At the height of the Medellín Cartel, its leaders, associates and of course Escobar, enjoyed a life of luxury and extravagance. They were fulfilling the Medellín Cartel’s ultimate goal – illicit wealth beyond their wildest dreams. By now,
Escobar himself owned numerous properties, land, cars, planes, helicopters, price- less artwork and even built himself a zoo full of exotic animals (Eddy et al 1988; Gugliotta & Leen 1989; Strong 1995; Bowden 2002; Escobar JP 2016). The Medellín Cartel’s operations were extensive, with multiple methods and channels for completing the same activity or task, allowing it to absorb operational shocks and setbacks, and more importantly, always staying one step ahead of the authorities (Kenney 2007). At this time, the Medellín Cartel was continually looking for new business and smuggling routes, including new deals, allegiances and alliances with the governments of Panama, Cuba and Nicaragua (‘The Godfather of Cocaine’ 1997). At the height of its success, the organisation became less directed and more enabled, allowing it to adjust the nature of its fitness landscape and interconnected actors to promote greater creativity and adaptability. Essentially, the Medellín Cartel was at its optimal fitness, at the ‘edge of chaos’, where its emergent order was richer, more creative and adaptable, with its diverse set of actors and core strength. Moreover, the emergent order was not imposed from above, but from the distributed influence throughout the Medellín Cartel. The ongoing alignment of the Medellín Cartel’s core goal, combined with the lack of alternatives for most of its actors, contributed to its ongoing resilience. Its fitness landscape comprised a variety of strong and moderate, but primarily weak interconnections, reflecting the fluidity of its strength. As identified earlier, some of its core groups of actors, in terms of high volumes, participated in non-violent activities, such as agricultural workers and contributory passive assistance from local communities, including informants and operatives. These high volume actor groups, while weakly interconnected, greatly enabled the cartel’s operational and logistical support, including the provision of sanctuary when operatives were on the run.
Escobar’s political ambition
Despite the success and wealth of the Medellín Cartel, Escobar wanted something that money could not buy, and certainly did not align with the goals or shared needs of the Medellín Cartel. On reflection of many, including Escobar’s own family, former traffickers and state actors, what Escobar wanted certainly contributed to the beginning of the end of the Medellín Cartel (Eddy et al 1988; Gugliotta & Leen 1989; Strong 1995; Bowden 2002; Escobar R 2010; Escobar JP 2016). As noted earlier, through a complexity lens, if a shared need is not felt, then
individuals will not be as motivated to engage with the group. What Escobar wanted was political power and social legitimacy through the respect of the people (Eddy et al 1988; Gugliotta & Leen 1989; Strong 1995; Bowden 2002). What this meant, was placing himself in the spotlight which ‘normal’ or ‘ordinary’ criminals avoid – they prefer to remain in the shadows – but not Escobar. Although money does not buy respect, he certainly tried. In the early 1980s, Escobar began engaging in social causes in the poor barrios of Medellín, including the building of housing, infrastructure and facilities, but also a deep and personal engagement with the people through organising scores of neighbourhood committees and events (Eddy et al 1988; Gugliotta & Leen 1989; Strong 1995; Bowden 2002). Whatever his motives, he certainly helped the people and they loved him for it. Having built a power base for himself in the barrios of Medellín, Escobar decided to run as an alternate candidate in the congressional elections. At the centre of his campaign was the people, the marginalised, but his key political objective was a cause to himself, changing extradition laws (Bowden 2002). In one sense, the Medellín Cartel and Escobar were no strangers to politics or politicians, as most had been in their pockets for some time. In the words of a former Medellín Cartel trafficker (‘The Godfather of Cocaine’ 1997):
There was a basic competitive nature amongst all of the heads of the cartel, not only in how much coke they could ship, but it was a game between them as to who could buy the most and the heaviest-duty politicians.
Fragment 53: Medellín Cartel associate
In 1982, Escobar won his alternate seat in congress, however, his political career was short-lived. It was cut short by the Justice Minister Lara, who publically denounced Escobar as a trafficker. Escobar was deeply humiliated and a year later, in 1983, removed from congress. Although there were many behind closed doors who knew the true nature of Escobar’s illicit wealth, it was the first time that someone had publicly announced it (Gugliotta & Leen 1989; Strong 1995; Bowden 2002). In 1984, Lara continued his crackdown on traffickers, and in March 1984, the state police had a major success in the seizure of Tranquilandia, a cocaine processing laboratory in the middle of the Amazon jungle. At the time, it was the largest find in history, seizing 14 metric tons of cocaine worth over US $1 billion, together with numerous aircraft (Bowden 2002). However, as Jorge Ochoa, one of the Medellín Cartel’s leaders points out (interview in Frontline 2000d):
In 1984, the police took over Tranquilandia. A lot of people were working there…We could have defended Tranquilandia at the moment with violence. But we said “No, no, there should be no violence.” So police took over the place…I don’t think it affected the traffic much. There were many other labs all over the country, in many places…
Fragment 54: Medellín Cartel leader
Although Jorge Ochoa’s comments were mainly directed at distancing himself and his brothers from Escobar’s violence, his comments also highlight the Medellín Cartel’s resilience to withstanding significant attacks on its operations. Given it was the mid-1980s, at the height of the Medellín Cartel’s success (Forbes n.d.), through a complexity lens, the Medellín Cartel as a complex system, easily demonstrated its resilience, through surviving attacks on its constituent parts.
Lara assassination
Despite the Medellín Cartel’s ongoing resilience, Escobar was upset by the attack on Tranquilandia and still humiliated from Lara’s denunciation, so he responded in his signature style. A month later, in April 1984, he had Lara assassinated (Strong 1995; Bowden 2002). At Lara’s funeral, President Betancur, the Colombian President at the time, announced the one thing that traffickers feared the most – he would restore Colombia’s extradition law (Bowden 2002). Soon after, leaders of the Medellín Cartel, including Escobar, fled the country to Panama, then Nicaragua, before returning to Colombia to resume their fight against the state (Strong 1995; Bowden 2002).
Los Extraditables
In 1984, given the cyclical change in the contextual variable of extradition laws, as Escobar no longer held political office, a new political strategy and alliance was formed to fight extradition. The alliance was once again between the traffickers, including the Medellín and Cali Cartels, and called Los Extraditables (The Extraditables). According to the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium (TRAC) research database (TRAC 2016), Los Extraditables was:
An organisation created by Colombian drug lords in the early 1980s for the purpose of persuading the Colombian government into banning extradition. Initially the group's purpose was to publish newspaper ads in which they defended their position and to influence political parties to speak in favour of their goals. However, over time their actions escalated into a war between the state and the mafia, with violent acts of terrorism committed against politicians and members of law enforcement. Its members were largely drawn from the Medellín Cartel and others linked to the drug trafficking racket.
Fragment 55: Scholar research database
Based on numerous sources, Los Extraditables was led by Escobar and Gacha, both from the Medellín Cartel, and it was essentially a separate terrorist group to serve the collective interests of the cartels and other traffickers (Strong 1995; Bowden 2002). Its political objective was to overturn Colombia’s 1979 Extradition Treaty, first through intimidation and corruption, then increasingly through violence. It launched its first public letter on 15 November 1984 to protest the arrest of Jorge Ochoa in Spain. On its letterhead and many more to follow, was the motto, ‘better a grave in Colombia than a prison cell in the US’ (Strong 1995; Bowden 2002; Escobar JP 2016). As history tells us, both Escobar and Gacha did in fact end-up having their graves in Colombia, while many other traffickers ended up in a prison cell in the US.
Through a complexity lens, based on Makarenko’s (2011) crime-terror continuum, instead of the Medellín Cartel simply adopting the tactics or turning into the other, a separate terrorist group evolved to serve the broader interests of the cartels and traffickers, and in turn strengthen their fitness landscapes. Based on the different types of terrorism offered by Martin (2016), Los Extraditables fits into criminal terrorism, and more specifically into narco-terrorism, as it was created through politically inspired violence to change extradition laws. Although the group in and of itself did not make any profit, similar to some of the paramilitary groups being seen as a security arm of the traffickers, Los Extraditables may also be seen as a terrorist arm. In the formation of Los Extraditables, the Medellín Cartel also learnt from the co-evolution and dissipation of MAS. Unlike MAS, Los Extraditables had clear leadership from the start, rather than assumed, as Escobar’s reputation had already been firmly established (Gugliotta & Leen 1989; Strong 1995; Bowden 2002). Los Extraditables was also fully funded, as now there was a compulsory ‘war tax’ to pay, to fund the activities, compared to the voluntary contribution of MAS. Finally, it was also more organised and disciplined, with only its key leaders making political decisions (Gugliotta & Leen 1989; Strong 1995; Bowden 2002;
Escobar R 2010). As argued by Bibes (2001:255), ‘criminal organisations [become] more political in nature, because to protect their long-term positions, they must have political influence’. However, as both of its leaders were violent in nature, the group quickly favoured political violence, rather than political influence; this included selective political assassinations and kidnappings, to less discriminate targets impacting civilian populations, such as car bombings in populated areas, and symbolic targets, such as blowing up buildings (Gugliotta & Leen 1989; Strong 1995; Bowden 2002). Through a complexity lens, given this change in political violence, as will be seen later, complex systems that are no longer sensitised to one another to form allegiances and alliances will become strained. As noted in Chapter 3, given the nature of complex alliances, this does not mean that all the parts are reading from the same page (Kauffman 1993). According to the Ochoa brothers (interviews in Frontline 2000d; 2000e):
The violence was generated by Pablo Escobar…we were never in agreement with those terrorist acts…It wouldn’t point to him personally, but “The Extraditables” terrorist group was Pablo Escobar.
Fragment 56: Medellín Cartel leaders
As highlighted in Chapter 2, ‘when it comes to a criminological theorising about organised or professional crime, what remains constant is the deployment of organised violence and the pursuit of illicit wealth’ (Sheptycki 2008:26). In Escobar’s case, as well as the pursuit of illicit wealth, he deployed a special brand of organised violence, which influenced the violent nature of Los Extraditables killing thousands of innocent victims. According to Steve Murphy (‘Murphy’), former DEA special agent based in Medellín 1991-94 (‘The True Story of Killing Pablo’ 2009):
This wasn’t a normal criminal…Pablo Escobar rates right up there with Adolf Hitler. This is a man that’s responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths of innocent people.
Fragment 57: US law enforcement
As will be discussed in the next section, it was during the latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s, that Escobar and the Los Extraditables drew upon Colombia’s violent past and contextual variable, to reap the most damage in their time.
M19 Palace of Justice attack
In 1985, shortly after the formation of Los Extraditables, Escobar exploited his earlier connection with the guerrilla group M-19 and allegedly paid them in arms and money to invade Colombia’s Palace of Justice (Eddy et al 1988; Gugliotta & Leen 1989; Strong 1995; Bowden 2002). This was despite the fact that, as mentioned in Chapter 2, ‘organised criminals, in most cases, will not want to be associated with extremists for fear of coming under additional scrutiny’ (UK National Crime Agency 2015:3). However, in Escobar’s case, he was no ‘ordinary’ criminal and already under extreme scrutiny. Moreover, through a crime-terror nexus lens, given the nature of both Escobar and the M-19, it is difficult to determine who is the criminal and who is the terrorist in this alliance. According to most accounts, Escobar’s objective was two-fold – the kidnapping of the entire supreme court and the destruction of all the evidence against the Medellín Cartel and other traffickers supporting extradition cases ((Eddy et al 1988; Gugliotta & Leen 1989; Strong 1995; Bowden 2002). The attack also happened to be on the same day the supreme court was to have ruled on Colombia’s extradition law. During the attack, 11 of Colombia’s 24 supreme judges were murdered and nearly 100 people killed. More importantly, 6,000 case files of evidence had been destroyed (Strong 1995). Through a complexity lens, forming an early ally of the guerrilla movement M-19 certainly influenced and shaped the Medellín Cartel. However, this event also brought the Medellín Cartel and Escobar to the attention of the world’s press through their reported connections to the M-19. Despite the media attention, the Medellín Cartel simply continued their lucrative cocaine business, amidst the carnage that followed (Strong 1995).