![]() According to PBS, "at that point, cocaine could be processed for $1,500 USD/kilo in jungle labs and could be sold on the streets of America for as much as $50,000 USD/kilo." At that time, the United States was only equipped to search for and detect marijuana. Initially, he would personally fly shipments between Colombia and Panama to smuggle into the United States using carry-on luggage and checked bags. In 1975, Escobar started building his powdered empire. were so flush with the main ingredient necessary to produce cocaine that they could produce the illicit substance 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Despite their initiative, Escobar and co. Two years later, and in response to the activities in Colombia, Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to coordinate the efforts of all other agencies. But his interest in Colombia's "unofficial" domestic product added a renewed energy to the plant which was cultivated in the upper jungles of the Andean region - where the countries of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia accounted for 98 percent of the world's source of coca.ĭuring this time, the United States and President Richard Nixon officially declared a "war on drugs," identifying drug abuse as "public enemy No. Soon after, he drifted into the marijuana-growing businesses where he eventually partnered with Jorge Ochoa - who would prove to be an instrumental figure along with Gustavo Gaviria in Escobar's yet-to-be-forged empire.Ĭocaine had been exported for years prior to Escobar's involvement. ![]() His likeness - portly like a boar, with coiffed hair and bushy mustache - remains an image ingrained in people's minds on city blocks around the world as a symbol of how a brazen and lawless attitude could get a person whatever they wished for.Īlthough his name will probably always be synonymous with the wild coca plants from the northern jungles of Peru that he helped turn into a certifiable domestic product - and earned him a valued net worth of $30 billion USD - Pablo Escobar's legacy also endures thanks to other natural occurring elements in nature like cotton and linen which have been used in a sartorial context to help keep his rags-to-riches story alive with pieces emblazoned with his face and mugshot.Īlthough he was accepted to the provincial university, Escobar was unable to afford to stay enrolled, and dropped out in 1966. ![]() Popular culture isn't exactly expediting his descent into the footnotes of history either. If he couldn't buy your allegiance with his seemingly endless amount of money, he'd see that the person hindering his operation would meet their maker in a barrage of bullets whose "rattattattat" became the soundtrack for entire generations of people living in Colombia in the '80s and early '90s. Pablo Escobar famously intimidated opponents of his cocaine empire by posing a simple question in Spanish -"Plata o Plomo" - which translates to, "Silver or lead?"
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