In the late seventies, in the town of Medellin, located in Colombia, a cocaine cartel arose and formed. The founders of this criminal syndicate were several Colombian drug lords. He existed until 1993, when the government of the South American country liquidated and arrested most of its members.
The emergence of the cartel
What is the Medellin cartel, Colombians know firsthand. The date of creation of the drug cartel is considered the summer of 1977, when a number of small groups of criminals merged into one. The Ochoa brothers, Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha and Pablo Escobar were the main creators and persons who obeyed the entire Medellin cartel. Klaus Barbier, a well-known Nazi, according to some allegations, also contributed to the formation of this criminal organization.
Criminal organization strategy
Unlike others, the Medellin cartel, whose photos were still few then, specialized in the supply of narcotic drugs in smaller quantities. The destinations for these shipments were North America and Europe. The head of the cartel, Pablo Escobar, provided his customers with guarantees that they would receive the order in any case, and if the party was stopped by law enforcement agencies, it would compensate them for losses. The criminal syndicate needed all the drugs needed: auto and air transport, ships, submarines.
Income and structure
The Medellin cartel can be ranked among the most powerful and powerful narcotic organizations in the world. In its best days, this community earned an income of up to $ 60,000,000 per day. In the eighties, the Medellin cartel controlled almost 80 percent of the world's cocaine turnover. During its existence, the organization made a profit, which, according to various experts, ranges from tens to hundreds of billions of US dollars.
The structure of the drug cartel was very ramified. It consisted of many groups, each of which had a specific task. But the main goal of each group was to deliver drugs to their destination. These groups mainly consisted of Americans, Canadians, Europeans, so among them there were a lot of undercover informants and US agents.
Pablo Escobar
In his thirty years, the leader of the criminal community, Escobar, has become a billionaire, according to some - the richest man on earth, or at least one of the richest. The condition of Pablo Escobar was so huge that he could afford to have more than thirty estates, forty rare cars, his own airport, two dozen artificial reservoirs dug in the territory of his villa.
Competitors
Less powerful, but still causing trouble to the Medellin cartel was another Colombian syndicate - the Cali cartel. The confrontation between these organizations faded, then again gained strength. It was this cartel that made an effort to disintegrate and destroy the organization of Pablo Escobar.
Government fight with the criminal community Medellin
Following the fact that the law enforcement authorities of Colombia became aware of the existence of the Medellin cartel and its activities, its participants were taken under close surveillance. After collecting sufficient evidence for the prosecution, the police arrested the participants, after which the courts were held, the convicts went to jail. But among these, there were mainly foreigners, one way or another connected with drug trafficking, there were very few Colombians themselves, and even more so cartel leaders among the convicted.
Treaty between Colombia and the USA
The second half of the eighties for the Colombian cartel was successful in terms of control over the entire society of the country. Branches of a criminal organization encompassed almost all of his spheres of life.
However, at the same time, the struggle of the US leadership against drug trafficking intensified, the administration of then-President R. Reagan, one might say, declared war on the drug lords. One of the steps for this was the following. The United States and the leadership of Colombia have concluded an agreement between themselves. Under its terms, Colombian law enforcement agencies were required to extradite to the United States the leaders of criminal organizations involved in the sale and transportation of narcotic drugs in the United States.
Such an agreement was not at all in the hands of the Colombian barons. If law enforcement officers detained them and put them in a Colombian prison, this would not be a problem for them, since they would feel at home there and quite calmly be able to manage their business further and, after some short time, completely be released . If they were sent to an American prison, the drug lords could not do anything like that. Therefore, such an agreement with the US government, Pablo Escobar and other leaders were very not happy and tried by all means for the Colombian government to cancel it. One of the mottos of the crime syndicate was: "Better to lie in a grave in Columbia than to sit in a US prison."
Colombian leaders such as Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan and many judges from the country's Supreme Court were some of the supporters of this agreement with the United States.
Terror and violence
In order to strengthen their positions, the leaders of the drug cartel began to use methods such as bribes, intimidation, terror against supporters of the treaty. However, none of this helped, and with the endless raids of law enforcement, the Medellinsky cartel lost many of its people. Many leaders of drug cartel groups were forced to go underground or even leave the country, instructing their people to liquidate all the supporters of the agreement with the United States. From that time the war between the criminal syndicate and the governments of the two countries began, from which mostly civilians died. The criminals did not stop at nothing. They planted explosive devices in crowded places. Among these were shopping complexes, a mother and child center, and other public places. As a result, the Medellin cartel killed and injured tens of thousands of ordinary citizens of Colombia.
In August 1989, criminals killed Luis Carlos Galan, who was the most likely candidate for the presidency in Colombia. This was the response that the Medellin cartel, Escobar, in particular, gave to the statement of Galan, who promised to end the drug dealers in Colombia. The terror, arranged by the leaders of the criminal community before the presidential election, intensified several times, daily members of the drug cartel killed dozens of people, staged explosions in various crowded places, and made demonstrative killings of famous Colombian figures. All this was aimed only at stopping, stopping the extradition of criminals to the United States.
The desire for power
It is noteworthy that Pablo Escobar sought in the power circles of Colombia. So, in 1982, he ended up in the country's Congress, where he served as a replacement congressman, that is, he participated in meetings if the main congressman was absent. But such a position, of course, was not enough for an ambitious person loving power. He wanted to become president of Colombia. However, here he was somewhat surprised, because contrary to his opinion, people from districts located outside Medellin did not popularize him so much. On the contrary, Escobar in the same Bogotá was considered a dubious person. There were true rumors about him revealing his shadow business, and some politicians openly declared that Escobar was a cocaine baron. Among them was Luis Carlos Galan, and later Rodrigo Lara Bonilla took the necessary measures against the use of money from drug trafficking in the election race. The result of this was the exclusion of the leader of the Medellin cartel from the country's highest authorities. The further way here was ordered for Escobar, his career as a politician was over.
Los Pepes
At the beginning of the last decade of the last century, several Colombian civilians created an organization called Los Pepes. It was an abbreviation for people affected by Pablo Escobar. The members of this organization are relatives and friends of those who died at the hands of the cartel. In addition, other people who hated the criminal activities conducted by the Medellin cartel also entered. Los Pepes was involved in tracking and eliminating anyone who was involved in the functioning of the drug cartel in any way. In a relatively short time, the organization destroyed more than three hundred defendants in a criminal syndicate. This, so to speak, public organization caused the activities of the Colombian drug cartel a very significant damage.
End of the cartel
Law enforcement agencies of the country and the USA did not doze off either; they raided the syndicate in all directions. Both small groups and larger ones with their leaders were eliminated. Under destruction fell open laboratories for the production of cocaine, as well as the very sources of this potion - coca plantations.
In December 1989, some of the key figures of the Medellin cartel were destroyed on their estate. These are Gilberto Randon and Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, who committed suicide in a police attack.
A year later, the Ochoa brothers voluntarily surrendered to the hands of law enforcement officers. This was done in response to a promise not to transfer them to the United States.
By 1993, the majority of the leaders and members of the Medellin cartel were either destroyed or detained by law enforcement agencies, and on December 2, 1993, they went on the trail of the leader of the criminal community. The place where Pablo Escobar was was surrounded by operational officers. During the shootout, Escobar tried to escape, but was shot by a sniper from the Los Pepes community.
Formally, from that moment on, the Medellin cocaine cartel ceased operations, but even before the end of the millennium, law enforcement authorities detained and arrested its former members.