DENIED ESCAPE, ESCOBAR'S FAMILY RETURNS HOME

New Threats By Los Pepes Prompt A Bitter Response From The
Fugitive.

Chapter 31 of a continuing serial

When the Lufthansa plane carrying the family of Pablo Escobar finally
landed in Frankfurt, Germany, on a Sunday afternoon in November 1993,
it was forced to taxi to a remote spot on an alternate runway, out of
the view of press waiting in the terminal.

Colombian President Cesar Gaviria had been on the phone to officials
in Spain and Germany, urging them to refuse the Escobars. He explained
that if the family was safely removed from Colombia, there would be
another vicious bombing campaign by Pablo Escobar.

It was not the kind of request from a head of state that other nations
were likely to ignore. There was nothing to be gained by Spain,
Germany or any other country in allowing entry to the family of such a
notorious outlaw.

German Interior Ministry officials drove out to the plane to process
the other passengers' passports and immigration documents, including
those of DEA Special Agent Kenny Magee and the Colombian police
colonel flying with him. A bus took them to the terminal.

The Escobars were taken by another bus to an office in the
international section. Maria Victoria, Escobar's wife, who was
carrying $80,000 and large amounts of gold and jewelry, asked for a
lawyer and was provided one. The family immediately petitioned for
political asylum, then waited through another long night for a ruling.

Magee was met in the main terminal by two DEA colleagues based in
Germany and they, too, waited through the night. Early the next
morning, the Escobars' petition was denied. The family was escorted by
heavily armed German police back out to a Bogota-bound plane that had
been kept waiting for two hours.

Also escorted to the plane were three men believed to be personal
family bodyguards, whom the German authorities described as "thugs."
Magee boarded the plane with four German immigration officers assigned
to escort the family back to Colombia. He sat two rows in front of the
family and across the aisle.

At some point during this long flight home, the DEA agent sat down
with the German immigration officers in the smoking section of the
plane. They had seized the Escobars' passports and had agreed to allow
Magee to photograph them. He took the passports into one of the
plane's lavatories, laid them out on the narrow counter and snapped a
photo of each. As he pulled the door open, sticking the passports in
his back pocket, he was startled to encounter Escobar's son, Juan
Pablo, standing in the doorway. The teenager was just waiting to use
the toilet.

Juan Pablo and the rest of the family looked exhausted. They had been
on planes or in airports since Saturday afternoon, and all they had
managed was to fly in one enormous circle. When the Lufthansa flight
landed again at El Dorado airport in Bogota, the weary Escobars were
escorted off the plane and turned over once again to Colombian
authorities.

Magee inspected the seats where the family had been sitting. He found
several large empty envelopes with large dollar amounts written on them,
two credit cards, and a discarded note that read in English: "We have a
friend in Frankfurt. He says he will be looking for us so he can help us. .
. . Tell him to call Gustavo de Greiff" - Colombia's top federal
prosecutor. Magee assumed it was a note they had hoped to pass to someone
at the airport in Frankfurt, but they had never reached the terminal.

After the family was taken into custody at the airport, Colombia's
defense minister ordered de Greiff to drop his office's official
protection of them. The Escobars were escorted by the National Police
to the Tequendama Hotel in Bogota, a large modern complex that
included retail shops and an apartment tower. Guests of the hotel and
residents of the apartment tower began fleeing when word spread that
Escobar's family was staying there, much to the dismay of the hotel's
management and nearby shop owners.

Exhausted and frightened, Maria Victoria told government officials
that she did not wish to return to Medellin, and pleaded to be sent
anywhere in the world outside Colombia. She said she was tired of
living with her husband's problems, and just wanted to live in peace
with her children.

Escobar phoned the hotel not long after the family arrived, conveying
a brief message to Juan Pablo.

"Stay put there," he said. "Put pressure on the authorities to leave
for another country, call Human Rights, the United Nations."

As if to tighten the screws on Escobar, Los Pepes chose this day of
his family's return to Colombia to issue another public pronouncement.
In a communique to the press, the vigilantes said they could no longer
respect the government's wish that they desist and were going to
resume actions against Escobar.

Escobar responded bitterly. On Nov. 30, he wrote a letter to the men
he suspected of leading the vigilante group. Among those he listed
were Col. Hugo Martinez, commander of the police Search Bloc hunting
Escobar; the "DIJIN Members in Antioquia" (the Search Bloc); Miguel
and Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, purported leaders of the rival Cali
drug cartel; and Fidel and Carlos Castano, the paramilitary leaders
who secretly had been cooperating with the Search Bloc.

He sealed the letter with his thumbprint, and forwarded it to his few
remaining front men for public release:

Mister Pepes:

The communique you produced today is full of lies, deceit and
falsities, like all the previous ones. You promise to reappear but the
truth is that you have always been active because just a few days ago
you perpetrated kidnappings, murders and dynamite bombings. . . .

You say in your lying communique that you have never attacked my
family and I ask you: Why did you bomb the building where my mother
lived? Why did you kidnap my nephew Nicolas? Why did you torture and
strangle my brother in law Carlos Henao? Why did you try to kidnap my
sister Gloria? You have always characterized yourselves by being
hypocrites and liars . . .

The prosecutor's office has a lot of evidence against you. . . . The
government knows that [the Search Bloc] is the Pepes' military branch,
the same one that massacres innocent young men at street corners.

I have been raided 10,000 times. You haven't been at all. Everything
is confiscated from me. Nothing is taken away from you. The government
will never offer a warrant for you. The government will never apply
faceless justice to criminal and terrorist policemen.

What credibility can Colonel Martinez have . . . if he himself planted
a revolver and dynamite in my lawyer's car so he would appear to be a
terrorist? The same colonel who tortured and murdered lawyers is now
promoted to brigadier. What can be expected of people like you, who
don't even show respect for honor and truth?

Regards Pepes.

Pablo Escobar

Copy to national and foreign media, the President, Minister of
Defense, Prosecutor . . .

The Colombian police finally had members of Escobar's family exactly
where they wanted them. Now that they were out from under the official
protection of Fiscal General de Greiff, Escobar's wife and children
were in the hands of Los Pepes as far as the fugitive was concerned.
The police knew Escobar would be frantic.

Police at the hotel reported hearing Escobar's little girl, Manuela,
singing a Christmas carol to herself as she wandered the empty
complex. She had substituted the traditional chorus with one of her
own that went, in part, "Los Pepes want to kill my father, my family,
and me."

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