover for his transport aircraft. He later bought large haciendas in the Llanos and his home province of Quindio. In Armenia, he also founded legal businesses such as the La Posada Alemana tourist center , a car import company and the Cebú Quindío cattle breeders' association .

“I am a foreigner and I feel like an Indian in the White Man's court. Colombia has been through 35 years of civil war and extradition has caused this war to flare up again. "

- Carlos Lehder at his Jacksonville trial in 1988

Lehder played a central role in the cartel as he developed the transport system to smuggle the drugs into the US in large quantities. After a stay in prison, the German-American brought his cellmate George Jung together with Pablo Escobar, which resulted in an important strategic alliance for the US market.

Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

The gacha, also known as "El Méjicano", feared for its cruelty, commanded the tightly organized and disciplined private armies of the Medellín cartel, which had around 15,000 men under arms. Gacha and his paramilitary troops conquered the Medio Magdalena area in the province of Antioquia. The fertile central Magdalena Valley with the city of Puerto Boyacá became the scene of bloody conflicts for several years, which ended with the complete annihilation of the left-wing resistance of the guerrillas . Thousands of farmers were murdered in the massacres. In addition to Gacha, Colonel Faruk Yanine Diaz, commander of the 14th Army Brigade, was also involved in the liquidations. The cattle breeders organized themselves in the militant ACDEGAM (Asociación Campesina de Ganaderos y Agricultores del Magdalena Medio - Association of cattle breeders and farmers of the Medio Magdalena Valley) before they were replaced by the paramilitary troops and "peasant self-defense troops".

Gacha's militias later “cleared” other areas such as parts of the Llanos , the provinces of Córdoba and Urabá on behalf of the large landowners . Barrancabermeja suffered particularly badly from the armed conflict and is still one of the most violent places in the world today. The paramilitary groups created an atmosphere of permanent threat. In Puerto Berrio z. For example, the street lights were switched off at night and in the morning the numerous corpses of the nocturnal cleanups were found on the street. The paramilitary militiamen were mainly recruited from the slums of Medellín.

Evaristo Porras

Evaristo Porras was the drug lord from the smuggling town of Leticia on the border with Peru and Brazil . Leticia, also known as the “Coca Wall Street”, was the marketplace for paste sellers from Peru and Ecuador and Colombian buyers. The most important business partner was the wholesaler Escobar. Porras was responsible for the procurement of the raw material, Escobar for the processing and Lehder for the transport to the USA.

Griselda Blanco

Griselda Blanco (born February 15, 1943 in Santa Marta , Colombia, † September 3, 2012 ibid), also called the "grandmother of cocaine", "the godmother", "Ma Baker of the Cocaine Cowboys", "Viuda Negra", " Black Widow ”or“ La Madrina ”, was one of the“ most ruthless and cruel ”leaders of the Colombian Medellín cartel in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s. She was considered one of the pioneers of the Medellín cartel in Miami and founded her own organization there. Blanco was married three times and had four sons named Dixon, Uber, Osvaldo and Michael Corleone Sepulveda.

Production and sales

Coca is relatively resistant to defoliants and herbicides. In Peru and Bolivia, thousands of years of breeding work resulted in the development of high-yielding and rich varieties.

The pasta básica is obtained from the coca leaves, this intermediate product is mixed with acetone and industrially processed into a highly pure product (roca). Important coca-growing regions in Colombia, which were completely controlled by the Medellín cartel, were v. a. Caquetá , Guaviare , Putumayo and Meta .

Production regions and laboratories were protected by the heavily armed private army from attacks by other syndicates and the DEA, some with anti-aircraft missiles from the cartel .

In addition, coca paste from Peru and Bolivia was bought and processed in Colombian laboratories. Cocaine was then transported from Colombia to Miami / Florida by sport aircraft via a stopover in the Bahamas or the Bermuda Islands . Miami became the main hub for cocaine imports from South America .

In addition to the Medellín and Cali cartels , a number of small businesses began to expand within the framework of the enormous profit margins, sales rose from grams to kilograms to hundredweight / ton, with the large quantities only being provided by the larger organizations.

In 1965, 100% of the cocaine business in Miami was run by the Cuban Mafia, and in 1978 the Medellín cartel replaced the Cubans in a series of massacres and eliminated all competition within a very short time. Between 1979 and 1981, 250 people were victims of the drug war in Miami alone. The main battle was to expand territories and market shares.

The main purpose of violence was to demonstrate power, the motto of the Medellín cartel was: “No dejársela montar” , “ Do n't let anyone harass you” ”. Murder was used to deter competitors or unwilling debtors. An “enforcer” by Griselda Blanco coined the phrase from the time of the cocaine wars in Miami from 1978 to 1982: “ Either you pay or he comes with a chainsaw ”.

Miami was the distribution area of ​​the Medellín cartel, while New York, the world's largest cocaine market , was supplied by the Cali cartel alongside Louisiana , Houston and Los Angeles . The distribution of cocaine in New York and Miami was facilitated by the large number of Colombian immigrants.

In the 1980s, 1 gram of 99 percent pharmaceutical grade cocaine was $ 3 to manufacture, but $ 90 to $ 120 to buy on the street. In 1986, 1 kg of cocaine had a market value of USD 6,000 to 9,000 in Colombia , and a wholesale price of around USD 30,000 in the USA .

The Medellín Cartel controlled the entire cocaine value chain from cultivation to delivery to the consumer.

Tranquilandia and Villa Coca

Tranquilandia (1984)

Tranquilandia I, II and III and Villa Coca were industrial complexes of the cartel in the Colombian rainforest of Caquetá, which were built in the 1970s and were under the direction of Rodríguez Gacha. It was believed that over 1,000 workers were employed in 19 laboratories. The manufacturing facilities were equipped with packaging machines, power generating sets, gas purifiers, forklifts, thousands of drums of ether and acetone, dormitories for hundreds of workers, and an elegant casino. Tranquilandia had an annual production capacity of over 300 tons. Besides the larger complexes, there were a number of smaller ones such as Coquilandia and Pascualandia, which were located north of the Rio Yarí. The DEA discovered the production facilities on satellite images and destroyed them in 1984 in the large-scale Operation Tranquilandia Bust .

Acts of terrorism

  • May 30, 1989: attempted attack on Miguel Maza Marquez, director of the Colombian secret service Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS) in Bogotá by means of a car bomb; 4 dead, 37 injured
  • September 2, 1989: Car bomb against the newspaper publisher El Espectador in Bogotá , 84 injured, whose publisher Guillermo Cano Isaza was previously killed on December 17, 1986 on orders from Escobar
  • October 16, 1989: Car bomb against the newspaper Vanguardia Liberal in Bucaramanga, 4 dead
  • November 27, 1989: Bomb on Avianca flight 203 over Bogotá to kill César Gaviria Trujillo, who, however, was not in the plane, killing 110 people
  • December 6, 1989: £ 1,100 bomb against DAS headquarters in Bogotá during morning traffic, 50 dead, over 600 injured, over 300 commercial facilities destroyed
  • May 13, 1990: Two bombs detonated independently of one another in the Quiriga and Niza shopping centers during Mother's Day in Bogotá, 14 dead and over 100 injured
  • February 16, 1991: The Medellín cartel explodes a £ 440 bomb in the La Macarena bullring, killing 22
  • January 30, 1993: Car bomb in downtown Bogotá kills 20 people
  • April 15, 1993: Car bomb kills 15 people and injures over 100 in a shopping mall in northern Bogotá

Known victims

  • 1976: Escobar has DEA agents Luis Vasco and Gilberto Hernandez killed. They were the first civil servants to fall victim to the cartel.
  • April 30, 1984: Assassination of Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla on a motorway by two armed motorcyclists.
  • July 1985: Tulio Manuel Castro Gil, Chief Justice, dies in submachine gun fire from motorcyclists.
  • July 31, 1986: Hernando Baquero Borda, judge of the Higher Regional Court, is killed in Bogotá.
  • November 1986: Jaime Ramirez, a police colonel in an anti-drug unit, is killed in Fontibon / Bogota and his wife and son are seriously injured.
  • December 1986: Motorcycle killers kill Guillermo Cano Isaza, the publisher of El Espectador.
  • October 1987: Jaime Pardo Leal, presidential candidate and head of the Patriotic Union is killed.
  • January 1988: Carlos Mauro Hoyos, Attorney General, is shot dead in Medellín.
  • July 1989: Antonio Roldán Betancur, governor of Antioquia , is killed by a car bomb.
  • August 1989: Valdemar Franklin Quintero, commander of the Antioquia police force , is murdered in Medellín.
  • August 1989: Presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán is murdered while performing in the central square of Soacha (near Bogota).
  • August 1989: Chief Justice Carlos Ernesto Valencia is shot dead by contract killers after attempting to charge Escobar with the murder of Guillermo Cano.
  • November 1989: Jorge Enrique Pulido, journalist and director of JEP Television is shot dead in Bogotá.
  • January 1991: Diana Turbay, journalist and editor of Hoy por Hoy magazine is killed.
  • May 1991: Enrique Low Murtra, Minister of Justice, is murdered in downtown Bogotá.
  • September 1992: Myriam Rocio Velez, chief judge, is shot dead by contract killers when she tries to indict Escobar with the murder of Galán.

See also

literature

  • Myléne Sauloc and Yves Le Bonniec: Tropical snow - cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits, an economic report , Rowohlt, Reinbek b. Hamburg, 1994, ISBN 3-498-06291-3 .
  • Ciro Krauthausen: Modern Violence in Colombia and Italy , Campus, 1994
  • Guy Gugliotta and Jeff Leen: Kings of Cocaine Inside the Medellín Cartel an Astonishing True Story of Murder Money and International Corruption , Simon & Schuster, 1989, ISBN 978-067164957-9 .
  • David Fisher: The Accountant's Story: Inside the Violent World of the Medellín Cartel , Grand Central Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-044617894-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 94 .
  2. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 93 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Cocaine Republic of Colombia. In: The mirror special. No. 1, 1989 ( online ).
  4. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 95 .
  5. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 96 .
  6. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 97 .
  7. ↑ Klaus Ehringfeld: Drug billionaire Pablo Escobar - The Snow King . In: spiegel.de. December 2, 2013, accessed May 15, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 458 .
  9. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 56 .
  10. ↑ a b c d e Cocainenomics - The story behind the Medellín Cartel. In: wsj.com . Retrieved May 17, 2018 (English, Spanish, sponsor generated content).
  11. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 19 .
  12. ^ Life in the Drug Trade . In: Time . November 23, 1981 (English, free preview; full text for a fee [accessed on May 19, 2018]).
  13. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 20 .
  14. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 21 .
  15. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 23 .
  16. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 22 .
  17. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 59 .
  18. ↑ Drug Enforcement Administration - History 1980–1985. (PDF; 1.5 MB) In: dea.gov. P. 2 , archived from the original on May 19, 2018 ; accessed on May 1, 2019 (English).
  19. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 42 .
  20. ^ Richard Smitten: The Godmother. In: articles.sun-sentinel.com. February 19, 1989, accessed on January 7, 2019 (English, as of January 7, 2019 due to changed EU data protection regulations not available in most European countries): "'Colombian gangsters are different than American gangsters,' says DEA agent Jack Hook. 'The American public doesn't understand the mentality of the Colombian criminal. For example, when the Colombians order a hit, they kill every living thing. They kill the maid, the pets, the children, the victim's wife. And they make the victim watch while they do it. They kill him last. '"
  21. ^ Jorge Gaitán on October 24, 1989 in Paris: Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: Tropenschnee. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 81 .
  22. ^ Sewall Hamm Menzel: Cocaine Quagmire - Implementing the US Anti-drug Policy in the North Andes-Colombia . University Press of America, 1997, ISBN 978-0-7618-0751-3 , pp. 30 (English).
  23. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 93, 464 .
  24. ↑ Pablo Escobar's Secret CIA Connection In Peru Made Him Billions. In: xpatnation.com. July 9, 2015, archived from the original on February 1, 2016 ; accessed on May 20, 2018 (English).
  25. ↑ Masacre de La Catedral. 1992. In: proyectopabloescobar.com. May 2007, Retrieved May 20, 2018 (Spanish).
  26. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 101 .
  27. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 109 .
  28. ↑ Patrick Radden Keefe: The cocaine cartel . In: Welt am Sonntag . July 1, 2012 ( welt.de [accessed May 24, 2018]).
  29. ↑ Pascual Serrano: Sicarios en Medellín - Conviviendo con la muerte. In: pascualserrano.net. November 15, 1996, archived from the original on February 14, 2007 ; accessed on May 14, 2018 (Spanish).
  30. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 133 .
  31. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 46 .
  32. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 47 .
  33. ^ Popeye: el perfil de un sicario. In: taringa.net. September 20, 2009, Retrieved May 25, 2018 (Spanish).
  34. ^ El dia que El Bloque de Búsqueda da de baja a Mario Alberto Castaño Molina, "El Chopo". In: pabloescobargaviria.info . May 31, 2020, accessed June 30, 2020 (Spanish).
  35. ^ Andrzej Rybak: Roberto Escobar - The accountant . In: The time . No. 05/2017 , January 26, 2017 ( zeit.de [accessed on May 14, 2018]).
  36. ↑ Asesinado Eltato Avendaño. In: eltiempo.com. June 24, 1997, Retrieved May 14, 2018 (Spanish).
  37. ^ Pablo Escobar, Arquivos Periodisticos
  38. ↑ La lista de los sicarios más peligrosos de Pablo Escobar. In: infobae.com. August 26, 2014, archived from the original on August 28, 2014 ; accessed on May 16, 2018 (Spanish).
  39. ↑ Por una ministra. In: semana.com. August 6, 2001. Retrieved November 8, 2019 .
  40. ↑ De Pinina a el León El Tiempo, August, 13 1990
  41. ↑ Escobar se entregó con sus escoltas: El Mugre y Otto, El Tiempo, June 20, 1991
  42. ^ Pablo Escobar, Arquivos Periodisticos
  43. ^ Ioan Grillo, Anne Most: Sicarios: The Story Behind the Cartel Killers. In: time.com. October 26, 2015, accessed March 26, 2019 .
  44. ↑ Colombia - volley from the newspaper . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 1990 ( online ).
  45. ↑ Colombia - Go to bed early . In: Der Spiegel . No. 35 , 1990 ( online ).
  46. ↑ Tobias Buyer: Pablo Escobar's hardest-working killer is free again. In: welt.de. August 27, 2014, accessed June 2, 2018 .
  47. ↑ Released after 21 years in prison: Escobar's hit man fears for his life. SPIEGEL Online Panorama, August 27, 2014
  48. ↑ Mark Bowden: Killing Pablo. Berlin-Verlag, Berlin 2001, p. 38. ISBN 3-8270-0164-1
  49. ↑ Mark Bowden: Killing Pablo. Berlin-Verlag, Berlin 2001, pp. 40–41. ISBN 3-8270-0164-1
  50. ↑ Mark Bowden: Killing Pablo. Berlin-Verlag, Berlin 2001, p. 42. ISBN 3-8270-0164-1
  51. ↑ Mark Bowden: Killing Pablo. Berlin-Verlag, Berlin 2001, pp. 42–43. ISBN 3-8270-0164-1
  52. ↑ These 7 examples show how absurdly rich Pablo Escobar actually was, on www.businessinsider.de
  53. ^ Escobar escape humiliates Colombian leaders. The Guardian, July 24, 1992
  54. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 43 .
  55. ↑ Colombians are Drug Kingpins, Lakeland Ledger on Google News, December 2, 1987
  56. ↑ Los Jinetes de la Cocaína, Capítulo IV Se arma el cartel on www.derechos.org
  57. ↑ Fiscalia pide extinguir derecho de dominio a "Posada Alemana" de Carlos Lehder ya otros, Radio Santafe de Bogota 24 April, 2007
  58. ↑ Alpher Rojas Carvajal: Lehder hizo llover plata sobre Armenia. In: cronicadelquindio.com. February 12, 2017, Retrieved November 6, 2018 (Spanish).
  59. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 89 .
  60. ↑ Seth Ferranti: How a Nazi-affine drug boss revolutionized cocaine smuggling. In: vice.com . January 13, 2016, accessed November 20, 2019.
  61. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 116 .
  62. ↑ Mylene Sauloy and Yves Le Bonniec: Tropical snow - cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits, an economic report, Rowohlt, Reinbek b. Hamburg, 1994, p. 110
  63. ^ Fallció el general (r.) Del Ejército Farouk Yanine Díaz, El Tiempo, August 29, 2009
  64. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 111 .
  65. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 353 .
  66. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 113 .
  67. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 119 .
  68. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 44 .
  69. ↑ Annette Langer : Colombia - cocaine queen shot in a slaughterhouse. In: Spiegel Online . September 4, 2012, accessed August 27, 2020.
  70. ↑ The Mystery of the Coca Plant That Wouldn't Die. The war on Colombia's drug lords is losing ground to an herbicide-resistant supershrub. Is it a freak of nature - or a genetically modified secret weapon? on www.cocaine.org
  71. ↑ DrugFacts: Cocaine at www.drugabuse.com
  72. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 283 .
  73. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 418 .
  74. ^ Tranquilandia: The Disneyland of Cocaine Production
  75. ^ Pico Iyer: Fighting the Cocaine Wars. In: Time , February 25, 1985 (English).
  76. ↑ James D. Henderson: Colombia's Narcotics Nightmare: How the Drug Trade Destroyed Peace, McFarland Verlag, 2015, p. 58
  77. ^ A b Thirty Years of America's Drug War. In: Frontline (English).
  78. ↑ Mylene Sauloy, Yves Le Bonniec: tropical snow. Cocaine: the cartels, their banks, their profits. An economic report . Rowohlt, 1994, ISBN 978-3-498-06291-0 , pp. 81 .
  79. ^ José David Escobar Moreno: Hernando Baquero, un magistrado en el olvido. In: elespectador.com. August 2, 2016, Retrieved May 2, 2018 (Spanish).
  80. ↑ Guillermo Cano Isaza. In: unesco.org. Retrieved November 8, 2018 .
  81. ↑ Michael Stührenberg: A murder for twenty marks - What is the government in Bogotá doing against “preventive terror”? In: The time . No. 47/1987 , November 13, 1987 ( zeit.de [accessed November 16, 2018]).
  82. ↑ Pilar Lozano: La guerra del narcotráfico - Colombia llora y repudia el asesinato del fiscal del Estado . In: El País . January 27, 1988 (Spanish, elpais.com [accessed December 3, 2018]).
  83. ↑ Mañana, homenaje a Roldán, El Colombiano, July 1, 2009
  84. ^ El asesinato del coronel Valdemar Franklin Quintero; habla su esposa, El Tiempo, August 14, 2009
  85. ↑ Luis Carlos Galán, el líder colombiano asesinado en 1989. In: telesurtv.net. August 18, 2016, accessed December 13, 2018 (Spanish).
  86. ↑ Jorge Enrique Pulido, reportero hecho a pulso, El Espectador, November 7, 2009
  87. ↑ Pilar Lozano: La muerte de Diana Turbay, duro revés en la lucha contra los 'narcos' colombianos . In: El País . January 27, 1991 (Spanish, elpais.com [accessed May 28, 2018]).