News (Media Awareness Project) - Colombia: Killing Pablo - Pressure Mounts On Escobar Family |
| Title: | Colombia: Killing Pablo - Pressure Mounts On Escobar Family |
| Published On: | 2000-12-05 |
| Source: | Inquirer (PA) |
| Fetched On: | 2008-09-03 00:16:26 |
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
Pressure Mounts On Escobar Family
Equipped With CIA Direction-Finding Kits, A Colombian Tracking Unit
Goes To Medellin.
Chapter 24 of a continuing serial
Lt. Hugo Martinez and his team of electronic surveillance experts
started getting better with their funny little boxes. They combined
the various components, American, French and German, and developed
techniques through trial and error.
Even though they still could not trace a signal reliably, their
eavesdropping capability alone was exciting. It deprived criminals of
privacy. Martinez had listened to so many intercepted conversations by
now that he felt he could sense when someone was about to begin
discussing something illicit.
Snooping was addictive. The more he worked with the direction-finding
kits, the more attuned he became to subtle nuances in the images they
displayed and the sounds they emitted in his headphones. It was like
learning a new language.
He was not yet thinking about using it against Pablo Escobar. He
assumed Escobar was too difficult a target. The kind of criminals he
was after were unsophisticated people who never suspected that someone
might be listening to their phone or radio conversations.
Going up against Escobar with this equipment would be foolhardy,
precisely because it could steer them so close to him without being
able to pinpoint exactly where he was. The risk was that the equipment
would bring members of his team just near enough for Escobar to have
them kidnapped or killed.
Seizing the son of Col. Hugo Martinez, the commander of the Search
Bloc that had been hounding him for so long, would be a major coup for
Escobar. The elder Martinez repeatedly warned his son to be careful,
and would pass along the personal threats he received.
In the first few months after Escobar's escape, Col. Martinez had
banned all cell-phone use in Medellin and closed down all repeater
stations for transmitting signals. People had to use standard phone
lines - or point-to-point radio communications, which required a clear
line of sight between transmitter and receiver.
The idea was to isolate Escobar. He was too smart to use normal phone
lines, but if he tried to communicate through the uncluttered airwaves
he would be much easier to find. The drug lord responded by using messengers.
It was only in the spring of 1993, as he grew increasingly concerned
about the vigilantes of Los Pepes and getting his family out of
Colombia, that Escobar resumed regular radio communication. He found
places that provided a view of the top of the apartment building where
his family was living under heavy guard, speaking most often to his
son, Juan Pablo.
This was the weak link that the colonel wanted to probe. The special
police technical team had just been transferred to Medellin. And
joining them, despite Col. Martinez's forceful objections, was his son
Hugo.
Hugo Martinez and his partners found apartments in the city. The CIA
provided them with six new direction-finding kits, designed to be
operated from three small Mercedes vans. Three teams were created,
each assigned to a van.
Their arrival stirred hopes in the Search Bloc. A CIA
direction-finding crew had been working in Medellin since the previous
November, with poor results. Now the inflated reputation Hugo's unit
had earned preceded it, and the new men said nothing to deflate it.
They had also arrived in time to take advantage of important new
information.
Medellin's chief prosecutor, Fernando Correa, who met frequently with
Escobar's family, had noticed a few interesting things. The family was
virtually imprisoned in Altos del Campestre, its apartment building in
Medellin, and lived in terror of Los Pepes. Increasingly the family
members' energies were spent looking for passage to some other
country. They were despondent.
Pablo Escobar's wife, Maria Victoria, wrote in a letter to her husband
that year:
I miss you so very much I feel weak. Sometimes I feel an immense
loneliness takes over my heart. Why does life have to separate us like
this? My heart is aching. How are you? How do you feel? I don't want
to leave you my love. I need you so much, I want to cry with you . . .
I don't want to pressure you. Nor do I want to make you commit
mistakes, but if our leaving is not possible, I would feel more secure
with you. We'll close ourselves in, suspend the mail, whatever we have
to. This is getting too tense.
Juan Pablo, a hulking 15-year-old who stood 6 feet tall and weighed
more than 200 pounds, acted as the man of the house, at least in
Correa's presence, and appeared to be making all the decisions for his
family. He spent hours with binoculars observing the neighborhood from
his perch, keeping a nervous eye out for those who appeared to be
keeping an eye on them.
Once, he was watching when three men stepped out of a car and fired a
rocket-propelled grenade at their apartment building. He carefully
noted their appearance and the make and model of their car as the
grenade slammed into the building, spewing smoke and debris but
causing no casualties.
Juan Pablo also noted the license numbers of cars driven by those he
suspected of working for Col. Martinez. He photographed men outside
the building whom he found suspicious, and indignantly asked the
prosecutors who visited the family to pursue and arrest those he described.
Unlike his mother, who was overcome by the situation, Juan Pablo
seemed to relish it. He clearly enjoyed his dealings with Correa and
other representatives from the Fiscalia, or Attorney General's Office,
using their fear of his father to bully them. He received coded
written messages from his father and wrote him cocky letters in
return. In one undated letter written that fall, Juan Pablo updated
his father:
Remembered Father,
I send you a big hug and warm wishes. . . . The prosecutor's office
cannot raid the places of the guys in the pictures because
unfortunately that is the way the law goes.
In the letter, Juan Pablo told his father where he thought Col.
Martinez sometimes stayed overnight in Medellin, and wrote out two
pages of descriptions of the men and cars he had seen outside the
apartment building.
He concluded by suggesting that his father send a scare into a local
TV station that had dared to air pictures of the family's apartment
building: It would be good to tease the TV people so they won't make
the building stand out so obviously, because when they came here they
told me they were going to erase the tape and they didn't do it. Take
care of yourself. I love and remember you. Your son.
On one official visit, Correa noted that Juan Pablo carried a beeper,
and when it went off (at regular times during the day) he would
abruptly leave the apartment. Correa presumed it was to speak on a
phone or radio with his father. This was something he definitely
intended to pass on to Col. Martinez and the Search Bloc.
Articles 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
Bookmark: Reports about Colombia: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Colombia
Pressure Mounts On Escobar Family
Equipped With CIA Direction-Finding Kits, A Colombian Tracking Unit
Goes To Medellin.
Chapter 24 of a continuing serial
Lt. Hugo Martinez and his team of electronic surveillance experts
started getting better with their funny little boxes. They combined
the various components, American, French and German, and developed
techniques through trial and error.
Even though they still could not trace a signal reliably, their
eavesdropping capability alone was exciting. It deprived criminals of
privacy. Martinez had listened to so many intercepted conversations by
now that he felt he could sense when someone was about to begin
discussing something illicit.
Snooping was addictive. The more he worked with the direction-finding
kits, the more attuned he became to subtle nuances in the images they
displayed and the sounds they emitted in his headphones. It was like
learning a new language.
He was not yet thinking about using it against Pablo Escobar. He
assumed Escobar was too difficult a target. The kind of criminals he
was after were unsophisticated people who never suspected that someone
might be listening to their phone or radio conversations.
Going up against Escobar with this equipment would be foolhardy,
precisely because it could steer them so close to him without being
able to pinpoint exactly where he was. The risk was that the equipment
would bring members of his team just near enough for Escobar to have
them kidnapped or killed.
Seizing the son of Col. Hugo Martinez, the commander of the Search
Bloc that had been hounding him for so long, would be a major coup for
Escobar. The elder Martinez repeatedly warned his son to be careful,
and would pass along the personal threats he received.
In the first few months after Escobar's escape, Col. Martinez had
banned all cell-phone use in Medellin and closed down all repeater
stations for transmitting signals. People had to use standard phone
lines - or point-to-point radio communications, which required a clear
line of sight between transmitter and receiver.
The idea was to isolate Escobar. He was too smart to use normal phone
lines, but if he tried to communicate through the uncluttered airwaves
he would be much easier to find. The drug lord responded by using messengers.
It was only in the spring of 1993, as he grew increasingly concerned
about the vigilantes of Los Pepes and getting his family out of
Colombia, that Escobar resumed regular radio communication. He found
places that provided a view of the top of the apartment building where
his family was living under heavy guard, speaking most often to his
son, Juan Pablo.
This was the weak link that the colonel wanted to probe. The special
police technical team had just been transferred to Medellin. And
joining them, despite Col. Martinez's forceful objections, was his son
Hugo.
Hugo Martinez and his partners found apartments in the city. The CIA
provided them with six new direction-finding kits, designed to be
operated from three small Mercedes vans. Three teams were created,
each assigned to a van.
Their arrival stirred hopes in the Search Bloc. A CIA
direction-finding crew had been working in Medellin since the previous
November, with poor results. Now the inflated reputation Hugo's unit
had earned preceded it, and the new men said nothing to deflate it.
They had also arrived in time to take advantage of important new
information.
Medellin's chief prosecutor, Fernando Correa, who met frequently with
Escobar's family, had noticed a few interesting things. The family was
virtually imprisoned in Altos del Campestre, its apartment building in
Medellin, and lived in terror of Los Pepes. Increasingly the family
members' energies were spent looking for passage to some other
country. They were despondent.
Pablo Escobar's wife, Maria Victoria, wrote in a letter to her husband
that year:
I miss you so very much I feel weak. Sometimes I feel an immense
loneliness takes over my heart. Why does life have to separate us like
this? My heart is aching. How are you? How do you feel? I don't want
to leave you my love. I need you so much, I want to cry with you . . .
I don't want to pressure you. Nor do I want to make you commit
mistakes, but if our leaving is not possible, I would feel more secure
with you. We'll close ourselves in, suspend the mail, whatever we have
to. This is getting too tense.
Juan Pablo, a hulking 15-year-old who stood 6 feet tall and weighed
more than 200 pounds, acted as the man of the house, at least in
Correa's presence, and appeared to be making all the decisions for his
family. He spent hours with binoculars observing the neighborhood from
his perch, keeping a nervous eye out for those who appeared to be
keeping an eye on them.
Once, he was watching when three men stepped out of a car and fired a
rocket-propelled grenade at their apartment building. He carefully
noted their appearance and the make and model of their car as the
grenade slammed into the building, spewing smoke and debris but
causing no casualties.
Juan Pablo also noted the license numbers of cars driven by those he
suspected of working for Col. Martinez. He photographed men outside
the building whom he found suspicious, and indignantly asked the
prosecutors who visited the family to pursue and arrest those he described.
Unlike his mother, who was overcome by the situation, Juan Pablo
seemed to relish it. He clearly enjoyed his dealings with Correa and
other representatives from the Fiscalia, or Attorney General's Office,
using their fear of his father to bully them. He received coded
written messages from his father and wrote him cocky letters in
return. In one undated letter written that fall, Juan Pablo updated
his father:
Remembered Father,
I send you a big hug and warm wishes. . . . The prosecutor's office
cannot raid the places of the guys in the pictures because
unfortunately that is the way the law goes.
In the letter, Juan Pablo told his father where he thought Col.
Martinez sometimes stayed overnight in Medellin, and wrote out two
pages of descriptions of the men and cars he had seen outside the
apartment building.
He concluded by suggesting that his father send a scare into a local
TV station that had dared to air pictures of the family's apartment
building: It would be good to tease the TV people so they won't make
the building stand out so obviously, because when they came here they
told me they were going to erase the tape and they didn't do it. Take
care of yourself. I love and remember you. Your son.
On one official visit, Correa noted that Juan Pablo carried a beeper,
and when it went off (at regular times during the day) he would
abruptly leave the apartment. Correa presumed it was to speak on a
phone or radio with his father. This was something he definitely
intended to pass on to Col. Martinez and the Search Bloc.
Articles 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
Member Comments |
No member comments available...
