who was Pablo Escobar?

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1. Guest8213
   

   Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria (December 1, 1949 - December 2, 1993) was a Colombian drug lord. Often referred to as the "World's Greatest Outlaw," Pablo Escobar was perhaps the most elusive cocaine trafficker to have ever existed.[1]  He is regarded as the richest and most successful criminal in world history. In the year 1989, Forbes  magazine declared Escobar as the seventh richest man in the world, with an estimated personal fortune of US$ 9 billion.[2]  He owned innumerable luxury residences and automobiles and in 1986 he attempted to enter Colombian politics, even offering to pay off the nation's US$ 10 billion national debt.[3]  It is said that Pablo Escobar once burnt US$ 2 million in cash just to keep warm while on the run.[4]
   Pablo Escobar once said that the essence of the cocaine business was "simple - you bribe someone here, you bribe someone there, and you pay a friendly banker to help you bring the money back."[15]  In 1987 Forbes magazine estimated Escobar to be the seventh-richest man in the world with a personal wealth of close to $9 billion[2]  while his Medellín cartel controlled 80% of the global cocaine market. In most businesses, seeing a return on investment (ROI) of 100% would be more than enough for a company to thrive. By some estimates, Pablo Escobar enjoyed an ROI of as much as 20,000%. Put another way, for every $1 he put into his business, he got about $200 in return. It is said that rats ate $1 billion of Pablo Escobar's profits each year.[16]
   
   While seen as an enemy of the United States and Colombian governments, Escobar was a hero to many in Medellín (especially the poor people); he was a natural at public relations and he worked to create goodwill among the poor people of Colombia. A lifelong sports fan, he was credited with building football fields and multi-sports courts, as well as sponsoring little league football teams.[17]
   
   Escobar was responsible for the construction of many churches in Medellín, which gained him popularity inside the local Roman Catholic Church.[18] He worked hard to cultivate his "Robin Hood" image, and frequently distributed money to the poor through housing projects and other civic activities, which gained him notable popularity among the poor. The population of Medellín often helped Escobar by serving as lookouts, hiding information from the authorities, or doing whatever else they could do to protect him.
   
   Despite his popular image among the Medellín community Escobar was well-known among his business associates to be an insecure, paranoid, ruthless murderer. It has been reported that his brother said Pablo was so violently committed to loyalty that he once threatened him at gun point over a minor misunderstanding. His brother said his ability to befriend the dangerous and intimidate the powerful is what made him as unstoppable as he was. At the height of his power, drug traffickers from Medellín and other areas were handing over between 20 and 35% of their Colombian cocaine-related profits to Escobar.
   
   Escobar’s continuing struggles to maintain supremacy resulted in Colombia's quickly becoming the world’s murder capital with 7,081 victims in 1991 alone.[citation needed] This increased murder rate was fueled by Escobar's giving money to poor youths as a reward for killing police officers, over 600 of whom died in this way.[19] Today, Colombia is surpassed by several countries, such as Guatemala, South Africa and Venezuela.[20][21]
   The war against Escobar ended on December 2, 1993, as he tried to elude the Search Bloc one more time and that was his demise. Using radio triangulation technology provided as part of the United States efforts, a Colombian electronic surveillance team found him hiding in a middle-class barrio in Medellín. With authorities closing in, a firefight with Escobar and his bodyguard, Alvaro de Jesús Agudelo AKA El Limón, ensued. The two fugitives attempted to escape by running across the roofs of adjoining houses to reach a back street, but both were shot and killed by Colombian National Police.[23]  He suffered gunshots to the leg, torso, and the fatal one in his ear. It has never been proven who actually fired the final shot into Escobar's head, whether this shot was made during the gunfight or as part of possible execution, and there is wide speculation about the subject. One very popular theory is that Hugo Aguilar shot Escobar with just one shot with his 9 mm pistol.[citation needed] Some of the family members believe that Escobar could have committed suicide.[24][25]  His two brothers, Roberto Escobar and Fernando Sánchez Arellano, believe that he shot himself through the ears: "He committed suicide, he did not get killed. During all the years they went after him, he would say to me every day that if he was really cornered without a way out, he would shoot himself through the ears."[26]  During the autopsy however, there was no stippling  pattern found around the ear, which suggested that the shot which killed Escobar was fired from further than an arm's length away.[27]
   
   After Escobar's death and the fragmentation of the Medellín Cartel the cocaine market soon became dominated by the rival Cali Cartel, until the mid-1990s when its leaders, too, were either killed or captured by the Colombian government.
   
   The Robin Hood image that he had cultivated continued to have lasting influence in Medellín. Many there, especially many of the city's poor that had been aided by him while he was alive, lamented his death.
   [edit] Exhumation
   
   On 28 October 2006, Escobar's body was exhumed by request of his nephew Nicolás Escobar, two days after the death of mother Hermilda Gaviria (who opposed exhumation) to verify that the body in the tomb was in fact that of Escobar and also to collect DNA for a paternity test claim. According to the report by the El Tiempo newspaper, Escobar's widow Maria Victoria was present recording the exhumation with a video camera.

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