MAP's index for the series: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n000/a251.html

Bookmark: Reports about Colombia: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Colombia

ESCOBAR'S WIFE, CHILDREN BECOME THE BAIT

To keep up pressure, U.S. works to keep the family in
Colombia.

Chapter 29 of a continuing serial

On the night of Nov. 26, 1993, the U.S. Embassy in Bogota learned that
Pablo Escobar's wife and children were planning once more to flee Colombia.

They hoped to fly to London or Frankfurt, Germany . The family was
growing increasingly desperate. They had been under round-the-clock
protection by agents from the fiscal general, Colombia's top federal
prosecutor, ever since a failed effort to fly Escobar's son, Juan
Pablo, and daughter, Manuela, to the United States in March.

In the intervening months, Los Pepes had killed members of their
extended family and burned most of the family's properties. The
vigilante group seemed to be toying with the Escobars, picking off
cousins, in-laws and friends, including some who had been living in
the neighborhood where Escobar's immediate family was staying.

In early November, a rocket-propelled grenade had been fired at the
Escobar building and another grenade had exploded outside the front
doors. These were mere warning shots, but to the family it seemed that
the threat was closing in.

The fiscal general, Gustavo de Greiff, was holding Escobar's family in
place, officially protecting them from vigilantes but also positioning
them like bait in a trap. The pressure increased when, in late
October, de Greiff threatened to withdraw his protection.

Increasingly at odds with the administration of President Cesar
Gaviria, de Greiff was still trying to engineer Escobar's surrender
before he could be found by Col. Hugo Martinez's Search Bloc. The
Americans, along with Gaviria and the Search Bloc commanders, feared
that a surrender would enable Escobar to once again run his drug
cartel with impunity from a comfortable "prison."

De Greiff was not above playing hardball with Escobar, who had just
engineered the kidnapping of two teenage boys from wealthy families in
Medellin and extorted $5 million in ransom.

De Greiff informed Juan Pablo that unless his father turned himself in
by Nov. 26, the large detail of bodyguards that had been protecting
the family would be withdrawn. Escobar's wife Maria Victoria, and his
son and daughter, would "only be entitled to the same security as any
other Colombian citizen," de Greiff informed the family.

Maria Victoria was terrified. In a letter to de Greiff, she asked him
to visit her, and pleaded with him to give her husband more time to
surrender so that he could consult with his attorneys. She wrote that
the family was "anguished." She argued that they were not responsible
for her husband's refusal to surrender, and should not be punished for
it. She reminded de Greiff that she and her children were not
criminals, and that they too were trying to persuade Escobar to surrender.

The same day, de Greiff received a note from Juan Pablo, which began,
"Worry, desperation, anguish and anger are what we feel in these
confusing moments." The young man urged de Greiff to investigate the
kidnappings and killings of several close family associates, whom he
said were victims of the Search Bloc and Los Pepes.

He wrote that on Nov. 5, his longtime childhood friend, Juan Carlos
Herrera-Puerta, who was living with the Escobars, was kidnapped. On
Nov. 8, the administrator of their apartment building, Alicia Vasquez,
a close friend, was kidnapped and killed. On the same date, the
family's maid, Nubia Jimenez, was kidnapped and killed.

On Nov. 10, Juan Pablo wrote, masked men kidnapped Alba Lia Londono,
the children's personal tutor. On Nov. 15, according to Juan Pablo,
the police attempted to kidnap a family chauffeur, Jorge Ivan
Otalvaro-Marin. Ten armed men jumped him, but Otalvaro exchanged fire
with them and escaped. Juan Pablo said de Greiff should prosecute
these crimes as vigorously as the state was pursuing his father.

Juan Pablo defended his father's honor vigorously, negotiating with
government representatives as though Escobar were a head of state. By
early November, the son (speaking several times a day with his father)
was hammering out a secret deal with de Greiff's office for the
long-awaited surrender. De Greiff did not share the plan with
President Gaviria or the U.S. Embassy.

De Greiff agreed to several of Escobar's demands: To transfer
Escobar's brother Roberto from isolation to a part of Itagui Prison
where other Medellin cartel members were housed. And to place Escobar
in the same section upon his surrender, and to allow him 21 family
visits each year.

The deal was contingent on getting Escobar's family out of Colombia.
The fugitive was insisting that he would not turn himself in until
Maria Victoria and the children were flown to a safe haven. De Greiff
promised to help the family flee, but only after Escobar's surrender.

In early November, Juan Pablo assured de Greiff that his father would
surrender on or before the Nov. 26 deadline, either at the fiscal
general's office in Medellin or the family's apartment building, and
that he would likely demand that representatives of the National
Police and the Colombian army be present. De Greiff eventually
acquiesced, and began laying plans to get Escobar's family out of the
country.

Word of these surrender negotiations leaked in early November,
alarming the U.S. Embassy. In a Nov. 7 cable, DEA agent Steve Murphy
wrote:

"Obviously, if the above is true, and the BCO has no doubts about its
accuracy, then the GOC and particularly the Fiscal's office has not
been straightforward with the BCO or other American embassy personnel.
Should Escobar agree to the one remaining condition regarding his
family's departure from Colombia, his immediate surrender may be imminent."

Surrender, of course, was what the Americans, the National Police and
Escobar's other enemies hoped to prevent. Mindful of the extent to
which Escobar had corrupted and intimidated the Colombian judiciary,
agents had warned in an earlier cable that if he managed to surrender
before he was found by the Search Bloc, it would begin "a new farce."

American officials at the embassy believed the Search Bloc was closing
in. With Escobar's wife and children baiting the trap, and Los Pepes
continuing to kill off his associates, he was isolated and desperate.
If he managed to get the family to safety, there was no telling what
would happen. He might surrender - or launch a new campaign of
bombings, kidnappings and assassinations.

Everyone involved in the manhunt knew that the best leverage for
catching Escobar was his concern for his family. It wasn't an
impeccably ethical strategy, but it was working. Ever since Los Pepes
had begun killing those close to Escobar in retaliation for his
assassins' attacks, Escobar's bombings had dropped off almost to nothing.

When Ambassador Morris Busby learned of the family's pending flight,
he went to work. He was assured by Colombia's defense minister that
the government was opposed to letting the Escobars go, but there was
no legal reason to prevent them from leaving Colombia.

So the government concentrated on slamming doors of entry to all the
family's known destinations. Maria Victoria had purchased tickets to
London and Frankfurt. Because the London flight stopped over in
Madrid, the defense minister contacted the Spanish, British and German
ambassadors there, formally asking that they refuse entry and return
the family directly to Colombia if possible.

So long as his wife and children were in Colombia, Escobar would keep
worrying about them, and keep calling them. With the Search Bloc's
improving targeting methods, every time Escobar made contact with his
son or wife it gave Col. Martinez and his men another chance at him.