Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - MURDER: Pablo Escobar

Episode Date: March 13, 2025

In the early 1970s, drug lord Pablo Escobar created the Medellín drug cartel, making him one of the most powerful men in Colombia -- and one of the richest men in the world. As his power grew, Pablo turned to increasingly violent methods to expand his empire... and was willing to murder anyone who got in his way. Money Crimes is a Crime House Original. For more true crime content, follow us on all social media, @crimehouse. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Intro In his prime, Pablo Escobar was the international face of the cocaine trade, not to mention a billionaire. But Pablo didn't even bother pretending to be a legitimate businessman. Instead of solving his problems in a boardroom, he solved them with bullets. From rival cartel leaders to high-ranking government officials, anyone who got in his way usually wound up dead. But it wasn't just his personal army that made Pablo Escobar a threat? It was his money.

As the saying goes, those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it. That's especially true when it comes to money. If you want to make the right decisions when it comes to managing your assets, you need to know what mistakes to avoid and how to spot a trap. This is Money Crimes, a Crime House original. I'm your host, Nicole Lapin. Every Thursday, I'll be telling you the story of a famous financial crime and giving you advice on how to avoid becoming a victim yourself. At Crime House, we want to express our gratitude to each and every one of you, our community, for making all of this possible. Please support us by rating, reviewing, and following Money Crimes wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Your feedback truly matters.

And for ad-free and early access to money crimes, plus exciting bonus content, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. This episode is all about Pablo Escobar, the drug lord sometimes called the wealthiest criminal in history. He's notorious for his violent crimes, opulent lifestyle, and a high-profile prison break. But we're also gonna look at his money, how he made it, how he hid it, and who helped him along the way. This Friday, grab your friends. Nova Kane? I thought you'd be dead by now.

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And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for total fun savings adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Pablo Escobar is remembered as a brutal crime lord. What many people don't know is that he was also the first drug dealer to make the Forbes World's billionaires list. But it's impossible to understand the story of Pablo Escobar, both his crimes and his money without understanding his product, cocaine. Cocaine originates from the leaves of a cocoa tree which grows in South America. Chewing cocoa leaves can give a mild energy boost, almost like a cup of coffee.

But in the 19th century, German scientists figured out how to isolate the stimulating compound inside the coca leaf, giving birth to the drug we all call cocaine. The new drug was super popular, and when it was first invented in the 1800s, it was totally legal. In fact, the drug was in all sorts of consumer items. Ever wonder where the name Coca-Cola comes from? Well, when it was created in 1885, cocaine was part of the recipe. Eventually though, cocaine went from a novelty to a major public health issue. Chewing coca leaves is, at worst, a bad habit. But refined cocaine?

Well, that can lead to some serious health problems, not to mention death. So by 1914, cocaine was banned in the United States, and it soon fell out of fashion. That is until the 1970s, when the drug became popular on the party scene, creating a thriving black market. You can see the economics here, right? In one region of the world, coca leaves literally grow on trees. And that region happens to be relatively low income, at least relative to the United States, where coca trees don't grow but lots of people want to buy cocaine.

That is a recipe for massive profitability. Well, in early 1976, a Colombian street thief and smuggler saw that as an opportunity and stepped into the cocaine marketplace. His name was Pablo Escobar. Pablo was 26 years old at the time and pretty far from an underworld mastermind. Although he was related to some of Colombia's most powerful families, he grew up in poverty and dropped out of college because he couldn't afford the tuition. He became a petty criminal, at one point selling stolen tombstones to make a living.

But what he lacked in resources, he made up for in ambition. He bragged to his girlfriend that he would make a million dollars by the time he turned 30, or die trying. So in 1976, he co-founded the drug trafficking group we now know as the Medellin Cartel. But thanks to Pablo's ruthless nature, it wasn't long before he was calling all the shots himself. Now, cartel is a word we hear in the news constantly, used interchangeably with terms like mafia or crime syndicate. But there's actually a legal definition. Under the law, a cartel is any group of business entities that act together to rig prices or illegally manipulate markets.

So if you believe that egg producers are working together to raise the price of eggs, you're accusing them of forming a cartel. Some analysts believe that narcotics trafficking organizations like the Medellin Cartel don't actually qualify as true cartels. They act more like independent businesses by competing with each other. Maybe the more accurate way to describe groups like the one Escobar founded would be crime corporations. But because Medellin Cartel is the widely known term for Pablo Escobar's criminal organization, we'll continue using it that way. As for Pablo, in between dealing with the growing pains of a new illegal business, he

found time for a personal life, too. On March 29, 1976, 26-year-old Pablo married 15-year-old Maria Victoria Enhal. It wasn't exactly a happy occasion, though. Both the bride and the groom's parents boycotted the ceremony. And for good reason. Pablo had been grooming Maria as a future bride since she was 12 and he was 23. He liked that Maria was much younger than him. It made it easy to lie to her about what he did for work. Plus, he told her that all men were unfaithful to their wives so he could continue sleeping with other women. So Maria never questioned anything he did.

Including one night in May of 1976 when Pablo and some of his associates were arrested for cocaine possession, Maria, who was still in high school and also newly pregnant, had no idea her husband was in jail. She assumed he was on a business trip, Which from his viewpoint, he was. Even this early in his drug lord career, Pablo considered himself untouchable. His mugshot even shows him grinning like he just won a prize. He tried getting the case dismissed by hiring a good lawyer and bribing a judge. When that failed, he used his underground connections to have the arresting officers

killed. With nobody left to testify, the charges were dropped. The Colombian National Police heard his message loud and clear, ''Mess with me and it will cost you your life.'' They were frightened enough to bury his arrest report and forget it ever happened. Freedom in hand, Pablo and his associates decided it was time to up their game. The Medellin cartel wasted no time snapping up as much farmland as they could get. Land was both a status symbol and a crucial part of their operation.

They needed space for coca plantations, makeshift laboratories, airstrips, and security operations. By the late 1970s, this expansion shot the Medellin Cartel to the top of the narcotics industry. But that introduced a whole new set of problems. First, how to export and sell more cocaine than their rivals. Second, how to hold on to the money they made, both in the US and Colombia, a country full of guerrilla armies with enough firepower to threaten the cartel. And third, how to avoid prosecution while running an illegal business.

That first problem, exporting and selling cocaine, had a simple but bold solution. Most international drug traffickers at the time were moving cocaine into the United States in suitcases carried by individual travelers. It was a high-risk, low-volume play. So the Medellin Cartel decided to go bigger by shipping their product using private aircraft. One large suitcase might fit a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of cocaine. Meanwhile, a small airplane could carry ten million dollars worth. The flights landed under the cover of night at deserted airstrips, typically off the Florida

coast. Crews quickly unloaded their cargo onto speedboats, which zipped off to deliver bricks of cocaine to distributors all over Florida. That brought in the second problem. What to do with all the money they got for those shipments? Cocaine was so valuable at the time, the cash they got for it wouldn't all fit into the airplane, which meant they couldn't bring it all back with them without making multiple trips or bringing multiple airplanes, which was super risky.

And the problems didn't end with getting the cash onto Colombian soil. US currency wasn't accepted in Colombia. So in order to spend it, they'd need to exchange it at a bank for Colombian pesos. But on top of losing a ton of value through exchange rates, they'd also be handing the government a paper trail. That's why Pablo and the Medellin Cartel preferred to deposit their money in U.S. bank accounts whenever possible. Or fly to a third country like Panama, where U.S. dollars were usable currency. Then they purchased black market pesos through an elaborate

international money laundering scheme so they could spend that cash back in Colombia. Money laundering is one of the simplest forms of organized crime. It's called laundering because participants take dirty money earned in an illegal way and wash it. The easiest way to launder money is through a legitimate business that takes in a lot of physical cash, like for example, a laundromat. Maybe the laundromat makes $5,000 in legitimate revenue each week, but it deposits $15,000 in the bank, with the other $10,000 coming from illegal sources. That makes it seem like the money came from a legitimate business. So if authorities come sniffing around, the laundromat can just insist it did three times

as much business as it actually did. Once Pablo and the Medellin Cartel got their money launderers to turn those dollars into pesos, it was theirs to spend. And Pablo was very good at spending. By the time Pablo Escobar turned 30 in 1979, he'd achieved his dream of becoming a millionaire multiple times over. He used some of that money to purchase a nearly 5,000-acre estate, which he named Hacienda Napoles. It cost him millions of dollars. He even built a private zoo at the Hacienda and airlifted illegally trafficked wildlife, including hippos and giraffes.

trafficked wildlife, including hippos, and giraffes. On the Colombian coast, he bought a separate estate with 300 guest rooms just to host massive parties. His newfound wealth didn't go unnoticed by his wife, Maria. The money allowed her to finish her education and travel the world. But she was content not to ask too many questions, because the cash was rolling in and it wasn't showing any signs of stopping. When he turned 32 in 1981, his wealth was increasing at a rate of a half a million dollars a day.

It was so much money he had to store it in warehouses and fields. He bought an expensive private plane exclusively for moving his personal cash from place to place and even two submarines. But he didn't just spend it on his own opulent lifestyle. He also gave millions to help Colombia's poorest people. Pablo funded lighting systems for a hundred soccer fields so kids could play after dark without fear. He constructed a low-income medical clinic. He also funded roads and ran power lines into neighborhoods without electricity. He even built an entire neighborhood. After a tragic fire, hundreds of people in

Medellin were sleeping outdoors alongside a garbage dump. Pablo visited the slum and decided to build a thousand houses there. He even bought furniture for the homes. As the finishing touch, he added a church. The neighborhood, which was later christened Barrio Pablo Escobar, meaning the Pablo Escobar district, houses about 15,000 people as of 2024. It features multiple murals honoring him. But if we're going to talk about all the good things Pablo did, we also need to talk about what happened when he didn't get his way. As I mentioned earlier, the Medellin Cartel had three business problems.

How to export cocaine in big quantities, how to hold on to the money once they sold it, and how to avoid prosecution. We've talked about how Pablo solved the first two problems, airplanes and money laundering. His solution to the third was equally simple. He called it Plata o Plomo, meaning silver or lead. In other words, politicians, law enforcement officers, and judges had two choices. They could either take his plata in forms of bribes, or they could get his plomo in the form of bullets. And they knew from how he treated his underworld associates

that he meant business. On top of that, Escobar had created his own private debt collection service, the Oficina de Envigado. It worked like any other collections agency, except for one thing. If a lower-level trafficker failed to pay when a collector dropped by, the next visit might be from a sicario, meaning hitman. As many as 500 sicarios worked for Pablo at the height of his power. Their favorite weapons, after guns, were car bombs. And when they really wanted to send a message, Pablo's men sometimes cut their victims into pieces and roasted them over a fire. All to say, most people who were offered plata o plomo took the plata. And they were rewarded generously. Sometimes Pablo even allowed the police officers on his payroll

to intercept one of his smaller shipments. This way they could bring a load of cocaine back to their bosses and look like heroes. Between these generous bribes and a network of assassins, Pablo avoided trouble for years. And even if someone did want to come after him, it wouldn't be easy. The cartel's laboratories and export operations were located in a remote corner of the Colombian jungle, at least 100 miles from the nearest roads. The only way to get there was to fly in on one of the cartel's own planes, with a pilot who could navigate the route by memory. And honestly, nobody was all that interested in stopping him. The Colombian government

was happy to look the other way, focusing on Pablo's Robinhood image rather than focusing on his mounting body count. It's easy to look back now and criticize everyone who tolerated Pablo in his early years, but many Colombians saw the cocaine trade as a good thing. It was bringing a ton of money into the country and lifting people out of poverty. Plus, the cartels didn't sell drugs to ordinary Colombians, mostly because they couldn't afford it.

And the skyrocketing murder rate barely registered with people who had become numb to the violence after growing up in an era of guerrilla warfare and rampant police brutality. For the time being, the government wasn't all that interested in going after Pablo and the Medellin Cartel. But if that ever changed, he might not be able to stop them. So Pablo resorted to the classic strategy of, if you can't beat them, join them. In 1982, at the age of 33, Pablo ran for a seat in the Colombian Congress. He only won a substitute position, which meant he'd sit in if the primary congressman in

his district wasn't available. But that was enough to get him what he really wanted. That position came with massive perks, namely judicial immunity, which meant Pablo couldn't be prosecuted for any crime in Colombia, including his cartel activities. He also received a special visa that allowed him to legally visit the United States. So, he bought a mansion in Miami, which made it even easier to conduct his business there. Which was a good thing for him because things were starting to get a little trickier. Around that time, the American government was starting a major crackdown on the cocaine trade.

A government audit showed that some $6 billion of unexplained money had been deposited in South Florida banks. They'd managed to do it through a process called smurfing. Starting in 1970, federal law required U.S. banks to collect depositors' IDs and file a report for all deposits over $10,000. To get around it, drug traffickers like Pablo had their couriers, known as Smurfs, go around to a bunch of different banks making deposits under that $10,000 limit.

For a while, it worked. But once the American authorities caught on to what was going on, they decided to crack down hard. By 1983, federal agents were literally pulling over the money-filled airplanes with cop cars, chasing them down private airport runways and forcing them to stop before taking off. But still, the US Drug Enforcement Administration didn't know the Medellin Cartel even existed at this point. They knew Colombia was providing a lot of cocaine to

the United States, but they had no idea how sophisticated and extensive those operations really were. Until they got some help from an unexpected source. In Pablo's short time as an alternate congressman, he made a powerful enemy. Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, Colombia's new Minister of Justice. Rodrigo, who just went by Lara, was appointed after a string of corruption scandals. He promised to get drug money out of Colombian politics, starting with getting Pablo out of Congress. Most officials were still pretending they had no idea how Pablo had gotten so wealthy so fast. But in an August of 1983 speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, Lara publicly called him out as a drug dealer.

After Lara's remarks, Colombian journalists realized the government was no longer willing to protect Pablo. Newspapers unearthed records from his 1976 cocaine arrest and published them. Back then, he'd even evaded prison by murdering the arresting officers. But now, no amount of money, or lead, could prevent the public scandal coming his way. Pablo was kicked out of his political party and pressured to resign. When he refused, the newspapers kept digging. Pretty soon they found out about his history as a carjacker too.

Pablo still had judicial immunity as a sitting alternate congressman and couldn't be criminally prosecuted. But the government could fine him for his civil offenses. So they did just that, slapping him with a $5,000 penalty for smuggling wild animals into his private zoo. Of course, $5,000 was basically pocket change to Pablo. But the fine sent a harsh message. He was no longer untouchable in his native country. And it wasn't long before the American authorities got in on the action too. After the Colombian government outed Pablo Escobar as a cocaine kingpin,

the American authorities decided to go after him as well. Sometime around 1983, undercover agents running a sting operation sold barrels of ether, a solvent that helps process cocoa leaves into cocaine, to one of Pablo's underlings. The feds inserted tracking devices into their ether barrels. Then they reached out to the Colombian government. With the help of Pablo's nemesis, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, the Americans got the Colombian National Police to cooperate with the DEA in a top-secret raid. When they reached their destination, the Colombian police and the DEA agent accompanying them

discovered a seriously advanced smuggling operation. Hundreds of miles deep into the Colombian jungle, the Medellin Cartel was running a state-of-the-art factory and distribution center. They called it Tranquilin Día, meaning peaceful land. There was more than a billion dollars worth of processed cocaine there, waiting to be loaded onto airplanes.

Pablo caught wind of what was happening, so he contacted Colonel Jaime Ramirez, the top anti-narcotics officer in Colombia. In typical fashion, Pablo offered him a massive bribe to call off the raid. Instead, Colonel Ramirez burned Tranquilindía's buildings to the ground. Among the ruins, police found a list of enemies to be targeted for assassination. Colonel Ramirez's name was on the list.

The loss of Tranquilindía was a huge blow to the Medellín cartel, but not a fatal one. Pablo still had billions of dollars at his disposal, and he used some of that money to settle a score. Just a few weeks after the raid, in April of 1984, one of Pablo's sicarios murdered Lara Bonilla. But Lara accomplished something in death that had eluded him in life. He got the President of Colombia to join the fight against the cartels. The assassination of a sitting cabinet member was a bridge too far for President Belisario Betancourt.

Even though he knew he was putting himself at risk of assassination, he decided to sign a new law permitting extradition to the United States. Pablo knew his days were numbered if he stayed in Colombia. So he fled to Nicaragua, whose government was happy to receive him in exchange for a share of his profits. Over the next several months, Pablo's cocaine operation recovered and even reached new heights. His status as a fugitive turned out to be pretty effective marketing for his drugs. The name Pablo Escobar took on mythical status in the United States just as the era of cheap crack

cocaine began. Business had never been better, but Pablo's old life as the Colombian Robin Hood was gone for good, and the DEA was on his trail. However, Pablo wasn't the type to lay low. However, Pablo wasn't the type to lay low. Instead of retreating, he declared war. Pablo announced that his hitmen would receive a bounty for any police officer they killed. The sicarios, eager to collect, assassinated 550 cops. In 1986, they even killed Colonel Jaime Ramirez, the man who burned down Tranquilindía rather than taking a bribe. By now, Medellin had the highest murder rate in the world by far. Police officers, judges, and journalists were the Sicario's primary targets.

But they also killed plenty of ordinary working class Colombians. Pablo had always been ruthless, but now he was completely out of control. And it didn't seem like anyone could stop him. Every time the authorities got a tip on where he was staying, he vanished before they arrived. It was clear there was no bringing him in by force, which meant there was only one thing left for the Colombian government to do, surrender. In 1991, newly elected President Cesar Gaviria cancelled the law allowing extradition to

the United States. That was the news Pablo had been waiting for. So he agreed to turn himself in and go to prison in Colombia, as long as he could serve his time in a facility he built himself, which he nicknamed the Cathedral. Which, of course, wasn't really a prison at all. It was just another one of his mansions, and the guards were all on his payroll. While serving his time at the Cathedral, Pablo weeded the cartel, getting rid of traitors and promoting loyalists. He also found plenty of time to enjoy the jacuzzi and throw parties in his private disco. But once again, Abloh couldn't resist going too far.

In 1992, he became convinced that two of his most trusted associates were stealing from him. He had brought them to the cathedral, where he tortured and killed them. President Gaviria was willing to tolerate the disco parties and the jacuzzi, but using the cathedral as an execution site made him look weak. Gaviria ordered Pablo to be transferred to a military prison, but he escaped before he could be moved. Pablo still had plenty of fans among the Colombian public.

He even briefly hid out in a neighborhood he built, Barrio Pablo Escobar. But the other founders of the Medellin Cartel had given themselves up in exchange for plea deals. That left the cartel in disarray, unable to truly protect its leader. And eventually, Pablo got sick of running. On December 2, 1993, he called his son Juan Pablo. They talked long enough for the authorities to trace the call to a house in the Los Olivos neighborhood of Medellin. That same day, Pablo watched from a second-floor window as Colombian national police officers

stormed the house. He ran to the roof where he was trapped in a sea of gunfire. Pablo Escobar died in a hail of bullets a day after his 44th birthday. The soldiers and police officers who participated in the raid posed for a photo next to his bloodied body, grinning from ear to ear. But not everyone in Colombia was happy about Pablo's death. Thousands of admirers attended his funeral. He remains a folk hero in much of Colombia, and his grinning mugshot from 1976 was printed on t-shirts around the world.

As for the money, much of Pablo's personal fortune was never found, sparking occasional treasure hunts in Colombia. In 2015, a Spanish newspaper reported that a Colombian citizen found $600 million in cash, although it's unclear if it was actually Pablo's. And in 2020, one of Pablo's nephews even said he found $18 million in one of his uncle's old houses. Of course, Pablo Escobar's legacy goes beyond a viral mugshot and rumors of hidden treasure. The cocaine industry he helped build is still alive and well. And no matter what happens to kingpins like Pablo, that probably won't change anytime soon.

Because no matter what a government does to try and stop them, there's no stopping the law of supply and demand. And for better or worse, your host Nicole Lappin. Come back next time as I take you through another wild story and offer you some advice along the way. Money Crimes is a Crime House original. Join me every Thursday for a brand new episode. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your continued support. If you like what you heard here today, reach out on social media at CrimeHouse on TikTok and on Instagram. And don't forget to rate, review, and follow Money Crimes wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. And

for ad-free and early access to Money Crimes plus exciting bonus content, subscribe to CrimeHouse Plus on Apple Podcasts. Money Crimes is hosted by me, Nicole Lapin, and is a CrimeHouse original powered by PAVE Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Money Crimes team, Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Natalie Persovsky, Lori Maranelli, Sarah Camp, Yelena Waugh, Michael Langsner, and Joanna Powell. Thank you so much for listening.