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

ANGRY WIDOW AIDS PURSUIT OF ESCOBAR

Chapter 14 of a continuing serial

At least one person in Colombia felt there was no mystery at all about
the vigilante group that called itself Los Pepes. The day after
several of Pablo Escobar's properties were bombed in January 1993, the
fugitive drug boss sent a note to Col. Hugo Martinez, who headed the
police Search Bloc.

The message flatly accused Martinez of ordering the "terrorist
actions" against the homes of his relatives. Escobar did not mention
Los Pepes. Instead, he wrote: "Personnel under your supervision set
car bombs at buildings in El Poblado, where some of my relatives live."

Pointedly, Escobar also mentioned the supposedly secret headquarters
of the Search Bloc at the Holquin Academy in Medellin - what he called
Martinez's "headquarters of torture." Those headquarters, Escobar
wrote, had directed "criminal actions undertaken by men who cover
their faces with ski masks."

Escobar concluded the note with his customary coda, a thumbprint and a
death threat:

"Knowing that you are part of the government I wish to warn you that
if another incident of this nature occurs, I will retaliate against
relatives of government officials who tolerate and do not punish your
crimes. Don't forget that you, too, have a family."

The colonel hardly needed to be reminded. His family had been living
with Escobar's threats for years. Martinez had moved his wife, a
dentist, and his two younger children with him to the Holquin base
(his eldest son, Hugo, had recently graduated from the National Police
academy in Bogota). Just four months earlier, three police officers
assigned to protect his family had been gunned down in Medellin. The
hit was a very personal message from Escobar. The officers had been on
their way to pick up Martinez's youngest son for school.

Escobar had been aware for years of Martinez's pivotal role in the
government's campaign against him. He had suspected, correctly, that
the Americans were helping to guide and finance the Search Bloc. And
now he had concluded that the newly emergent vigilante group, Los
Pepes, was directly linked to the Search Bloc.

But Escobar didn't know, six months into his second sojourn as a
fugitive, how deeply the Americans were penetrating his
organization.

In August 1992, just two weeks after Escobar's escape from prison, the
U.S. Embassy in Bogota secretly flew a young woman to Washington, D.C.
Her name was Dolly Moncada, and she knew every detail of the inner
workings of Escobar's Medellin drug cartel.

She had been part of the cartel while her husband, William Moncada,
was serving as one of Escobar's top associates. Now Dolly was a widow,
and a vindictive one. Escobar, suspicious that William Moncada was
withholding money from him, had ordered him tortured and murdered.
Then he sent word to Dolly, demanding that she turn over to him all of
her assets and threatening a war against her and her family.

Dolly was a dangerous woman. Instead of giving in to Escobar, she
vanished in mid-August. Escobar searched desperately for her. He
ordered her former residence in Medellin ransacked and her caretakers
taken hostage. The kidnappers painted the word guerra (war) on the
walls.

Three days later her dead husband's business associate, Norman
Gonzales, was kidnapped, held captive and tortured over 13 days. His
captors tried drugs and electric shock in an effort to learn Dolly's
whereabouts. Gonzales didn't know. Escobar then offered a $3 million
reward for whoever could help him find her.

By now, Dolly was in the hands of the U.S. government. Desperate and
angry, she had struck a deal with the administration of President
Cesar Gaviria. She handed over most of her family's assets, and won
American protection. She was quickly flown to Washington, where she
became Confidential Informant SZE-92-053.

Dolly had been talking to DEA agents in the United States when, in
December, her 23-year-old brother, Lisandro Ospina, was kidnapped. He
was a student with no involvement in the drug cartels and had been
visiting Bogota after finishing his first semester at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Up to this point, Dolly had
seemed intent on merely crippling Escobar's empire. Now she wanted to
harm Escobar himself.

Dolly "was extremely upset by this occurrence," a DEA memo said, "and
wants to take some type of retaliatory action against Escobar
personally."

Dolly knew exactly how to hurt Escobar. In a series of debriefings
conducted in Washington and recorded by the DEA, she outlined in
detail Escobar's entire criminal organization. She was impatient with
what she considered the gentle tactics employed by the Search Bloc,
which was authorized to go after only those suspected of criminal
activity. Dolly wanted to go after everyone associated with Escobar,
his family members, his lawyers, anyone. She wanted people killed.

She gave the names of the key members of Escobar's inner circle. If
they had been indicted, she said, they should be arrested. If not, she
suggested, they should be killed.

Dolly listed five lawyers who, she said, "handle Escobar's criminal
and financial problems and are worse than Escobar. These attorneys
negotiate with the Colombian government on his behalf and are fully
aware of the scope of activities since he consults them before he
carries out any action."

She provided a list of Escobar's most prized properties and assets,
his antique cars, country homes, apartments, aircraft and airports.

Dolly also offered what she considered helpful advice on how to bring
Escobar out into the open, where he could be trapped and killed: "He
needs to be provoked, or angered and made desperate so that he wants
to strike back. . . . Escobar may then make mistakes," a DEA memo
said, quoting Dolly. She recommended confiscating his assets - or
destroying them.

The memo said Dolly also advised, wrongly as it turned out, that
Escobar would attribute any deaths of his associates not to the
authorities, but to the rival Cali cartel. "As a result," Dolly
predicted, according to the DEA memo, "the Escobar organization would
turn on itself and begin killing itself again."

There was one other piece of advice proffered by Dolly Moncada: Perhaps the
U.S. should take another look at some Colombian drug traffickers held in
American prisons. Although these narcos had been talking to U.S.
authorities in hopes of earning reduced sentences, Dolly said, they knew a
lot more than they were telling about Pablo Escobar.