Target Pablo
The Putumayo River drains a significant portion of southern Colombia. Most of the year, it’s slow and languorous, like the tribes that inhabit its dense shores. The river meanders beneath a canopy that conveniently conceals any human activities; the jungle floor at its flanks dissolves beneath anyone’s steps, rendering it impassable. The air is thick and humid.
This is home to the cocaine industry.
It was also the source of life and wealth for Pablo Escobar, one of cocaine’s most prominent imperialists. His successors now tend to the empire.
An attentive observer of the Putumayo will find occasional ribbons of rainbow colors on the water’s surface. These are chemical strands, expended after their use in the manufacture of the insidious, addictive white powder. Natives know not to fish under the rainbow because nothing swims beneath it. Any vegetation it touches along the shore is likewise dead. But it is the lifeblood of the drug trade, a poison that does not respond to known methods of removal. In that sense, the colorful chemical waste is much like those responsible for it.
IN MEDELLÍN, COLOMBIA, #45D Carrera 79B is a nondescript middle-class housing area. It has a set-back second floor and a first floor covered in Spanish tile. A little after 1 p.m. on Dec. 2, 1993, one of the edge tiles dripped a slow, dark ochre trail of liquid. This was the lifeblood of Pablo Escobar. He and the Putumayo River were flowing into one.
In short, this is how it happened:
A black four-door sedan pulled to the curb. The door opened, and a Colombian officer in olive
drab combat fatigues emerged. Brig. Gen. Hugo Martinez was about to reap the benefits from two years of work.
He went through the door and vaulted up the unlit staircase two steps at a time. Surprised by his presence, the soldiers inside slammed themselves against the wall, the butts of their MP5s echoing against the whitewashed concrete. Martinez arrived at the second floor and immediately saw two soldiers near a window that opened to the first-floor roof. He brushed by them without a word, placed his right leg over the transom and vaulted onto the tile roof.
Walking quickly and carefully, he moved to within 20 feet of the three soldiers kneeling by the large, lifeless body. Escobar was face-down on the tiles barely five feet from the roof’s edge. He was dressed in loose pants and a casual shirt that had been twisted in such a way as to expose his large olive-colored back and portions of his broad, hairy stomach. A bullet wound in the back slowly drained his blood into the tile channel.
His head, half hidden by hair, had been pierced in the ear cavity. A stream of blood trickled from the dime-sized hole, down his neck, onto the tiles, toward the poisoned river.
The general motioned to a soldier to lift Escobar’s head by the hair and expose his full face. Identification 100 percent confirmed, Martinez grunted, turned back to the window and reached for his cellular phone. In the hallway, he dialed a number and said, “Es fin” (“It’s ended”), and hung up. A dozen soldiers stood over the body. One of the men used several cameras to capture the macabre moment on film.
For Martinez, and for Colombia, much work had gone into this moment.
On Aug. 18, 1989, Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán gave a speech in Medellín, Escobar’s home and capital of the cocaine industry. The candidate believed his country’s fixation on cocaine was a tragedy. He publicly swore to break the Medellín cartel and bring down Escobar in particular. This was not a popular position in the self-proclaimed City of Perpetual Spring, where Escobar had provided jobs to the poor, put in soccer fields and installed free clinics. Galán’s campaign was bound to create some ill will among the locals.
Around 8 p.m., the candidate mounted his stage – an off-white canvas boxing ring – and began to speak. Shots rang out. He slumped to the floor.
With Galán’s murder, the battle to control Colombia’s destiny was on.
In dozens of Medellín buildings – from simple palm shacks to concrete compounds – cocaine and its byproducts moved northward under Escobar’s increasingly violent management. U.S. demand alone was met with approximately 230 metric tons of supply a year. The product was white as snow, Escobar’s management style blood-red.
Deep in southernmost Colombia, in the city of Cali, another group of citizens watched the Medellín drama unfold with great anxiety and expectation. These were cattlemen, ranchers and business owners who sensed a potential opportunity at an industry that might just be handed to them by a government barely capable of surviving.
The group had a different business model. Resting in wood-paneled rooms, with the latest technologies at hand and their children away for educations in the best foreign universities, they wore dark suits, drank scotch and began to build the most efficient international business system in the world. They were a universe apart from the street thugs and poverty-stricken population Escobar had led and trained to use gunfire and intimidation to achieve business goals, these Cali upper crust would simply buy what they needed. No muss. No fuss. No bad publicity. But they would have to wait.
SOON AFTER GALÁN’S ALTERNATE CANDIDATE, César Gaviria, was elected, a diverse, partially hidden and synthesized collection of U.S. government units began flowing into Colombia. U.S. Special Forces teams began training Colombian military personnel, primarily those dedicated to fighting in the deep jungle. The FBI, DEA and Customs sent beefed-up teams into Colombia to train their counterparts throughout the nation. Some specialized police, CIA and military elements began to focus specific efforts on the newly created counterdrug forces that Martinez commanded. The more secretive elements of the U.S. counterterrorist inventory also arrived to impart their highly specialized capabilities.
To assist in this endeavor, the United States assigned as its ambassador a retired Navy commander, Morris “Buzz” Busby. His task was to apply military-style management to a civil issue and focus U.S. support into a single thrust. One team. One fight. Target Pablo.
Gen. George Joulwan, commander in chief of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), had created a special task force within his headquarters, DDN, to manage the Joint Interagency Task Force support to the Andean Ridge nations. Stocked with members from all services, as well as Customs and the DEA, NSA and CIA, the task force began to conduct numerous raids and operations using host-nation forces throughout the Andean Ridge. The Air Force sent scheduled AWACS aircraft to Panama, and the Navy dedicated ships to water and air surveillance.
By 1991, the first clear picture of the immense drug industry was becoming visible.
The darkened operations center at Howard Air Force Base, Panama, had an array of radar images. One set reflected the picture from AWACS planes operating over the Caribbean. Another showed the Customs P-3 screen images flying over the Andes. A third reflected the Navy feed from a picket ship off Central American waters. The largest screen, watched by the most senior personnel, was an amalgamation. The black screen was filled with the waxing and waning of dozens of tiny lines, each with a target identifier. These were light aircraft hauling drugs to Mexico and the southeastern United States, flying back with bales of U.S. dollars. Mexico was the interchange.
The primary job of stopping the Escobar empire rested with the government of Colombia and, to a lesser degree, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, none of which were capable on their own of effectively battling the dark force. At this point in time, none with the exception of Colombia had demonstrated the political will to expunge the drug industry. Eventually, that would change.
The Andes chain, along both axes, is climatically ideal for growing coca and marijuana. Throughout the region, on the soft undersoil of the rare plateaus and valleys, farmers learned the unique value of these plants. Escobar and his subordinates would pay huge sums of money for their products. Farmers well below the poverty level in destitute nations were receiving the equivalent of $55 a hectare for coca production, compared to $5 a hectare for corn or related crops. Most of the products were grown by Indians, a population traditionally neglected by the national governments and therefore lacking much legal order or infrastructure. Local loyalty was the key to survival.
As for the drugs, the color of cocaine changes over its processing steps. Farmers dissolve the leaves in various chemicals and precipitate the residue into dark gray soccer-ball-size lumps called paste. Midlevel buyers, arriving on planes and vehicles, purchase the lumps at market prices and move them to scattered jungle and village laboratories where a whitish pastel base, usually in the form of a coarse powder, emerges. Further chemical refinement converts the base to pure cocaine, shiny and brilliantly white. The finished product is then usually vacuum-sealed in kilo-size plastic bags, loaded onto aircraft, boats, ships and other conveyances and sent to market in North America. This is how Pablo Escobar’s cottage industry became a huge and sophisticated international industrial conglomerate.
ON THE SOUTHCOM SCREENS, two legs of the industry could be seen in small, vivid green and silver streaks. The AWACS and naval radars revealed the northbound cocaine flights into Mexico and the southeast U.S. coast. They also displayed the southbound flights of U.S. dollars, demonstrably smaller numbers but far more valuable.
The feed from the Customs P-3 showed a maze of flights over the Andes. In this region, light aircraft are like pickup trucks in that they pass over roadless land to reach isolated interior ranches and villages. Drug flights can be difficult to distinguish from those that are legitimate. What is known is that a significant number of green and silver streaks were flights within the Andean Ridge to feed the constantly demanding laboratory requirements. It was a simple economic equation: no coke, no cash.
The southern border of Colombia was a favored laboratory location. Precursor chemicals (the stuff that caused the chemical conversions) were easily transported on myriad waterways and hidden in the dense foliage along the riverbanks. Near each facility, there was usually a grass or marginally paved airstrip, suitable for almost daily light-aircraft flights taking the product, in various stages, to market. Takeoffs and landings were duly noted by radar, and only on the rarest instance would a Colombian air force aircraft attempt an intercept.
In addition to the Medellín cartel’s drug subversions, the Colombian government also had a full-blown insurgency to manage, with both Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas assuming control of portions of the interior. Their respective leaderships noted the commercial potential of a drug alliance and quickly became insurgent entrepreneurs. Establishing their own drug labs and supply chains, they converted cocaine profits into arms and equipment to supply their needs. Even though each guerrilla element was essentially in political competition with the other, they formed a commercial brotherhood.
The Medellín industry alternately fought them or used their products, depending on the local situation. Colombia was quickly becoming ungovernable as the insurgency became the best-funded guerrilla enterprise in history. Colombia’s president was quickly becoming little more than the mayor of Bogota, and any authority over even that jurisdiction was iffy. Bogota and its population paid more homage to the cartel than to its national infrastructure. Police were loath to stand in the way, in understandable fear of death, and cooperation came with cash bonuses.
RADAR PICTURES AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYSES similar to those on the SOUTHCOM screens were playing out at JTF-5 in Key West, Fla. JTF-5 was the Joint DoD/law enforcement agency drug-monitoring and intelligence facility that was part of the larger U.S. government effort to monitor and interdict the drugs.
What JTF-5 and SOUTHCOM analysts saw was a lot of white powder flying north and a lot of money flying south. Escobar and the narco-guerrillas had a highly lucrative industry by 1990, when Washington started to take serious note and certain long-range decisions began to take shape.
More than simply training Colombians, some U.S. elements brought with them a highly specialized intelligence aspect that began to unravel hidden aspects of Escobar’s mysteries. An important part of this work involved several unremarkable vans and a glider plane. The vans possessed unique cellphone-tracking capabilities, and the glider permitted covert overflight of drug areas. These assets were quickly turned over to the Colombians and were used to initiate effective raids for the first time. The heat was turning up.
Narco leadership greatly feared extradition to the United States, and Gaviria made it clear that that was an option.
As the noose tightened, Escobar offered himself to the government if he could be imprisoned in Medellín and not be extradited.
The Colombians, eager to demonstrate progress, agreed. Escobar built himself a palatial prison on high ground overlooking Medellín and checked himself in. The place was dubbed “The Cathedral.” It had all the amenities of home: good food, good drinks, women and other visitors he desired. His management of the cartel continued without interruption. Life was good for Pablo Escobar.
However, publicity about the conditions of his incarceration embarrassed the government.
He began to hear of discussions between the Colombians and the United States suggesting that perhaps his lifestyle could be abruptly changed, and decided it was time to leave. In July 1992, he departed his pleasure prison to the presumed security of his support network in greater Medellín. As Escobar roamed from place to place, Martinez was asked to fix the problem.
While Escobar was running the cartel from his self-made prison, Martinez and his elements had been exercising their newfound competence and intelligence and making progress. Drug labs, money and leadership were slowly eroding. The general’s forces and their families, isolated from general access, became somewhat untouchable. The normal attractions of money and threats were not working. A new Colombia was rising.
On the run, Escobar began to lose control of his empire. Outliers filled the vacuums. The Cali businessmen began to take over parts of it; FARC and ELN filled other gaps. Local vigilantes – probably a pseudo-covert arm of the government called “Los Pepes” – began to replace the secondary leadership. The Medellín cartel was shrinking fast as a power. By early fall 1993, Escobar was a fugitive, moving from house to house in his most supportive neighborhoods. On the afternoon of Dec. 3, he picked up his cellphone to call his son. It would be his last call.
Inside a large, unmarked white van, the dark interior was enhanced by a new and different light. Bright amber and green streaks crossed the monitor. The operator dialed into the frequency and confirmed the cellular signal was from Escobar. A companion began to monitor the call and gave a thumbs-up, confirming the source.
A message went out on a secure network, and several similarly equipped vans began to locate and monitor the same call. Within a short time, an intersection of diverse communication lines was achieved, and they met at #45D Carrera 79B.
Martinez made some quiet, precise orders and sat down in one of the vans to await the results.
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE KILLING OF PABLO ESCOBAR, the Colombian government and several U.S. elements made high-profile public announcements regarding the former kingpin and the demise of the Medellín cartel. This was to be spun as a watershed moment in the drug war, a Gettysburg for the good guys.
Meanwhile, far to the south, the Cali businesspeople in their suits, boots and single-malt scotch assessed Medellín’s losses and initiated actions to begin filling the void. Deep in the sultry green interior, FARC and ELN leadership received the news, shrugged shoulders and assumed management of the infrastructure. The rivers continued to ripple with rainbows of disposed precursor chemicals. And the radar screens at Panama and Key West displayed no reduction of air traffic. The drug industry was now just under new management.
DEA and the Office of National Drug Control Policy had dramatic press conferences heralding the end of a major drug empire. Backs were slapped and congratulations exchanged. Satisfaction lasted only briefly before the good and the bad got back to their usual business.
Today, more than two decades after Pablo Escobar’s blood joined the rainbows of the Putumayo River, 230 metric tons still ship annually to markets north of the border. Radar screens continue to follow the flow of streaks that still represent the soft white powder and a coursing trail that seems to have no end.
Keith Nightingale is a retired Army colonel and frequent contributor to The American Legion Magazine. As deputy director, narcotics (DDN) for U.S. Southern Command in Panama, he was responsible for the interdepartmental coordination and management of the Pablo Escobar issue, including assistance to the Colombian government, the U.S. Embassy and other U.S. elements involved.