Chasing Pablo
CHASING PABLO
By Keith Nightingale
The Putamayo River drains a significant portion of southern Colombia. For most of the year, it is slow moving and languorous, much like the tribes that live along its dense shores. Most of the river meanders beneath a jungle canopy that conveniently conceals human activities. The air is thick and humid. The jungle floor dissolves beneath anyone’s steps. This is home to the cocaine industry.
It was also the source of life and wealth for Pablo Escobar, one of the illegal drug industry’s most prominent imperialists. His successors now tend to the empire.
An attentive observer of the river surface will see occasional ribbons of rainbow colors on the water’s surface. These are the precursor chemical strands, expended after their use in the manufacture of the insidious white powder. Natives know from experience not to fish under the rainbow; nothing swims beneath its colorful trail, and it kills any vegetation it touches along the shore. But it is the lifeblood of the drug trade, a poison that does not respond to known methods of removal.
In Medellin, Colombia, #45D Carrera 79B is a non-descript middle-class housing area. It has a set-back second floor and a first floor covered in Spanish tile. A little after 1 p.m., on Dec. 2, 1993, one of the edge tiles dripped a slow dark ochre trail of liquid, the lifeblood of Pablo Escobar. He and the Putamayo were flowing into one. Briefly, this is how it happened:
A non-descript black four-door sedan pulled to the curb. The door opened, and a Colombian officer in olive drab combat fatigues emerged. He wore the rank of a brigadier general. Gen. Hugo Martinez was about to reap the benefits from two years of work.
He went through the building door and vaulted up the unlit staircase two steps at a time. The soldiers, surprised by his presence, slammed themselves against the wall – the butts of their MP 5’s echoing against the whitewashed concrete. Gen. Hugo arrived at the second floor and immediately saw two soldiers near a window leading out to the top of the first-floor roof. Wordlessly, he brushed by them, placed his right leg over the transom and vaulted out to the tile roof.
Walking quickly, careful to place his boots on the upturned tile row, he moved less than 20 feet to the three soldiers kneeling by a large, lifeless body, face down on the tiles, less than five feet from the edge. The body was dressed in loose pants, a casual shirt that had been twisted upward exposing a large olive-colored back and portions of a broad, lightly haired stomach. A small red bullet wound in the back slowly drained the man’s blood into the tile channel.
The head was half hidden by hair, but enough was exposed to show a dime-sized hole in the ear cavity and a stream of blood trickling down his neck, onto the tiles, upon which his face rested.
The general motioned to a soldier to lift the head by the hair and expose the full face of Pablo Escobar. The officer grunted and turned back to the window, reaching for his cellphone. Once in the hallway, he dialed a number and said “Es fin” (It’s ended) and hung up. As he moved to the curb, Gen. Hugo glanced back and saw a dozen soldiers standing beside the body. One of the men used several cameras to capture the macabre moment on film. As the general sped off, a dark pool coalesced underneath the corpse and spread on the cracked concrete sidewalk. For the general, and for Colombia, a lot of work went to this moment.
Sometime before, on August 18, 1989, a candidate for the Colombian presidency, Luis Carlos Galan was giving a speech in Medellin, the home of Pablo Escobar and the heart of the burgeoning cocaine industry. The candidate was an avowed believer in the tragedy of his country for its fixation on cocaine. He publicly swore to break the Medellin cartel and bring down Pablo Escobar in particular. This was not a popular position in Medellin, the self-proclaimed “City of Perpetual Spring.” Escobar had seeded much of the very poor population with jobs, new soccer fields and free clinics. He was a Robin Hood in wolf’s clothes. This sort of campaigning was bound to create some ill will among the locals.
Around 8 p.m., candidate Galan mounted his stage – an off-white canvas boxing ring – and began to speak. Shots rang out. The speaker slumped to the floor. The battle to control the destiny of Colombia had begun.
In dozens of buildings, ranging from palm shacks to concrete compounds, the colors of cocaine and its by-products flowed north under Escobar’s increasingly violent management, to the United States to supply approximately 230 metric tons of the white powder America demanded and consumed annually. His product was snow white, but his management style was blood red.
Deep in the southernmost region of Colombia, in the city of Cali, another group of entrepreneurial citizens watched the Medellin drama unfold with great anxiety and expectation. These were cattlemen, ranchers and business owners who sensed a potential opportunity to wrest an industry that might be handed to them by a government flailing to survive. The group had a different business model. Resting in wood-paneled rooms, with the latest technologies at hand, with children away for educations in the best foreign universities, they wore dark suits, drank Scotch and began to build the most efficient international business system in the world. They were a universe apart from the street thugs and poverty-stricken population that Pablo led.
Where Escobar and his forces would shoot and intimidate their way to success, these Cali upper crust would just buy their needs. No muss. No fuss. No bad publicity. But they would have to wait.
Soon after Galan’s alternate candidate, Cesar Giviria, was elected, a great deal of diverse, partially hidden but synthesized units of the U.S. government began to flow into Colombia. U.S. Special Forces teams began widespread training of Colombian military forces, primarily those dedicated to fighting the insurgency in the deep jungle. FBI, DEA and Customs sent beefed up teams into Colombia to train their counterparts throughout the nation. Some specialized police, CIA and military began to focus specific efforts on the newly created counterdrug forces that Gen. Martinez commanded. The more secretive elements of the U.S. counter-terrorist inventory also arrived to impart their highly specialized capabilities.
To assist in this endeavor, the United States assigned as its ambassador a retired Navy commander, “Buzz” Busby. His task was to apply some military-style management to a civil issue and to focus U.S. support into a single thrust. One team. One fight. Target Pablo.
Gen. George Joulwan, now CincSouth (SOUTHCOM), created a special task force within his headquarters, DDN, to manage the Joint Interagency Task Force support to the Andean Ridge Nations. Stocked with members from all services, including Coast Guard as well as Customs, DEA, NSA and CIA, the task force quickly began to conduct numerous raids and perform operations using host-nation forces throughout the Andean Ridge. USAF sent scheduled AWACs aircraft to Panama, and the Navy dedicated certain ships to water and air surveillance. By 1991, the first clear picture of the immense drug industry was becoming visible.
The darkened operations center at Howard Air Force Base, Panama, had an array of radar images. One set reflected the picture from the USAF AWACs operating over the Caribbean. Another showed the Customs P3 screen images flying over the Andes. A third reflected the Navy feed from a picket ship off Central American waters. The largest screen, the one watched by the most senior members present, was an amalgamation. The black screen was filled with the waxing and waning of dozens of small lines, each with a target identifier. These were the light aircraft hauling drugs to Mexico and the southeastern United States to the north and flying baled U.S. dollars to the south. Mexico was the interchange location. This was Escobar’s empire at work.
The primary job of stopping it rested with the government of Colombia and, to a lesser degree, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. None of these governments was capable on its own to effectively battle the dark force. To this point, none, with the exception of Colombia, had demonstrated the political will to expunge the drug industry. This would gradually change.
The Andes chain, both axes, have a belt of climate ideal for growing cocoa and marijuana. Throughout the region, on the soft under-soil of the rare plateaus and valleys, farmers learned the great value of these plants. Pablo and his subordinates would pay apparent huge sums of money for the new products. Farmers well below the poverty level in destitute nations were receiving the equivalent of $55 a hectare of cocoa production rather than the usual $5 a hectare for corn and related crops. Additionally, most of the products were grown by Indians, a traditionally neglected population by the national governments and therefore lacking much of any controlling or supporting infrastructure. Local loyalty was keyed to survival.
The color of cocaine changes over its processing steps. The farmers dissolve the leaves in various chemicals and precipitate the residue into dark gray soccer-ball sized lumps called paste. Mid-level industry personnel, arriving on planes and vehicles, buy these at market and move them to scattered jungle and village laboratories where the paste becomes a whitish pastel base, usually in the form of a coarse powder. Further chemical refinement converts the base to pure cocaine, shiny and brilliantly white. The finished product is then bagged in generally kilo-sized, vacuum-sealed plastic bags, loaded onto aircraft, boats, ships and other conveyances and sent to market in North America. This is how Pablo’s cottage industry became a huge and sophisticated international industrial conglomerate.
On the SOUTHCOM screens, two legs of the industry could vividly be seen in small green and silver streaks. The AWACs and naval radars showed the northbound cocaine flights into Mexico and the southeast U.S. coast. They also displayed the southbound flights of American dollars, demonstrably smaller numbers but immensely more valuable.
The feed from the Customs P3s showed a maze of flights blanketing the Andes. In this region, light aircraft are the pickup trucks of choice, passing over land where roads don’t go, and feeding isolated interior ranches and villages. What represents drugs and what is legitimate would have to be left to analysis. What is known is that a significant part of the Customs streaks were flights within the Andean Ridge to feed the constantly demanding laboratory requirements. No coke. No cash. Simple economics.
The southern border of Colombia was a favored laboratory location for the industry. The precursor chemicals (the stuff that did the chemical conversions) were easily transported on the myriad waterways and facilities and could be well-hidden in the dense foliage that lined the riverbanks. Near each of these places, there was usually a grass or marginally paved airstrip, suitable for the almost daily light aircraft flights taking the various stages of production to market. Takeoffs and landings were duly noted by radar and only on the rarest instance would a Colombian Air Force aircraft attempt an intercept.
In addition to the Medellin Cartel’s drug subversions, the Colombian Government also had a full-blown insurgency to manage with both FARC and ELN guerillas assuming control of portions of the interior. Their respective leadership noted the commercial potential of a drug alliance and quickly became insurgent entrepreneurs. Establishing their own drug labs and supply chain, they converted cocaine profits into arms and equipment to supply their needs. Even though each guerrilla element was essentially in political competition, they became a commercial brotherhood. The Medellin industry alternately fought them or used their products as the local situation might warrant. Colombia was quickly becoming ungovernable as the insurgency became the best funded guerilla enterprise in history. The President of Colombia was quickly becoming nothing much more than the Mayor of Bogota and that was iffy. Significant parts of the city and its population paid more homage to the Cartel than to its National infrastructure. Police were loath to engage in rightful fear of death. Besides, cooperation came with cash bonuses.
Similar radar pictures and intelligence analysis was playing out at JTF 5 in Key West. JTF 5 was the Joint DOD/LEA drug monitoring and intelligence facility which was part of the larger US Government effort to monitor and interdict the drugs. What both JTF 5 and SOUTHCOM saw was that a lot of white powder was flying North and a lot of money was flying South. Pablo and the narco-guerillas had a highly lucrative industry. By 1990, the scope of this industry became a National Security issue within the Washington Beltway and certain long range decisions began to take shape.
More than simply training, some of these introduced elements and capabilities had a highly specialized intelligence aspect that began to unravel the hidden parts that Pablo and others shrouded in mystery. A very important part of this work were several non-descript vans and a glider. The vans held unique cell phone electronic tracking capabilities and the glider permitted covert overflight of drug areas. These assets were quickly turned over to Colombian elements and were used to initiate quality raids for the first time. The heat was turning up on the cartel.
The greatest fear the narco leadership had was extradition to the US and Gaviria made it clear that was an attractive option. After some period of a tightening noose, Pablo offered himself to the government IF it would imprison him in Medellin and not conduct extradition. The Colombians, anxious to demonstrate progress, agreed. Pablo built himself a palatial prison on the high ground overlooking Medellin and checked in. Ironically, it was dubbed The Cathedral. All the amenities of home. Good food, good drinks, ladies and other visitors as he desired. His management of the cartel continued without interruption. Life was good.
However, the publicity of his conditions of incarceration became notorious and an embarrassment to the government. He began to hear of discussions between the Colombians and the US and that perhaps his lifestyle might be abruptly changed. He decided it was time to leave. In July of 1992, Pablo departed to the hoped for security of his support structure in greater Medellin. General Martinez was asked to fix the problem.
While Pablo was in pleasure prison, General Martinez and his elements had been exercising their new-found competency and intelligence. Labs, money and leadership were being slowly eroded. His forces and their families isolated from general access, became somewhat untouchable. The normal attractions of money and threats couldn’t be applied. This was becoming a new Colombia.
Pablo, now essentially alone in Medellin, began to lose control of his empire and other outliers filled the vacuums. The Cali businessmen began to take over parts of the structure. FARC and ELN filled other spaces. Local vigilantes-probably a pseudo-covert arm of the government titled Los Pepes, began to attrite the secondary leadership. Medellin was quickly becoming a bit player. By early Fall of 1993, Pablo was moving from house to house in his most supportive neighborhoods, a furtive fugitive. One afternoon on the 3d of December, he picked up his cellphone to call his son. It would be his last call.
Inside a large unmarked white shop van, the dark interior was enhanced by a new light. Bright amber and green streaks crossed a video tube. The operator quickly dialed into the frequency and confirmed this was a cell used by Pablo. Another companion began to monitor the call and gave a thumbs up confirming the source. A message went out on a secure net and several other similar vans began to locate the same call. Within a very short time, an intersection of these diverse communication lines was achieved. They coalesced at #45D Carrera 79B. General Martinez saw this and made some quiet but precise orders and then sat down in a darkened van to await the results. Quickly, the color of Pablo was red and dead.
Immediately thereafter, the Colombian government and several US elements made several showy public announcements regarding Pablo and the demise of the Medellin Cartel. This was to be portrayed as a watershed moment in the drug war-A Gettysburg for the good guys. Meanwhile, far to the South, the Cali business people in their suits, boots and single malt scotch assessed Medellin’s losses and initiated actions to fill the void. Deep in the green sweaty jungle interior, FARC and ELN leadership received the news, shrugged their shoulders and moved quickly to assume management of the newly leadership-deprived nodes of infrastructure. The rivers continued to show that rainbow iridescence of disposed precursor chemicals and the radar screens at Panama and Key West displayed no diminution of air traffic. Drugs Central was just under new management.
DEA and ONDCP had dramatic press conferences heralding the end of a major drug empire. Backs were slapped and congratulations exchanged. Self-satisfaction lasted for a brief moment and then both the Good and the Bad got back to real business.
Today, 2015, its High Noon on the Southern border, still transiting North are an accumulated 230 metric tons of Pablo’s and his successors products. The coursing flow continues as the radar screen demonstrates. The flow is not the red of Pablo nor the rainbows of the Putamayo, but the soft white of cocaine. A coursing trail that seems to have no end.
