As a teenager, Pablo Escobar, the world’s greatest outlaw and cocaine trafficker, made a choice that had a negative impact on not only his immediate family but his country as well. However, he became the wealthiest drug kingpin the world had ever seen, with Forbes magazine rating him the seventh richest man in the world in 1989. Born December 1, 1949, the drug lord, upon his demise on the 2nd of December 1993, left his wife Maria Victoria Henao and two children no other option than to change their identity in order to survive in life.
The pathway of crime, killings, kidnappings, and drug trafficking he chose led to his controversial death with many people, including his brother, claiming responsibility. Find out how Pablo Escobar actually died from this revealing article.
Who Killed Pablo Escobar?
Pablo Escobar left behind after his death, various questions from different quarters on whose bullet directly ended his life. Prior to his death, Pablo had killed over 300 people and kidnapped a lot more. Following his death, three claims on who actually killed Pablo emerged, these claims came from Bloque de Búsqueda, Los Pepes, and his family members who claimed Pablo killed himself.
The drug Barron was a tactical businessman who knew how to fill the vacuum in any existing market which will yield financial interest. His major funding came from selling tons of cocaine.
During the course of running his drug business, he dealt series of bloody humiliations on the forces and officials of the Colombian government, causing President Virgilio Barco to create a special police unit to bring down the kingpin and his cartel. This special police unit’s initial encounters with the cartel weakened them and over time, they became a hardened task force that hunted down Escobar and his associates with the help of U.S special forces, U.S Army intelligence, and members of the CIA and Drug Enforcement Administration. According to an official account, it was the Search Bloc that ultimately killed Escobar.
However, in another claim by a group called Los Pepes which consisted of people prosecuted by Escobar, many members of the group accompanied Search Bloc to raid Escobar’s hide-out in Medellin. Another report further said Pablo’s brother, Rodolfo, was the person who delivered the coup de grace, shooting Escobar in the head with an M-16.
Despite several reports on who was working with Search Bloc at the time of Pablo’s death, most of the accounts haven’t been confirmed. There’s also Fidel Castaño, a co-founder of Los Pepes, denying such involvement, saying that they never performed any operation with them. He clearly said that Escobar was killed by the police just as it was reported on the local radio. As a result, Bowden’s account contradicts Castaño’s, describing missions on which the paramilitary leader accompanied the Search Bloc, as well as a DEA cable that referred to Castaño as a cooperating individual. Now, the question still lingers, whose bullet actually killed Pablo?
From a different perspective this time around, Pablo’s son Juan Pablo Escobar Henao who changed his name to Sebastián Marroquín insisted that his father took his own life on that Medellín rooftop. He said without any iota of doubt in a 2014 interview that Pablo Escobar planned his own death.
According to him, his father often told him that out of the 15 bullets in his gun, 14 was for the enemy and one for himself. Marroquín, in a book he wrote about his dad, explains in details how Escobar told him numerous times that he would shoot himself in the right ear to avoid being captured alive.
Eventually, the images of the drug lord on the rooftop show his Sig Sauer pistol, which Marroquín says his father would’ve used to shoot himself, lying next to his body. This was confirmed by family members after his mother and wife in 2006, exhumed the drug baron’s body. the family said a hole in his head confirmed the theory that the fatal wound had been self-inflicted.
That’s not the end of the puzzle. Martinez argues that a gunshot from within 3 feet would’ve left gunpowder marks on Escobar’s skin but these marks were not seen in the autopsy pictures according to Bowden. Eventually, the question of who killed Pablo Escobar is likely to go unresolved, probably by design.
So, we see how dramatic his death, just like his life was, leaving Colombia scarred with a world criminal record. To date, Escobar’s death remains an enigma.
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