News (Media Awareness Project) - Colombia: Killing Pablo - Ever Elusive Escobar Still Intent On Settling Scores |
| Title: | Colombia: Killing Pablo - Ever Elusive Escobar Still Intent On Settling Scores |
| Published On: | 2000-12-13 |
| Source: | Inquirer (PA) |
| Fetched On: | 2008-09-02 09:03:10 |
EVER ELUSIVE ESCOBAR STILL INTENT ON SETTLING SCORES
Moving Is Constant. So Is Worrying About His Loved Ones. If They Were Safe,
He Could Fight Full-Force.
Chapter 32 of a continuing serial
After Hugo Martinez's success in tracking down a Medellin drug dealer with
his police unit's high-tech gear, his father gave him a few days off to
visit his wife and children in Bogota. But on Hugo's first night back, in
late November 1993, Pablo Escobar started issuing phone threats, which were
traced to a neighborhood in Medellin.
It was bad luck and good luck. Hugo was disappointed at having to cut short
his vacation - he flew back to Medellin early the next morning - but he was
also excited. He had full confidence again in his unit's special
direction-finding equipment, and he knew that with the Escobar family being
held at the Tequendama Hotel in Bogota, Pablo would be worried and on the
phone often.
The hotel was owned by the Colombian armed forces. While Escobar's wife,
Maria Victoria, and their children had been under the protection of
Colombia's top federal prosecutor, it had been unlikely that the Search
Bloc or Los Pepes (which Escobar considered one and the same) would harm
them. It was the fear that the prosecutor was going to drop his protection
that had prompted the family's futile flight to Frankfurt, Germany, earlier
in November.
Now Escobar's wife and children were in the hands of the police, which
meant their safety depended on nothing more than the goodwill of the men
who were hunting him down.
Col. Hugo Martinez, commander of the Search Bloc and father to Hugo, took
steps of his own to make the most of this moment. Unsure of his own
colleagues in Bogota, the colonel had someone he trusted assigned to the
hotel complex switchboard - an officer who had been a friend of Hugo's in
the intelligence branch and had lived for a time at the Tequendama.
They devised a system to tip off Hugo immediately each time Escobar phoned.
All calls to the hotel came through the switchboard, so if a call sounded
like Escobar, they would delay making the connection to the family's
apartment upstairs until Hugo had been alerted. That way, his unit's
monitors in the air and on the ground could start tracing the call before
the conversation even started.
Escobar gave them plenty of chances. Over the next four days, he would call
six times. Even though the first few conversations were very short -
Escobar checking to see how the family was holding up and urging his son to
continue doing everything possible to get out of Colombia - Centra Spike
was able to get a precise fix on his location. It was a middle-class
neighborhood in Medellin called Los Olivos, a sector that included blocks
of two-story rowhouses and some office buildings.
For his part, Escobar tried to confuse his pursuers, who he knew were
listening, by speaking from the backseat of a moving taxi, using a
high-powered radio phone that was linked to a larger transmitter that his
men constantly moved from place to place. Escobar himself had moved into a
rowhouse on street 79-A, house number 45D-94, in the third week of November
1993, more than a month after he had narrowly escaped a Search Bloc raid of
his hideout in Aguas Frias, a Medellin suburb.
He was constantly moving, buying houses throughout the city and surrounding
area he knew so well, for Medellin was his hometown. He carried dozens of
newspaper ads for real estate with his notebooks, and was always buying and
selling hideouts. That way, he was always home, even though he had no home.
He moved with his collection of wireless phones. It didn't trouble him to
know that the authorities listened whenever he spoke on the phone. It had
been that way for years. He used the knowledge to feed disinformation, to
keep his pursuers running in every direction but the right one. The game
wasn't to avoid being overheard, which was impossible, but to avoid being
targeted.
It was evident from Escobar's phone conversations and letters he had
written over the previous months how infuriated he was with his reduced
circumstances, but clearly he also felt some pride. The same man who had
posed dressed as Pancho Villa and Al Capone had been the most wanted
fugitive in the world for 15 months - for more than three years if you
counted his first war with the government.
After so much carnage, so many millions spent to hunt him down, he was
still alive, and still at large. Many people wanted him dead: the
Americans, his rivals in the Cali cocaine cartel and their government
lackeys, the Search Bloc and Los Pepes, whom he was convinced were really
just Search Bloc forces in league with his other enemies.
As he moved from place to place in Medellin, he took comfort in all the
simple people of his home city who still believed in him, who still called
him El Doctor or El Patron. They remembered the housing projects he had
bankrolled, the soccer pitches, the donations to church and charity, and
they had little affection for the government forces closing in on him.
And even though Escobar's organization had been taken apart, so many of his
friends killed or in jail, he believed he could still right things. Then
there would be many, many scores to settle. As his son, Juan Pablo, had
sneered to a representative from the prosecutor's office a few months
before: "My dad is also searching for everyone who is after him, and
destiny will say who finds who first."
But Maria Victoria (he called her "Tata") and the children had to be moved
out of the way. Escobar believed his family was in terrible danger. Any
harm that came to his family would cause him great pain, but would also be
the greatest insult. If he could not protect his own family, his enemies
and his friends would know he was finished.
Escobar hadn't seen his wife and children in more than a year and a half.
He clearly admired the way Juan Pablo had stepped forward in this crisis,
and he was relying on his son more and more to protect Maria Victoria and
Manuela.
He had to get his family out of Colombia, not just for their protection,
but to free his hands. With Maria Victoria and the children safe, he could
turn on his enemies full-force, unleash a bombing and assassination
campaign that would bring the government to its knees and send his would-be
rivals in the Cali cartel scurrying for cover.
He would give them a war they had no stomach for - he knew that much from
past experience. They would beg him to stop, offering him anything he
wanted in return for his token surrender, just like the last time, in 1991.
That was the road back.
Chapters in this series with links:
Chapter 1: Escobar's Rise To Power
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1692/a04.html
Chapter 1 (continued): A Deadly Manhunt Guided By The US
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1690/a07.html
Chapter 2: A Top-Secret Electronic Tracking Unit Rejoins The Hunt
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1696/a07.html
Chapter 3: With Escobar Eluding Capture, Americans Summon Delta Force
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1702/a01.html
Chapter 4: Delta Force, In Bogota, Gets The Lay Of A Confusing Land
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1704/a08.html
Chapter 5: Raring To Get Started, Delta Learns Its Limits
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1712/a10.html
Chapter 6: Delta, Colombians Get Off To Bad Start
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1715/a05.html
Chapter 7: Incorruptible Colonel Rejoins Escobar Pursuit
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1729/a05.html
Chapter 8: Escobar's Nemesis Hones His Troops For The Hunt
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1727/a04.html
Chapter 9: Luxury 'Prison' Affords A Rare Look At Escobar
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1741.a07.html
Chapter 10: A Conditional Offer To Surrender
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1733/a06.html
Chapter 11: Frustrating Hunt Gives Rise To Vigilantism
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1741.a08.html
Chapter 12: Homegrown Escobar Enemy Joins Fight
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1743.a06.html
Chapter 13: Escobar's Powerful Foes Ally Against Him
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1746.a08.html
Chapter 14: Angry Widow Aids Pursuit Of Escobar
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1752/a09.html
Chapter 15: A Former Ally Offers A Profile Of Escobar
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1757/a04.html
Chapter 16: A Rivalry Grows Between Spy Units
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1779/a06.html
Chapter 17: A Traitor Within The Search Bloc
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1776/a01.html
Chapter 18: Los Pepes' Killings Put Heat On Escobar
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1781/a01.html
Chapter 19: Escobar Complains Of Unfair Treatment
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1788/a03.html
Chapter 20: U.S. Spy Data, Vigilante Killings Start To Coincide
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1818.a09.html
Chapter 21: 'Tacit Support' For Tough Tactics
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1816.a07.html
Chapter 22: Martinez Pushes Ahead With The Hunt
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1819/a02.html
Chapter 23: Search Bloc Leader Tries To Keep His Son From Joining The
Manhunt http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1816.a07.html
Chapter 24: Pressure Mounts On Escobar Family
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1821/a01.html
Chapter 25: A Father And Son's High-Tech Connection
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1826/a01.html
Chapter 26: Mission Stirs Concern Back Home
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1836/a07.html
Chapter 27: Trackers Get A Line On Elusive Escobar
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1843/a05.html
Chapter 28: As The Hunters Close In, A Narrow Escape
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1849/a05.html
Chapter 29: Escobar's Wife, Children Become The Bait
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1853/a04.html
Chapter 30: Escobar Employs A Ruse As His Family Takes Flight
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1856.a04.html
Chapter 31: Denied Escape, Escobar's Family Returns Home
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1864.a03.html
Moving Is Constant. So Is Worrying About His Loved Ones. If They Were Safe,
He Could Fight Full-Force.
Chapter 32 of a continuing serial
After Hugo Martinez's success in tracking down a Medellin drug dealer with
his police unit's high-tech gear, his father gave him a few days off to
visit his wife and children in Bogota. But on Hugo's first night back, in
late November 1993, Pablo Escobar started issuing phone threats, which were
traced to a neighborhood in Medellin.
It was bad luck and good luck. Hugo was disappointed at having to cut short
his vacation - he flew back to Medellin early the next morning - but he was
also excited. He had full confidence again in his unit's special
direction-finding equipment, and he knew that with the Escobar family being
held at the Tequendama Hotel in Bogota, Pablo would be worried and on the
phone often.
The hotel was owned by the Colombian armed forces. While Escobar's wife,
Maria Victoria, and their children had been under the protection of
Colombia's top federal prosecutor, it had been unlikely that the Search
Bloc or Los Pepes (which Escobar considered one and the same) would harm
them. It was the fear that the prosecutor was going to drop his protection
that had prompted the family's futile flight to Frankfurt, Germany, earlier
in November.
Now Escobar's wife and children were in the hands of the police, which
meant their safety depended on nothing more than the goodwill of the men
who were hunting him down.
Col. Hugo Martinez, commander of the Search Bloc and father to Hugo, took
steps of his own to make the most of this moment. Unsure of his own
colleagues in Bogota, the colonel had someone he trusted assigned to the
hotel complex switchboard - an officer who had been a friend of Hugo's in
the intelligence branch and had lived for a time at the Tequendama.
They devised a system to tip off Hugo immediately each time Escobar phoned.
All calls to the hotel came through the switchboard, so if a call sounded
like Escobar, they would delay making the connection to the family's
apartment upstairs until Hugo had been alerted. That way, his unit's
monitors in the air and on the ground could start tracing the call before
the conversation even started.
Escobar gave them plenty of chances. Over the next four days, he would call
six times. Even though the first few conversations were very short -
Escobar checking to see how the family was holding up and urging his son to
continue doing everything possible to get out of Colombia - Centra Spike
was able to get a precise fix on his location. It was a middle-class
neighborhood in Medellin called Los Olivos, a sector that included blocks
of two-story rowhouses and some office buildings.
For his part, Escobar tried to confuse his pursuers, who he knew were
listening, by speaking from the backseat of a moving taxi, using a
high-powered radio phone that was linked to a larger transmitter that his
men constantly moved from place to place. Escobar himself had moved into a
rowhouse on street 79-A, house number 45D-94, in the third week of November
1993, more than a month after he had narrowly escaped a Search Bloc raid of
his hideout in Aguas Frias, a Medellin suburb.
He was constantly moving, buying houses throughout the city and surrounding
area he knew so well, for Medellin was his hometown. He carried dozens of
newspaper ads for real estate with his notebooks, and was always buying and
selling hideouts. That way, he was always home, even though he had no home.
He moved with his collection of wireless phones. It didn't trouble him to
know that the authorities listened whenever he spoke on the phone. It had
been that way for years. He used the knowledge to feed disinformation, to
keep his pursuers running in every direction but the right one. The game
wasn't to avoid being overheard, which was impossible, but to avoid being
targeted.
It was evident from Escobar's phone conversations and letters he had
written over the previous months how infuriated he was with his reduced
circumstances, but clearly he also felt some pride. The same man who had
posed dressed as Pancho Villa and Al Capone had been the most wanted
fugitive in the world for 15 months - for more than three years if you
counted his first war with the government.
After so much carnage, so many millions spent to hunt him down, he was
still alive, and still at large. Many people wanted him dead: the
Americans, his rivals in the Cali cocaine cartel and their government
lackeys, the Search Bloc and Los Pepes, whom he was convinced were really
just Search Bloc forces in league with his other enemies.
As he moved from place to place in Medellin, he took comfort in all the
simple people of his home city who still believed in him, who still called
him El Doctor or El Patron. They remembered the housing projects he had
bankrolled, the soccer pitches, the donations to church and charity, and
they had little affection for the government forces closing in on him.
And even though Escobar's organization had been taken apart, so many of his
friends killed or in jail, he believed he could still right things. Then
there would be many, many scores to settle. As his son, Juan Pablo, had
sneered to a representative from the prosecutor's office a few months
before: "My dad is also searching for everyone who is after him, and
destiny will say who finds who first."
But Maria Victoria (he called her "Tata") and the children had to be moved
out of the way. Escobar believed his family was in terrible danger. Any
harm that came to his family would cause him great pain, but would also be
the greatest insult. If he could not protect his own family, his enemies
and his friends would know he was finished.
Escobar hadn't seen his wife and children in more than a year and a half.
He clearly admired the way Juan Pablo had stepped forward in this crisis,
and he was relying on his son more and more to protect Maria Victoria and
Manuela.
He had to get his family out of Colombia, not just for their protection,
but to free his hands. With Maria Victoria and the children safe, he could
turn on his enemies full-force, unleash a bombing and assassination
campaign that would bring the government to its knees and send his would-be
rivals in the Cali cartel scurrying for cover.
He would give them a war they had no stomach for - he knew that much from
past experience. They would beg him to stop, offering him anything he
wanted in return for his token surrender, just like the last time, in 1991.
That was the road back.
Chapters in this series with links:
Chapter 1: Escobar's Rise To Power
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1692/a04.html
Chapter 1 (continued): A Deadly Manhunt Guided By The US
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1690/a07.html
Chapter 2: A Top-Secret Electronic Tracking Unit Rejoins The Hunt
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1696/a07.html
Chapter 3: With Escobar Eluding Capture, Americans Summon Delta Force
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1702/a01.html
Chapter 4: Delta Force, In Bogota, Gets The Lay Of A Confusing Land
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1704/a08.html
Chapter 5: Raring To Get Started, Delta Learns Its Limits
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1712/a10.html
Chapter 6: Delta, Colombians Get Off To Bad Start
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1715/a05.html
Chapter 7: Incorruptible Colonel Rejoins Escobar Pursuit
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1729/a05.html
Chapter 8: Escobar's Nemesis Hones His Troops For The Hunt
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1727/a04.html
Chapter 9: Luxury 'Prison' Affords A Rare Look At Escobar
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1741.a07.html
Chapter 10: A Conditional Offer To Surrender
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1733/a06.html
Chapter 11: Frustrating Hunt Gives Rise To Vigilantism
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1741.a08.html
Chapter 12: Homegrown Escobar Enemy Joins Fight
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1743.a06.html
Chapter 13: Escobar's Powerful Foes Ally Against Him
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1746.a08.html
Chapter 14: Angry Widow Aids Pursuit Of Escobar
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1752/a09.html
Chapter 15: A Former Ally Offers A Profile Of Escobar
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1757/a04.html
Chapter 16: A Rivalry Grows Between Spy Units
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1779/a06.html
Chapter 17: A Traitor Within The Search Bloc
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1776/a01.html
Chapter 18: Los Pepes' Killings Put Heat On Escobar
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1781/a01.html
Chapter 19: Escobar Complains Of Unfair Treatment
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1788/a03.html
Chapter 20: U.S. Spy Data, Vigilante Killings Start To Coincide
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1818.a09.html
Chapter 21: 'Tacit Support' For Tough Tactics
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1816.a07.html
Chapter 22: Martinez Pushes Ahead With The Hunt
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1819/a02.html
Chapter 23: Search Bloc Leader Tries To Keep His Son From Joining The
Manhunt http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1816.a07.html
Chapter 24: Pressure Mounts On Escobar Family
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1821/a01.html
Chapter 25: A Father And Son's High-Tech Connection
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1826/a01.html
Chapter 26: Mission Stirs Concern Back Home
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1836/a07.html
Chapter 27: Trackers Get A Line On Elusive Escobar
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1843/a05.html
Chapter 28: As The Hunters Close In, A Narrow Escape
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1849/a05.html
Chapter 29: Escobar's Wife, Children Become The Bait
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1853/a04.html
Chapter 30: Escobar Employs A Ruse As His Family Takes Flight
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1856.a04.html
Chapter 31: Denied Escape, Escobar's Family Returns Home
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1864.a03.html
Member Comments |
No member comments available...
